Black Flowers

In the wake of the night, the moon waxed to it's last crescent before its monthly darkness, Darius-Mayne sliced his finger on the edge of his page. He watched with unphased admiration as the crimson flowers blossomed across the dramatics of his true crime novel, the page cinching and curling as it damped with his blood. He let his non-sliced fingers skate their ways across the page, dancing alongside the deltas and estuaries that had started to divide this page.

Darius-Mayne never leant his books to anyone.

In fact, he didn't even have a bookshelf. Instead, he piled his books behind his door in lopsided towers brimming with the allegorical snideness of true crime novels and the ultra sweet chewiness of greek mythology. The pile usually modelled a worn, patchwork blanket Darius-Mayne's old babysitter had knitted him before she moved to the United States, yet it was only in the hours before dawn that it was uncovered while he read. It was reliving to see it, like breathing for the first time after days of it being covered. The spines were all faded and creased from years of re-reading, and the edges of the pages were all stained with his blood.

There was one book which was spotted with so many crimson flowers that it had turned completely red. It was Darius-Mayne's copy of the Bible in which he had had to read for his Religion class the month before. By the time he had reached Deuteronomy he had sliced each one of his fingers on the dog-eared pages that he was unsure how he had any blood left to bleed.

Darius-Mayne heard a creak in the floorboard, a curt tut of the creaky house tongue from down the stairs. He instinctively shut his book, snapping its jaws closed over his fingers without a flinch of hesitation. The vertebrae in his neck stood on point and his legs piqued with the anticipation to run. Though, of course, there was nothing downstairs, his anxiety derived purely from the thrill of the moonlight.

Even though he stayed up with his fingers between the pages so religiously, culturally, Darius knew what he was doing was strange. However, the idea only excited him more. He didn't want anyone to see this side of him for he liked the power that posed. The power of mystery. The power of another pocket life to escape to. The evasion of ignominious exposure.

He did share these moments in the yawn of the moon with the blood on his fingers and thrillers in his hands with only one other soul. Though, his large tortoise-shelled Main Coon cat seemed to have gone out that night.

Now that Darius had gotten his bird-beaked nose out of The Real Lolita, he had found his worry pool around his ankles for he had never spent a night without Nyx.

He slid his book onto the milk crate beside his bed, his ears catching onto the slightest of sounds, even the murmured susurration of the wind outside. He slinked off of his bed, hopping over the pulled out drawers that he had left out on his bedroom floor, and waded over to the sill of his window. He unlatched the lock and slid the swollen wooden frame upwards. His shoulder length chestnut coloured hair was pushed out of his face by the dewey early morning air. He peered out into the solid black darkness, his focus drowned in its impenetrable fullness. His house backed onto a small reserve, the blinking eyes of urban civilisation still visible through the slender trees.

“N-Nyx…” he called, his emaciated voice like an old unplayed saxophone, dusty from the thin morning air. “Nyx,” he hissed with more annonciation, his eyes darting to every sign of movement.

He flicked his head back to his door as he heard another sharp twang of the house’s movement, though turned quickly to the darkness again. When his efforts of calling her aged fruitlessly, he fished out a shallow tupperware container from a bag beside him. He shook the contents, Nyx’s favourite cat kibble, the noise her muse in which she usually came to.

“Nyyyyyx,” He called again with the accompaniment of the rattling food. “Nyy—”

“Mayne?”

Darius swivelled around quickly, almost dropping the container as he did. His bedroom door was wide open and in its wake was his step mother, her long face dragged down by huge, purple toned eye bags.

“Why are you awake?” she asked, her sharpened eyes moving from Darius’ to the kibble in his hands. “Are you trying to find Nyx?”

“Yeah— I haven’t been up long. I had just remembered I hadn’t fed her,” Darius lied with the wick of a practiced ventriloquist, gesturing the container towards his step mother. She nodded her head with a cloud expression, her sullen eyes lolling around the room. Darius furtively glided back to towards his bed, discreetly turning his copy of The Real Lolita towards the wall.

“She’ll live,” his step mother answered meekly, nodding between a yawn as if that made it any more true. Even though she was half drunk in a sleepless stupor Darius could feel his rattling heart lodged in his throat.

Without any further scolding or questioning, Darius and his stepmother shared stagnant love you’s as she disappeared towards her room. He let his head sink back into the pile of pillows on his bed, his eyes plastered on the pile of books, his tongue swollen in mouth.

Darius stalled midway through picking up The Real Lolita by the metallic pandemonious din of clattering pots and pans erupted from their kitchen downstairs.

