Not having written for some time (time and thought patterns not permitting..), here's a short piece or something. Just a little...

Disclaimer: I'm not making any money off this tale or the characters in it. They belong to whoever they belong to. (Hey, it
just might be me..)

Spoilers: Can't think of any specifically...

~~~

Mmm. Here again in my power. Few face me with such courage, and I am pleased to find you among them. Terror would be
such a stain on those beautiful eyes of yours. You should know the truth of it by now. You never really escaped me. You
cannot possibly ever escape. Earn a little respite, perhaps, but I will find you again.

We know each other well, you and I. Don’t we? We’ve had an abundance of time and occasions. Dalliances like this.. I talk
with you. I walk with you. I am you.

Then again, perhaps that is according you too much. I am more than you. Although I will admit that you are one of my
favourites. Such arrogance! One thing that spares you from being taken. And your thirst for life, strong enough now to
impress me. But you are not always so. You weaken sometimes, tire, despair.. And that brings you nearer to the fatal side of
me. It has been my doing on some occasions, I will admit. Can anything other than wretchedness be expected from someone
who has just lost friends and family? Though you may disbelieve my declaration, I was left with no choice. Those who must
come to the end of their lives must. I am the endpoint, not the path that brought them there.

Don’t despise me. It does neither of us any good.

You are special to me, but I will deal with you as I deal with any other. In that, my favour brings no guarantee of security.
Still, I can no more stay away from you than you can stay away from me. Who is under whose spell, I occasionally wonder.
You have claimed that without you, I would be reduced to something less. You may be right in your own sense, for you are
indeed a unique way to the world, in possession of a keen grace and finesse rare in the forms I have been familiar with. Oh, I
have a weakness for your kind. And you…

There are times, when I wish I could spare you, grant you immortality… I think that I might never find another like you
again… But this kind of mercy is not my way. I can be kind, but I am not affectionate. How else could I bear what I have
experienced? Oh, what I have witnessed... I know you are no naïve child either, and you may claim a better understanding
than most, but between the two of us, you still trail a long way behind. How safe has your quaint life and belief system kept
you? You take your reality in small doses. You control the dispensing. For every effect, you are the yet-unrevealed cause.
Your wealth buys your way in the world. You have umpteen little secrets, of yourself, of your past, of what you really do…
These form your shell, all of you that the world will see, just enough that it gives you whatever you desire. Effective, isn’t it?
And so you remain a cautiously detached distance from their reality, even as you pretend to be a part of it. It doesn’t touch
you, the wars, pestilence, horrors that plague the rest of the world. Though I see you rising above them in your scarlet glory,
you have your own trials to face. I am one of them.

The other? Loneliness. I know you. You are afraid of the hollowness of being left alone. You would rather come to me than
face the possibility of being without love. Abandonment, to be deserted by your beloved, for whatever reason. Again, power is
accorded to me in this. What if I steal him from you? Take him to where you can never recover him from. What then? The
thoughts are racing through your mind now. You have no motivation to live on. You don’t want to be left behind. You know
what it can be like. Emptiness, the world bleaker for the lack of that one face, voice, person. Though everything else remains
the same, it becomes excruciatingly unbearable through some subtle shift in a moment that you cannot precisely pinpoint, but
which nonetheless hits you with all the force of a battering ram driven directly into your gut. Actually, it hurts you more than
that, doesn’t it? Like being trapped on the other side of the mirror... Some eventually come to accept their new place. Others
batter themselves against the unyielding surface like butterflies frantic in a jar, finally finding their solace in my embrace.
You know I offer it to you as well.

I promise you an escape. Nothing more. Peace with me, but only that. I cannot say what you will find beyond. Is it any better
than what you have here? Only you can answer that. What keeps you here? Is he all that keeps you here? Is he enough to
keep you here? You have not thought of that for a while, have you? He is all that fills your senses, all that matters to you. But
should it be so? Is he only a distraction from the rest of the emptiness that can’t be filled? All the other people, all the other
places, all the other times? Do you throw yourself into him so that you can forget them? Pretend that the world still holds
some meaning for you?

You recognise his voice. I hear it too, calling you away from me now. You belong to him. But you have always been mine.

Go to him then. I will not be far when you go out tonight. Look over your shoulder.

I will come to you again as you lie in your coffin tomorrow. I would tell you that you know when to expect me, but I would be
lying.

Until then, my most deceptively gorgeous killer.

~

“What’s the matter? I heard sounds…”

“I… It was nothing. I was only dreaming again.”

                                                         End..