While Ravencrow's eyes had been glued to the television set and the extra rented room had been empty, there was the wandering form that made up of the woman, Ravine, sauntering down the street casually with her hands in her coat pockets. The road had been deserted, a streak in the center of a wasteland that was outlined by the very core of sand and earth. She hadn't gone too far from the street, seeing that she wasn't planning on leaving yet, she just needed a walk, or more like getting away so that she could gather her thoughts all in one place. The only sound that had filled the streets then was the faint reverberation of her soft footsteps and the scabbard across her back with the belt strapped before her. The katana was left behind.

Of course Ravine had all the time in the world to do so, gathering her thoughts seemed like something she could do just to waste her time over after all. To her time seemed nonexistent; a void in the middle of reality that meant nothing to her, for time had nothing to offer to her that she didn't already have. She could spend years down this street and not drain a single ounce of her youthful appearance, seeing how, after all, she wasn't getting older. Physically, at least.

The night, that was young. It came and it went just as the human duration was. It lived for numerous hours and in due time it is killed by the light, resting before it is resurrected like a Lazarus from his cold rest. The night would remain dark, and the dark would shroud the light while the light will overcome the darkness once again; a relentless cycle that we call time. With every movement of time a mortal is a decade, a year, a month, a week, a day, an hour, a second from death. One would hold up a wristwatch and while the numbers tick they are closer to their end, nearing to their last moments with every tick and blink, with every step and scenario they stumble upon, move like a marionette on manipulative strings. That is the way the world is today, the ritual that the mortals value: time.

Time was such a precious, young thing to those who cherish it. But Ravine did not. She had no reason to hold time close and keep it to her knowing that at any given moment she would die, because when she died she would be pulled back to life and resume her nightmarish awakening known as the life in reality, to existence. She existed now because she had no other choice. Even if she sought after death, it would not welcome her grasp but to spit at her palm like chewing tobacco in a dish.

Life was worse than death. Being condemned in living to kill was one thing, but being condemned into dying in order to live was another. She didn't know how it was like this, she just saw it that way.

Ravine looked up at the sky and watched the clouds part from the heavens, revealing the vibrant aura of the luscious silver moon, glistening in the skies more brightly then it ever could have in any other place within a metropolis. Of course, the city dwellers have this little habit of not looking up anyway, and the moon holds no significance to their petty lives, so they had a pretty good reason not to look up. Their eyes do not need to address the moon in any sort of way, it was far too superior to be dispatched by their inconsequential gazes anyway.

There was a sound of a song that filled the air, a distant humming. Ravine stopped and glanced out of the corner of her shades from either side of her, seeing nothing on either side of her that way and neither had she perceived anything from the side of the roads. However, in the distance there was a construction site that seemed like it had been abandoned in any further development, a less-than-halfway build metropolis in which the buildings stood a few feet higher above the ground than they should be. No roofs, no stairs in any of the structures, neither was there any windows. Just boxes and walls. There had even been a few construction equipment left behind, unattended and uncared for. There was a metallic resonance of the creaking chains of a swing, swaying backwards and forth.

Veering her position, Ravine turned towards the construction site, tilting her head slightly in a curious manner as she took a brief look around with a quirked brow. What she perceived beyond her crimson shades was nothing more than a dead playground, the wind blowing the swing set and setting it into its own version of life while the merry-go-round could just barely sustain a steady circular motion. The monkey bars were bent sideways, while vandals had sabotage the rest of the playground equipment by tainting them with spray paint, distorting their once ideal image for children and twisting it into something that would be situated for a movie.

Of course, this milieu had been instigated before the newest technology for children came out; they no longer were amused by these such monkey bars, the swings or merry-go-rounds and seesaws, the metal and plastic slides nor the underground tunnels made of concrete, it meant nothing to them now. In the days of the now kids wanted something much more advanced to keep them busy, to occupy their time with.

That was the ambiance that had been released with every moment as Ravine stood there in such a locale in silence, whilst the childlike hum continued to buzz throughout the air and no matter which direction she'd turn, there was nothing but stillness other than the shifting dust the zephyrs would create. Such sweet silence then overcame the atmosphere, the kind that she'd grown such a habituation towards over the years. It was comforting; it brought her stirring soul into a rest of silence that calmed her very essence of being. However, the tune that had been hummed was still disconcerting; such a song wasn't known by many of this world, Ravine knew well of that for sure. It was an ethereal, otherworldly tune, the kind that makes the hairs on the back of one's neck prickle and stand on end, causing goosebumps to emerge from their flesh and their bodies to shudder. It was also the kind of song that was enough to make one's primal instincts to go mad, and thrash and destroy, just to make it stop.

