Blood Letting

It has been a long night. Akabane sits at home, wishing he were on a mission right now, wishing he were anywhere but here, but now, in his alone. His last mission was a horrible failure in his opinion, the product reaching his client without so much as a lick of trouble. Things had just been too easy lately.

His coat and hat are hung, suit loosened and lingering, bits betrayed and abandoned here and there, hanging from sculptures and draped on couches. Akabane is alone, and he has nothing to distract him from the pain.

In the mirror, his bones show too well. He is too thin at every joint, and the scars try to tell a story. Akabane looks at himself, criticizing his sharply pointing nose, and small eyes, throwing away the fake smile that pushes him through his days.

The scalpel is perfect, a crucible.

It never hurts, this old blood letting. Cutting himself, Akabane re-killed those who deserved to remain dead, and felt alive himself. Gun smoke lingered on his taste buds, as he calmly sliced the blade beneath his flesh. This was an absolution, and a solution, and a promise. This was a sacrifice, and it would be himself baptized anew.

Akabane looked for the tender spot, tried his arm, and tried the flesh of his stomach, but nothing could bring up the tingling in his gut, nothing could release him now.

Scarlet rains, splatting pregnantly against the metal of Dr. Jackal’s otherwise immaculate bathroom sink, releasing him and binding him at the same time, becoming something more, becoming a drug. Flesh hangs back, flaccid, and free. His arm is in tatters.

The knife falls, clanking dully, announcing “I was here, it was me, I tasted you!” Akabane ties the arm with a tourniquet, and wonders if he will ever find somebody who has known darkness like his, someone who he could care about and maybe see the light with.