Monster
By Luminaire
"You hollow monster! You demon! How could you?! How . . . could . . . you?!"
The screams echoed. They reverberated off of every wall in the village. Vincent Valentine thrusted his fists against his ears, trying to drown out the sound. The tapered tip of one of his claws dug deep into the meat of his palm, but he did not wince at the leaking blood. He just wanted those screams to stop.
The man lay on the ground before him, both legs broken, blood streaking his face. In his arms lay a limp, young woman who breathed no longer. The man was sobbing uncontrollably, shuddering violently, seeming to never care about his own injuries. The freezing rain fell in large, cold drops down on top of all three of them, forming a river of water mixed with strains of blood on the rough street. Vincent's claw was dripping with the crimson liquid . . .
"Heartless--vile--demon--you--" The man could contain neither his rage nor his despair. With pure anguish, he screamed his sobs into the gray air, cursing Vincent, hugging his dead companion as if the embrace could bring her back to life.
A stir of emotion cut through Vincent. Like a knife. Something that went straight through flesh and bone and organs and veins and tissue, something that swept cleanly through the heart without caring. Fury. Pure hatred. He hated this man, even though he didn't know him. No, he didn't know him at all.
With one long gesture, he whipped his gun out of its holster and pointed it straight at the man's head. Right between his two tear-stricken, brown eyes. The hate manipulated his limbs. It controlled his very thoughts.
"Why did you do this?!" The man's cries continued, without capitulating at Vincent's violent gesture. Why wouldn't he just stop? "You heartless demon! Damn you to hell! DAMN YOU TO HELL, YOU BLOODY BASTARD!!"
Every nerve within Vincent tightened, every tendon snapped forward in a reflex. His red eyes--the color of the blood that was dripping from his stained claw--widened to an extremely large size as his firing finger pulled back. With that simple move, the gun which was called the Death Penalty fired.
The impact of skin and bullet brought forth a red mass of tissue, bone, and blood. The man was sent backward on the ground, nearly half of his face blown away from the shot. Blood streamed from this death-inducing wound and splattered onto the street, onto the corpse he had been clutching with such a woeful embrace, onto Vincent. The man was now a still, prone figure on the soaked street, life gone, existance erased, silenced eternally. Yes. Finally.
Silence.
Vincent lowered his gun, staring down at the dead man. The victim's face was badly damaged--parts of the skull and even tissue and muscle could be seen--but the right side of his face was still unharmed. A single brown eye was opened wide, and staring right up at him. The woman in his arms, though, had both of her eyes closed.
The rain was even silent now. It was an odd, enigmatic sort of silence that could leave one feeling uneasy. But to Vincent, it was a relief. To be able to silence the man that hurled such insults at him. To be able to silence a voice to one's own satisfaction.
A thousand guilts sprang up inside him like a bullet through his innards. He had slaughtered innocent people to put a temporary end to his own suffering. The feeling would always come back, always, always. The moment that bullet had entered his heart that day in the basement of the Shinra Mansion, he was dead. Life washed away. Existance erased.
But not eternally. He had been partly revived to an undead state. He was no longer human--never would he be human again. Vincent felt his blood heat up. He loathed the word "human." It was such an excluding term. He was by far not human. He had a golden claw for a hand. A set of fangs in his mouth. And two piercing, haunting, red eyes.
No, he was not human. The claw was used for slaughtering and goring. The fangs were used for tearing and lacerating. The eyes were used for intimidating and for spreading terror to his enemies.
Who were his enemies?
His eyes flicked in the direction of a puddle of rainwater that had collected on the ground. He gazed down into the puddle, expecting to his his usual reflection--a pale, pale face, deep scarlet eyes, scowling mouth, a red bandana wrapped around tresses of long black hair. But . . .
No. This time, the reflection was different.
Instead of himself, he saw the man he had just killed. The face that stared back at him had healthy peach-colored skin, narrow brown eyes, a thin and serious mouth, short-cut hair that was the color of the night. The man was wearing a navy blue jacket, black tie, a crisp white shirt . . .
. . . a gun at his hip, with a red VV dashed boldly across its holster . . .
Vincent's eyes widened with rage, and the reflection copied his action. His right hand quivered, causing the Death Penalty to rock back and forth.
"You could have stopped this from happening."
"Heartless, vile demon . . ."
". . . hollow monster . . ."
". . . monster . . ."
". . . monster . . ."
". . . MONSTER . . ."
He recoiled backward, and the reflection did the same. The gun slipped from his fingers, and on contact with the ground, went off.
Vincent was thrown off his feet by the impact of a bullet piercing his chest.
The feelings that followed felt like a bullet in his innards . . .
. . . or a blade slicing his very soul . . .
"You could have stopped this from happening."
Slowly, he died.
-END-