Ravine looked down for a moment, staring at the back of her gloved hands just before she reached up and slipped off her crimson sunglasses, closing her eyes for a moment as the wind picked itself up and her long black hair to dance with the cold, night breeze. The voice of one to whom she'd known then filled the air, causing her eyes to snap open and glance about from the corners of her gaze, only to realize that the one she had been looking for was standing before her.

He then sang:

A smile had crossed his usually stoic lips as he opened his naturally narrowed yellow eyes, standing before the merry-go-round with his foot up upon the structure, looking at Ravine with a pleasurable smile that revealed of his delight of seeing her. His navy shirt was covered over by a black tunic that fell to his hips, with a silver and black belt hugging his waist over the long sleeved chemise, wearing the similar kind of choker around his throat as Ravine had around hers, although it had been pure black and made of velvet. His pants were long and baggy, though barely enough to reveal his boots at the ground while the sheath of his katana was just barely concealed behind the veil of his cloak, wrapped around one side of his shoulder as the other side just barely clawed at his other arm. The belt buckle as well as the brooch had a symbol that looked like an d shape. His skin was pale and his hair was white and unkempt, although in spite of his lack of color he was clearly very youthful-looking.

Ravine knew who he was, and she'd come across him several times before on some rather unpleasant occasions. He had been the reason for the scar that she wore the spiked collar to conceal, and he had been the cause of many mishaps towards her in the past. There was clearly much history shown behind this young looking man, though he did not let it go any further passed his expression.

Her head tilted lower to see that he had laid his hand upon the hilt of his weapon, looking at Ravine with a sly grin as she returned the abhorrence shared within his façade. His humming had been brought down to the tiny drone that sounded more like an undertone, his eyes closing so that the yellow irises were closed off from Ravine's sight. She continued to stare, flexing her fingers seeing that they were the only weapons she had as of the moment.

His name was Grayson Vhankleal, a man that she had known from many years ago, long before she was ever in the knowing of being a Death Child. He was just a mere thought that Ravine had always tried to avoid coming upon, mainly because he was just a person who she preferred not to think much about. He had been the only one who had been able to track her down enough to keep contact with her like this, with the knowledge that he obtained whilst the others who'd been fruitlessly hunting Ravine down, Grayson had been able to find Ravine without even trying.

Ravine's eyes narrowed when she turned away, not responding to his thought but just by closing off her mind all in general. Grayson frowned a little in a scornful screening of disappointment, tilting his head a little as his façade twisted into a mocking distortion. "What's the matter? Don't want to have another friendly chat with me? Ravine, that hurts." He smirked.

"How long has it been?" Ravine asked quizzically, tilting her head slightly. "Fifty years?"

"About." Grayson nodded in agreement. "Appears like it's getting harder and harder for them to track you down, you know? They can't even find you correctly without them being distracted by someone else...I suppose that's what all the deaths are all about, isn't it, dearest Ravine?" His grin grew while his brow quirked up, almost disappearing into the filaments of his bangs. Ravine did not reply but just gave him a narrowed gaze in which Grayson hadn't returned, but to just stare at her cheekily with a menacing beam, one that made her want to strike him down until there was nothing left of him to strike.

Oh yes, Ravine knew Grayson well over the passed few years; the memories rode on quicker than she had suspected as the wind picked up, carrying her coat and hair along with its midnight waltz when she closed her eyes for a moment, whilst he'd done the same with a small grin upon his face. He was just the kind of person who would take their own sick, twisted pleasure in this all, knowing well that Grayson was the kind of person who had once stabbed her several times and pushed her off a train before, whilst she would counter it with a power multiplied by what effort he would endeavor. And that was when they were having agreements.

Slowly her eyes closed as the images were burned into the back of her head. The stinging sensation of a blade singing through her chest, cutting open her organs and tearing through her rips. She could look back on it just by viewing it through a camera and she would feel the pain, the movements she made when she'd fallen down to her knees, and the feeling of the blade being thrusted out. She could remember the faces, triumphant and repentant, and then there was distress. But that didn't belong to her assailants.

Ravine was young. She was naïve, oblivious; foolishly in--what they call--love.

