His dream self could feel the sense of guilt he had felt in that moment of understanding; a searing pain in the heart he had feared was lost to the eternal shadow madness in which he lived. He stood, in the dream, as he had done that night, watching her
walk away, damned, as he was, to a million nights of hunger and cold and dreams that burned holes in his soul. Listening to the silence, he noted that everything was as it had been before he'd slipped into a troubled sleep. He struggled to retrieve the memory, but it was elusive. Drinking deeply from his first bottle of the evening, Vachon closed his eyes as the blood flowed into him, filling him with the mockery that he dared
call life. Usually, he was too occupied to bother noting the animal's existence as it played out in the dance through his veins. This night he felt the fear as the moment of its death flashed through his brain. And that triggered a flood of unbidden recollection; each mortal whose lifeforce flowed into him as he
quenched the never ending craving that allowed him to hold onto the thread of his own vile reality. Next page / Top / Bottom The field was still scarred from the carnage, though the debris had been gone for a long time now. Vachon stood where he had landed then, no trace of the accident on any part of his body. It was quiet there in the night, the land knowing few visitors as the living left it in peace out of respect for the lives lost that day. That day, Vachon realized, was the moment when everything had changed for him. And the change was no more real than when he had become sorry for the first time in his unnatural life, as Urs told him that he had not given her what she wanted, but what he wanted. Next page / Back one / Top / Bottom Javier Vachon wished, now, that he could change what he'd done; somehow give Urs back even the paltry life of degredation in exchange for the eternity of emptiness she faced night after night. He wished he could go back in time and make it all right for just one person, just one time. Back one / Back to top / Main Page / Prologue / Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter Five / Chapter Six / Chapter Seven / Chapter Eight / Chapter Nine / Chapter Eleven / Chapter Twelve / Chapter Thirteen by Javier Vachon
Next page / Bottom
The darkness was drawing near, the sun in its descent, a large glowing, angry, orange ball of fire. Shadows shifted in the chambers of the church, the passing of time marked on the stone walls like the movement seen from the corner of the eye, shapeless
forms appearing and then gone, leaving only the memory of itself. Vachon awoke chasing the phantom of his dream. But the image faded too quickly, leaving only the sadness of what he'd done.
He sought escape and found it only in flight. The city tilted crazily below as he soared beyond the grasp of the dream and the knowledge of everything he had ever done. Faster. Faster. Faster still! Swirling, churning, seeking the one moment that could quiet the demons. The explosion filled his mind, replaying the falling down to earth and the solace of darkness. And finally seeing her face, staring down at him as his eyes opened. Tracy. Tracy Vetter, picking through the wreckage of flight. Tracy Vetter, their eyes locking so briefly, giving him only a glimpse of her beauty. An instant of her goodness. Tracy. Tracy. Tracy. Vachon raced with the wind, breathing her name into himself, filling himself with every moment they had shared.
Edited 12/2/2002
