An extract from Paul's journal (Satori's magical friend in Starblood) with illustrations by Anna Prashkovich from the webcomic "Sex Skulls and Sorcery". Check the freebies page on my website for the full comic.
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Magic is everything. You hear “experts” eulogising about how a child’s environment shapes the person they will become. They believe the inner world reflects the outer, like a mirror of love or cruelty. Yes, the two worlds are connected, but the reality is far more complex, or perhaps more simple, than these tunnel-visioned idiots can understand.
Dominus adjuto meus yeux. The world is ours to shape and control as we wish. All we need are the right tools and the will. Shape your inner world and the outer will follow.
I can hardly remember my own childhood. My parents and family, now scattered around the globe, are little more than shades to me. Did they make me who I am today? Did their cold neglect become a root from which my entire life blossomed? Not at all. I am who I choose to be, or almost. There is still work to be done.
I met a man last night who was not there. A rhyme or a riddle? He’s still not there. He whispers to me, but when I look for him he is gone. I need more knowledge. All my books are written by people who never found the answers only more questions. Perhaps the answers lie beyond the flesh.
Today I felt youth die beneath my thumbs. Did I feel guilt? Perhaps a little: remnants of an obsolete morality driven into my psyche. I have to work on that too. I watched the boy’s eyes. They smiled at first at the kindly stranger; the one who took him in when he needed to feel safe, clothed him, fed him all the things he craved.
Fear came next. Although it didn’t last long, it intoxicated me. This child, for whom I felt nothing, became mine in those moments of terror. His shock and disbelief made me roar with laughter. So naïve and trusting was he, even after his experiences, that when realisation dawned on him, he wept. He called me “Daddy”, and in that moment I owned him completely. He was mine to save or destroy.
Resignation soon followed. He knew. I think we all recognise the moment of our death. Some fight. Others, like the child, accept their fate in submissive silence, aware of the futility of any battle when your foe, be it madman or disease, is far stronger than yourself. I believe I will rejoice when death comes for me: the true freedom. I will cry ‘Yes. Take me. I’m yours!’
As his eyes glazed and the lights were extinguished I got to work. His entrails steamed and pulsed in my hands as I laid them out beside him. I knew then what I have to do. And my great work starts.
Of course my lover will not understand this need, this drive, but the energy I deplete in him will be better used elsewhere. I shall empty his drawer tomorrow. He will not mourn our loss, and neither will I.
(an extract from Paul’s journal - a secondary character in Carmilla Voiez’s Starblood)