[175] Despair

[wanderinghiatus.livejournal.com]

Challenge: [175] Hope
Title: Despair
Word Count: 416
Notes: Rated PG for violence. Cookies to the first one to figure out who the two characters are.
 

"Damn you." He hissed through clenched teeth. The black-cloaked woman spread her arms wide, especially unafraid now that her opponent was unarmed and wounded.

"And how accurate! For we are, as you say, the damned ones." She took a step forward. "Won't you join us?" He retreated a step, a trembling hand clutching his slashed, bleeding face. She laughed; a hysterical, slightly insane sound that sent sent chills down his spine, and echoed darkly in the narrow alleyway.

"You know what they say! Join--"

"--or die." He finished, swinging his leg up in a surprisingly powerful kick towards her hooded head. She reached out and caught his boot in a single gloved hand, inches from her smirking mouth, which was all he could see of her face.

"Well, then." She sighed, and with a horrifying crack, twisted his leg into an unnatural position and swung him into the cement ground, where he lay immobile, gasping for breath. She knelt beside him, and leaned in close, whispering to his closed eyelids.

"Such spirit. But I could smell your despair from across worlds. Whatever could fuel such darkness in you, hmm?"

He flinched at her words, and took a deep, pained breath. "I need to find... her. Where is she? You know where she is!" He struggled to stand, his valiant effort marred by a severely broken leg. His blue eyes opened and glared at her with distrust. "You've gone and turned her into a nobody, just like you, you stinking--"

With a sickening 'thud' he found himself back on the ground, an assortment of throwing knives buried deep in his chest. He fought to hold back a furious, pained scream.

"So your love life fled from you. How very tragic." Her voice dripped with sarcasm and deadly malice. "But I have to wonder... are you just in denial, or is there a larger variable here you're cleanly passed over, in your pathetic search for the only 'truth' you're willing to find? What if this girl of yours went running willingly into the arms of darkness? And what if, in doing so, she wanted you to follow? Yet, in your self-righteous quest for chivalry, you've failed to see..." She ripped off her hood and gazed down at the bleeding man, who could no longer hold back his scream.

And with that scream, the tiny butterfly of hope that was gently resting on his heart was savagely consumed, its once-beautiful wings shredded to bits by the demon called Despair.