Death Devourer

Death Devourer
Chapter One: Love

They told me it had been a quick death.

Quick and painless; a simple, strained gasp slipping softly from her lips, as if she were taken by surprise; as if Death had curled its twisted fingers around her throat, effortlessly whisking the life away with one touch, one second of pain in ripping the soul from its place within her heart.

I wonder if a part of me had been inside that ravaged heart, all along.

Sometimes when I close my eyes, fade away to the gentle snoring of the slumbering children around me, I can almost see her. What I see is like a spell, a web of silken wonder woven before my eyes; something so incredibly real I find myself reaching out to her, touching the illusion of her warm skin, her gentle, smiling face- even though I know the attempt is effortless, my fingers tracing thin, cold air time and time a gain.

Almost bitterly amusing, the way things turn out; the way I am so odd, so different than the children surrounding me-eclipsing, compressing me with their stares, their deafening whispers. The way I still have hope, brimming within the edges of my soul, hope that the thoughts, the dreams of that woman, that-mother?-are memories of a person merely run away, left for a few years of secrecy-of something terribly important, for how could a mother simply leave her child?-to come back, smiling, to pull me in her warm arms in the cold of night and steal me away.

Mother.

A word enough to make my lips tremble at the sound; beautiful, immaculate.

Too wonderful to ever be mine.

But the women, tall and hard-faced with their ragged skin and stony eyes, they merely sneer, laugh in short staccatos at my insistence that they are wrong, that it couldn't have been her that died, couldn't have been her cold body buried deep beneath the earth, to be devoured by endless mounds of dirt and maggots.

Someone so pure couldn't be mortal.

Someone so wonderful.

And yet, what did I know of her? All I have done in my long years of life in this dark, damp place has been deny-deny every truth those women insist on lying, every word so tainted from their thin, cracked lips. They say to me I was lucky, I looked nothing like her- she wasn't a charming woman, that girl- had strange eyes that seemed to roll like black-tipped tops in their sockets, skin like a white, diseased rat with its pustules and raw pink scars.

I probably looked like my father, they said, devilishly handsome man he must have been, so different than the poor girl, so attractive...

That was when the floorboards beneath their feet began to disappear.

It was when they would awaken with pustules the size of splintered, bleeding saucers dotting their entire bodies, never seeming to truly disappear. It was when tears would well, sharp and stinging in my eyes at the thought of my mother's gentle brown gaze, her face pale and shining like the moon, her hands so warm and gentle as they cradled me, held me...

And then her hands would grow cold; biting frost, eyes hollow as holes, boring out from her ashen skull; straight into my broken heart.

What did I know of her but the words of those terrible women-those women who claimed to care for me, to be my new mothers at this strange place? What did I know of anything, then?

Father.

They could say nothing of him-perhaps he was alive, then; alive and well and looking for me. Perhaps one day he will find me, and we will go off to see mother. I am not an orphan, no matter how much they insist that I am, how much they try to bore it into my mind, to make me forget everything I thought I was, everything I thought I loved-

I was only an orphan to friendship. An orphan to love.

Love.

What a strange, foreign word. Love is what is supposed to keep these walls intact; love is the hidden mortar between each cold brick, each moss-caked, damp floorboard, each steadily leaking, groaning rooftop beneath the pressure of the heavy winds and screaming oceans eclipsing us. Love was what kept this place-an orphanage, they liked to call it-alive. Love was something every person's lost parents had, those women liked to say-something that bound the mother and child, the father, like an invisible chain between the soul and the body, the heart and the mind.

If love brought us together, why did it take us apart again? Why did love kill my mother, lose my father; why did those steady chains rust away, break and dissipate into the air to encircle, trap; devour me in its metal cage, a child thrown into a prison of strange faces, hostile eyes?

But love is patient, love is kind.

And so I must wait, they say, those old crones in their dirtied rags of clothing, their yellowing teeth, their hair like hanging brittle straw across their shriveled, leering faces. I must wait for a father to come, for a mother to claim me-for another chance, another life to begin.

To wait for my father to come and see me-could I really be so patient?

Each day brought something new to my body. I suppose they say you learn something new each day; but for me, it was a new definition of the word "pain." Each day brought sounds of new laughter, new taunting, growing more and more vicious; a thunderous roar against the horizon of my dreams into a twisting nightmare slowly ebbing into reality. Sometimes I would awake to the sounds of whispering, lying stagnant in my hard, wrinkled bed, my mind brimming with panic as I heard the accusatory murmurs, quiet rivers churning into howling typhoons enough to drown me. Older boys stood around me, encircled where I slept-their eyes hard and brows knitted, fingers curled against their meaty wrists, mouths upturned into hostile sneers.

Freak, they would hiss, draw near to me, the stench of their breaths like rotten skin, The women were yelling at you, because you made their bed float, didn't you? You got angry and all the teapots exploded, the tables cracked in two! Don't say you didn't, because we know you did-we know there's something wrong with you, we know you're some kind of monster!

It was useless to protest. At first I would scream-arms flailing, kicking uselessly into the air as they grabbed me by my ankles, my shoulders, my torso, hoisting me up into the air so that my limbs dangled uselessly. Sometimes when they took mercy on my battered body they would hang me from a coat-rack in the wall, leaving me suspended throughout the night on the metal hooks, everyone too afraid, or just too hateful to come to my cries at night, my terrified sobs. Most common were the punches-the bloody noses, the bruises adorning my skin enough to make the white look like patches and the violet my actual coloring; bloody ridges across my face like pink tattoos..

I could deny it as much as I wanted; my words would fall mute from my lips, never loud enough to be heard among the crowds of boys around me, flexing their muscles threateningly as they bore their knuckles into my flesh, as they dragged me across the ground, buried my head against the stone path of the outside until my entire face was etched in raw blood, stinging, burning me until I screamed and cried and begged for mercy, for forgiveness, for anything but this.

