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The piercing light hits you like a truck, you should be used to this by now. You really should. But you were never one to expose yourself like this, despite the countless times you’ve done this.
They’ve made you a survivor, with the countless lives you’ve ended in this competition. Your owner has tweaked you to perfection, altering your genetics, fixing your aesthetics, making you a legend.
It’s a shame about your face though. Your owner has always preened, claws holding your gaunt cheeks like a toy. Can’t do anything about that scar.
Your opponent this time? Under the pale artificial moon of the stage stands the up-and-coming boy. Hollow eyes, yet charming. You’ve won this again and again, you know what you must do. You have to crush him, the one they call Grian.
Blood still stains your hand. A survivor you are, some survivor— you weren’t supposed to be. He’d always laugh at you, smiling with his big brown eyes, saying you weren’t that good of an actor anyways, says he sees you prick yourself on the neck with your pens. How could you let his blood stain your hands?
So you turn, the heavy fabrics of your black ensemble dragging behind you like chains. The soft beeping of your collar grounding you to your station as the mics float towards the both of you. And for once, it’s refreshing to see someone grab it with such confidence.
You can hide from the light, turn your back to the sky, there’s no sun like my star.
The swirling makes you nauseous, but you’re confident squaring off against this newbie. He looks too, moving like the wind. Songbird, they called him with how melodic and fluid his motions are on this stage.
See the world shining bright, like the tears in your eyes, such a fine work of art.
Smug. Circling you like a predator— two can play that game. Two can. Your voices are like a clashing cacophony, amongst the fake stars. And you’re reminded of the ticking of a pocket watch.
My savior. Oh what a beautiful soul.
That smirk is poison, shocking you to your core when the songbird’s arms start parroting someone. The same organic position, the same fluid movement. His steps, similar, encroaching towards you, backing you against a corner as the melody continues to flow out of his mouth.
I don’t believe you, you’re a lair.
The only things that can leave your lips. The heart you have drowns out the melody surrounding the both of you, as hollow eyes are replaced by kind brown ones.
The same ones that gazed at you when they took your hands and wrapped it around his throat, gently.
Your darkness and mine, a storm I can’t disobey, come and take me away.
He’s pleading with you— begging you—- You need to save him, you should have saved him. Bubbling and revolting bile rises up in your throat as those hands cup your masked cheek, and you can only step further back, back towards the edge.
Why didn’t you?
Ruler of my heart, ruler of my heart, ruler of my heart.
He was. He had you under lock and key— and it’s a foolish thing to plead, a prayer a god will never hear.
Eternally beautiful.
Timeless, frozen. He’ll never age.
Ruler of my heart, ruler of my heart, ruler of my heart.
Everything stops, the cheers are gone and the air becomes colder.
And he is there.
Chestnut hair and white streaks flow freely in the wind, as the moon illuminates his pretty face. And he looks at you— like he loves you, like he forgives you.
And suddenly, a searing pain can be felt on your neck, as Grian pulls you by your stiff collar into a dip. Your head almost crashes onto the floating stage, you wish it did.
The endless walls you’re building, they fall to the ground. In a single moment crashing down.
He chirps, and chirps in your face. Hollow eyes digging holes into your chest. Stop acting like him, stop it. Survive. Survive.
I can go blind or deaf, until I have nothing left, collapsing my world.
And it’s like, the moon fell and crushed it all. When Bdubs circles you again and again, smiling, laughing like he always has. He pulls on your tall frame, singing with his lovely voice. Pulling and pulling and yanking and yanking.
It hurts.
Make me your god, I can be your everything.
Fragile flower. That’s what you called him. Sometimes, you don’t know whether you really were joking or that you meant it, especially how delicate his neck looked with your hands around it like a noose.
Back at the nursery, he was always volatile and you were quiet. Together you two seemed unstoppable, battling it out at the top. Legends, they called you, highest score in the charts.
It was inevitable. They need entertainment.
Your darkness and mine, a storm I can’t disobey. Let me take you away.
Warm, tan hands reach out towards you. Beckoning you over. You’ve never been able to say no to him. They snake around you, pulling you deeper and deeper into the moonlight. Why did your legs feel so light?
And Grian is.. Grian is… he’s laughing? Parroting the lyrics, preening you, closing you in like a cage.
Ruler of my heart, he chirps. Ruler of my heart, Ruler of my heart.
Eternally beautiful. You choke out, you choke and choke.
And those tantalizing hands, they pull you in closer and closer. A duet you wish you had, one where his warmth would be pressed up against you as you turned and turned.
Ruler of my heart, Ruler of my heart, Ruler of my heart.
In a blink, you see the red staining the stage. You can hear the whisper of the wind. “Washed up.” Is what passes your ear as Grian glides beside you.
The thing you loved most about Bdubs was that he managed to make the impossible seem possible. Time and time again, he tore down your walls that you never thought would break. His warm grip on your cold beating heart, and that’s all that you ever needed.
Ruler of my heart.
Cold once again, your body is frozen in time.
Ruler of my heart.
And he bleeds out before you. Bullet in his back.
Ruler of my heart.
His blood had stained you. It always will. His limbs splayed haphazardly— unlike him.
Ruler of my heart.
And Grian’s smiling too. Mimicking him.
Ruler of my heart.
Sweet iron had stained your lips when it seeped through your mask in the last round as the blood had splayed out of his back and hung out his mouth like vines.
.
The same blood years ago when you were children and he had tripped. You kissed it, back then, because you heard from Skizz that it made everything better.
Ruler of my heart.
You lunge at the parrot-like boy before you. A crude imitation of a masterpiece, you think he is. A mockery.
And suddenly, the pounding around Grian’s neck, the buzzing of his collar feels fragile.
Ruler of my heart.
Your fist, high towards the moon, comes crashing down onto Grian’s face like a meteor. One meteor, two, three, until his face is a mess, a bruised and bloody mess. You can hear the scandalized gasps of Grian’s owner, screaming at the guards to do something about you.
Ruler of my heart.
And that bastard smirks. He smirks like a little bitch. When Iron grips onto your tight black turtleneck, dragging you as you kick and scream at the Songbird. Your mask is torn halfway to hell but you don’t care, let them see that chip in your lip—
Ruler of my heart.
As the fog settles in, you're grabbed by something else, warmer, gloved. Iron falls to the stage with a clang, as bullets soar through the air.
You glance up.
And you see chestnut brown hair.
Ruler of my heart.