This time, Darius-Mayne had jumped to his feet. He stood in place for a moment, extinguishing his breath and letting his ears sniff out any other sounds from downstairs. After a moment he waded over to the door, picking up his phone off of the floor on the way, and flipping it open. He slid his phone into his palm and put the torch function on. He let the pool of light ripple over the familiar landing and down the stairs. Each step he treated with the grace of a cat, soundlessly wading down with a seamless gape. He angled his phone so that the light puddled over the railing and into the threshold of the front door. The first thing he noticed was that cat flap swaying back and forth, in and out, letting in the curious whispers of the outdoors. He trailed the light from the kitty door to the kitchen where he had heard the noise. As soon as his phone torch washed over the emerald green flashback and brownstone countertop there came a scurry of noise which sucked the air in his lungs dry. After another thin-aired moment, a black and brown mass flew over the island and wooshed past him in a blur.

Darius-Mayne jolted backward, his arms feeling up the wall for stability. The light from his phone zigzagged around the place blindingly. Darius could practically feel the dawn-frenzied buzz pulsing through his limbs as he, as soundlessly as possible, pushed off of the ground and ran up the stairs after whatever it was. As he made his way up the stairs he saw the vague shape of Nyx with something twice her size in her mouth. His back clenched at the sight of it and he quickly turned and closed his bedroom door. He leant against its flaked wooden face, pushing his hair away from his eyes as he let his breath simmer down into his blood.

Nyx weaved her way through his legs, looking up to him with bright, vibrant yellow eyes. She mewled her low, raspy meow through the motor of her importunate purr. He gave her a meek smile that flared his nose as she chewed on the nails of his toes before he kicked her away.

He turned to his room and saw a limp mass at the foot of his bed where nothing had been before. He let the beating of his heart ripple away until he could finally make out what it was. His sunken green eyes ceased as he saw the carcass of a large barn owl.

“Ah fuck,” he cursed though he found he couldn’t pull his gaze away. He had never seen a barn owl before, as they weren’t native to Australia, and especially one from as close as he was. He found his feet moving out from beneath him, bringing him closer, though made no attempt to stop them. As he advanced upon his bed, the ground felt like it had been slipped from beneath him. He could see the owl’s eyes had gone a cloudy grey, the spark and the glaze that sprung things to life absent, sunken to the dark lakes of its pupils. It’s feathers were limp and wiry, and one of it’s wings had unfurled weakly onto his bed.

Nyx pounced onto one of Darius’ pillows, looking at him with that expression which was not comparable with any human cunningness and intrigue.

Darius moved in closer to the bird, his figure looming over the small limp creature. Darius let his hand fall gently onto the owls front, his fingertips grazing the tawny brown feathers. He felt elation start to balloon inside of him, he relished even in the slightest of touches. There was something so majestic about such a creature and something even more beautiful about it being dead. It made Darius feel powerful, as if he could feel the vacating soul like dust off of a moth's wing or like slime off of a toad.

He compulsively pushed his palm down further, his fingers clutching around the bird’s throat like a springtrap, his knuckles bent into claws, his Cheshire Cat smile beaming like the fading moon in the early morning. He rubbed his thumb deep into the owl’s flesh, the sensation of bruising too thrilling in his palm, a forbidden fruit that he sunk his teeth into. He found the rim of the puncture marks where Nyx had obviously caught the bird. He still had no idea how on Earth she had found such a spectacular beast, the mystery only indulging his sensual dissipation. He slid his nails into the wound, the rich soulless blood like mercury; intoxicating.

He drew his hand back, holding it up to the light of his flickering candle. The bird’s blood was dark, a crimson red that had been seeped slow and black already by age. Darius watched as it funneled through the ridges and wrinkles of his hands. He had done similar things with his own blood but there was something fascinating, truly delicious about the deep red, soulless blood travelling through the tracks of his own.

His gaze panned over to the pile of books stacked behind the door, the blanket which shied his art away from the world in a heap by its feet. Darius stood and picked up the blanket, his bloodied hand staining the patchwork corners, and laid it out on the ground of his room, pushing away all the junk on his floor to make space. He wrapped his grip around the owl's beak, lifting it up into the air like a trophy. His eyes savoured the way the owl’s flaccid body hung from his grip. He threw it down in the centre of the blanket where his babysitter had embroidered his name. Nyx jumped off of the bed to spectate, her keen eye alight with the same sparkle that entranced Darius’ entire body. He took one more look towards his door before reeling back his leg and stomping on the owl's chest. It’s weak bones shattered at the impact and blood burst out of it’s collapsed organs. Darius’ grin grew wider and wider as the owls blood leached into the blanket like an inkblot, his art unfurling in front of him. Rich, soulless red running through the creases and folds, rivers and streams, blossoming into a crimson flower.

A black flower.