I didn't know why things happened in our building; why whenever I was enraged, women's skirts would catch aflame; why feathers burst from the seams of pillows, why glasses imploded to shatter shards into the faces of those nearby. I didn't know why when I awoke from my battering and beating each night, the bruises were never there-why my skin was always white and immaculate like the skin of egg, shining more brightly than before as if it were newly born upon my body.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

They would notice, the children. The young girls would gasp and tremble in fear; the boys would stare in awe, indignation-and I would run, hide beneath my bed, hug the cold of the stone ground against my cheek; tremble against the Earth in pleading, begging someone, anyone for relief, for mercy-

For love.

But love would never come. It did not come in the shape of a companion, or a warm meal; it did not come in the kindness of an elderly nun, their smiles reserved for good children, for those that did not destroy, did not beg for help when they did not deserve it-it did not come in the form of my father.

Yet I still tried to find it.

I could remember walking along the outside of the Orphanage; watching the churning, foaming sea spray pushed aside violently by the deep currents of the nearly-black sea. My legs curled before me, knees against my chin, observing the smoking clouds float and thin against the dying embers of sunlight, the orphans in their dull, graying clothing tossing clay balls to one another, playing with broken-necked dolls, running across the thin sandpaper ground. This was how I spent my days; alone, staring longingly at the figures before me with their innocent, smiling faces, the laughing boys ready to hurt me when night fell if something strange occurred-ready to blame it on me, the freak, the monstrosity.

A ball would roll in my direction, caked in the sand and dirt as it made its way toward my feet. I smiled, pulled its clay surface between my fingertips, gazing readily out at the owners with hope gleaming anew in my heart. It didn't take long before I found them; two blonde girls-twins, with their hair back in ponytails, their eyes wide as they watched me. I gave them a friendly grin, pulled myself to my feet, kicked the ball between my feet; caught it in my hands again. They did not move; merely stared, eyes wide and practically bulging from their sockets.

"What's wrong?" I asked them, frown marring my face in dread.

The air was warm and humid, though I could see them shivering together, their lips white and pale, skin nearly luminous in the lack of color. I was concerned; were they sick? I took a step forward toward them, held out a hand to offer and help them, yet they drew back, more frightened than ever. One of them let out a long, piercing scream; the other pulled away almost viciously from my grip, turned and broke into a frantic run.

"Get away from us, you freak! Don't touch us!"

It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Of course the story had flown, twisted and flayed, to the ears of the nuns. Of course when I came in, dejected and terrified, into their room, the dust-caked ball in my trembling fingertips, they scolded me, screamed at me. Those girls told us that you touched them! How could you, you terrible boy! We raised you better, you've been nothing but trouble, enraging the children, frightening the poor young girls-if you act this way then no one will want you, you'll stay here forever!

"My parents will take me!" I screamed, my fingertips poking into the ball between my hands-my lips trembling, my voice cracking fit enough to break in its hoarse cry.

Their eyes widened, narrowed, heads turning to face one another beneath their black garbs, their furrowed veils like faces lined in disapproval. The taller nun, a large wooden crucifix hanging limply from her neck, leered down upon me with beady eyes large and furious,

"Your parents left you here, don't you understand that! We keep telling you this-over and over; you're an orphan, boy, in an Orphanage! Your mother is dead; your father has abandoned you! Why don't you understand! Why don't you see the truth! Wake up, child!"

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

I did something I should never have done, then. My mouth trembling in rage, I felt my lips working automatically, an almost automatic, soft hissing emanating from the depths of my throat-the pair's eyes widened, their necks craning in alarm, stepping backwards in fear.

Before us, an ebony serpent slipped its pink tongue menacingly across the cold ground, its coils instantly wrapping about the taller nun's ankles, thick and slithering and twisting as she writhed and screamed and struggled to pull herself away-

"No! No! Stop it! Take it away! TAKE IT AWAY, YOU DEVIL!"

But I couldn't. I was in shock; my mind a void of numbed silence, of cold horror filling every vein within my body, my blood hardening beneath the skin, my eyes wide as I watched the snake seem to grow in size; its coils thickening, throbbing across the woman's ankles, never seeming to end as it twisted further upwards on its path, its route toward her torso, her neck, her face-

Go away! I cried, my eyes wide with the sight of the serpent's tongue close to the screaming nun's face, its teeth slick and wet with venom as it neared her cheek, her throat-

Go away, now!

A burst of smoke, enough to throw me off my feet. I skidded against the floor, felt the warmth of its ridges burn my back in sharp pink welts. Opening my eyes slowly, stained with tears, I saw the limp, gasping body of the nun strewn across the floor before me-heard footsteps stampeding across the halls. Instantly a gaggle of the older women entered the room; the former nun that had watched her partner attacked by the snake raised her arm into the air, brought it down against my face.

I screamed as her slap drew blood.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

That night, I couldn't sleep. I fell asleep to the sounds of my own screaming in the Orphanage, my own choking sobs, my own whimpers and cries as the wooden whipping sticks of those women bore down upon me, until they bloodied my back, searing my skin and making my body burn with pain-throbbing, terrible pain. I could only watch my tears slip and fall in cold droplets against my skin, suspended in the air, hitting the ground beneath my hanging feet. I hung on the clothing rack for two days; was never fed a scrap of food, never given water. Children stared; gawked, laughed, cursed me as they passed.

I was no longer the freak. I was the devil child, the Satan spawn.

I never smiled again.

Years would pass, and my parents would never come.

They would never spare a glance for Tom Riddle.

Love never fails.