Chapter 1
"And tonight our skin, our bones, that have survived our fathers will meet, delicate in the hold, fastened together in an intricate lock.
Then one of us will shout, 'My need is more desperate!' and I will eat you slowly with kisses even though the killer has gotten out."
-Anne Sexton (1969)
The air was sultry in Moscazzano, when he felt it for the first time. It was a late afternoon, one of those, that had people daydreaming about constantly covering themselves in tubs full of ice-water.
The sun was burning down on already dead grass and he'd been running between the verdant tapestry of trees nestled side by side for what felt like an eternity. His gaze wandering around, taking in the picturesque scenery. He could hear birds happily singing their songs.
Later, he would discover various small cuts on his bare feet but all he felt now was a strange but pure sense of ecstasy.
He could feel the blood rushing inside his body, causing his heart rate to quicken.
After some time his legs began to hurt.
He didn't slow down, instead he turned his gaze towards the parts of clear, blue sky, appearing between the leafs.
It didn't take long before he fell.
It was a thick root that tripped him over. He landed hands first on the ground, one of his knees hitting a jagged stone. The sharp pain that shot through him had him gasping for air. His vision a little blurry from his watering eyes.
Slowly he sat up, the movement causing more waves of pain.
As he looked down he saw sore, white skin and red blood.
Regulus had never seriously been hurt until this day, sure he ran around all the time, getting stung by bees and sand in his eyes. He watched as Pandora, the girl he once met because her parents were visiting his parents, accidentally cut herself on a sheet of paper, he saw her blood before she started crying, bringing her thumb to her mouth and sucking on it.
He's seen blood before, just never his own.
He stared at his knee, as the red spot grew bigger and crimson flowed in a slender thread from his wounded skin to the dead grass.
His first thought was that it looked pretty.
Then he felt something else.
A morbid enchantment, a peculiar trance.
In silent fascination, he stood, entranced, watching small droplets fall from his knee, one by chance.
The pain was a brushstroke on life's canvas stark, as he shifted his weight onto the wounded leg.
He lay all his weight into it and stifled a sore scream. Then he let himself drop back onto the ground and his fingers grazed the parts of his knees that were sore but not bloody. He hissed through clenched teeth. It was red, but not crimson. Only sore. He scraped his fingernails over the white.
Buried his nails into the skin.
Again and again. Wanting it to match this beautiful color he had never seen on himself before.
When the skin finally bursted he couldn't stifle the gasp of joy. The crimson blood escaped the fresh wounds and covered the white skin. He dipped the tip of his finger into the warm wetness.
His mind was reeling with thoughts, but it had always been a rather loud place, causing him to become even more quiet in consequence.
He moved his finger over the last piece of white on his knee, as if he were a painter painting on his very own canvas.
When his knee was covered in red he brought his finger up to his mouth, following a strange urge that kept sitting in his mind, just out of his reach.
The moment his finger touched the skin of his lips the thoughts stilled.
The sudden quiet was irritating. But he didn't have enough time to think about what happened, because there was another thing.
His finger was meeting his tongue and suddenly the almost dried blood became fluid again. Dead cells resurrecting and coming to life.
Euphoria shot from his mouth to his veins directly to his mind.
He closed his lips around the finger and sucked, wanting to take in every last bit of it.
He didn't remember for how long he'd been sitting there on the woods, sun burning down on his skin and fingers dipping into wounds until it had all dried. He wanted to lean forward and caress the skin with his tongue. Bring it back to life again.
But then he heard voices coming from behind him and getting louder fast.
It was his mother's voice. When she found him she let out a small gasp. Then he felt the familiar firm grip around his wrist, the one that wasn't blood covered.
He ended up in bed, his knee clean and white again. His mother forced him to wash it away. She said that she wouldn't let him go downstairs to have dinner, looking like he had just murdered someone.
At that time, words like killing or murder were as foreign to Regulus as self harm.
That night when he laid in bed, sweating as he did every summer night, his fingers grazed over the fresh, red crust that had covered the wound in no time, he scratched his nails over it until he was bleeding all over again.