The image of her dancing hair suddenly reminded Ravine of the movements that a child had once made, a girl from so long ago, herself, making the similar movements in order to allow a gate to open, a ritual that was needed to be performed in order for her to cross worlds.

The gate did open, and within that demons did emerge into the world that had only desired perfection upon their children. Ravine, being the last Death Child known to the people of this world, had made a deed that she had not cooperated with. In which case they just merely done something unforgivable to her that caused her to shift on the run. She was no longer safe from anyone's care, and she would always be on her own to run. This was because she had not desired to bring anyone else down with her.

"Ravine! Take my hand!" A voice cried out as she was slowly falling. "No! I can't leave you!"

As Ravine had fallen into the darkness, the oblivion, a hand was outstretched and a distressed visage was looking down on her, reaching out as he was ascending upward, further and further allowing him to slip away from her grasp. She could not reach out to him. She could not because she didn't want to take him with her where she would be going, what she would be seeing. Her eyes narrowed as she opened them, staring down at the ground where she found herself standing within the midst of the construction site.

When time had felt as though it had halted, Ravine looked up at Grayson who seemed like he'd been stretched out farther than he had been before, a distortion that pulled him away from her more and more. It had been with that that caused another image to slip into her mind, enough to make the firm twist and twitch like Ravine had just then, pulling away and throwing her hand over her eyes, closing them tightly to make it go away, but the images kept playing themselves like a broken tape player. Over and over....

I'm sorry.... But you had lost me.

"Shut up...." There was a faint murmur under her breath as Ravine took a step and pulled herself back, looking up and not seeing Grayson there but another face just for a single moment. Within that moment it had just been a flickering haze in the atmosphere before it, too, had shimmered and dimmed into the horizon of dusk, becoming nothing more than a figment of the mind.

There was the smile of the man who she'd known, been searching for, yet when she reached out to him she touched nothing but air, and within her touch he had vanished, just like everything else that has touched her, which sooner or later withers and dies. Ravine would forever be condemned into watching it happen for eternity; to watch the curse of life and death flow like a never ceasing river down the stream. It would creep down the road of eternity and not stop for a single moment with pity in its veins. That would forever be her blight.

A golden iris peered through the slit of her lids as the smile of the man diminished, replacing it with the grin that belonged to Grayson, standing before her. Ravine had one arm tightly compressed to her side while the other had her hand wrapped around her face, jamming her fingers into her temples in an endeavor to make the pain and images go away, but without prevail that had been for naught. Gradually the arm that had been stunned by her side had made a sudden movement that Grayson had willingly allowed to let happen, her hand reaching into the inside of her trench coat to pull out a familiar looking firearm to loosely hold within her grasp.

Holding it up before her, Ravine glared at Grayson who had been looking back at her with the same grinning visage, the face that she would have liked nothing more than to shoot a hundred holes into, to tear apart his skull and bring it in two. The images of such things in her head was almost enough to make her smile should Ravine had been capable of it anymore. But within that smile that he revealed that he was not in for a challenge but a withdraw, that he would not fight on this ground.

Ravine glanced from either side of her to see that the swings, the seesaw, the merry-go-rounds and the chains hung upon the structures had begun to shift and swing, swaying back and forth to the beat that pounded in her head like drums, and when she turned back to Grayson he just smiled and took a step back, moving away from her little by little. And that was when it appeared that time had suddenly stopped. With Grayson's sudden glare there had been no moving wind, the swings stopped in midair and the sound surrounding them had ceased movement. The would had gone inert in stilled time, pushing away from the memoirs of the past that Ravine had been forced to dwell back upon and hold onto with a longing, whilst giving Grayson the sickening pleasure of watching her lament silently for her lost, the faint pining for the past and the feeling of being in someone else's grasp, just like how the revolver remained in Ravine's at this very moment. He enjoyed watching her dwell because he took a pleasure in seeing her mentally forlorn in a way that he could use for his own taunting. It had been Grayson's own way of haunting her.

From the opposite side where his sword had been, Grayson slid out a dagger, bringing his arm out so that Ravine could clearly see and pulled back his sleeve and glove. She made no such movement as Grayson ran the blade down his flesh and allowing Ravine's arm to creep with pain. Her stilled arm that had held the gun tightly in her grasp had twitched with pain as blood seeped through her jacket, the exact spot where he had cut himself. While he felt pain Ravine could feel it just the same coming from him, but the sudden twinge had had no effect on her. After all, according to her thesis, such a being like herself couldn't possible be even so much as fazed by it, correct?

There was a tiny twitch at the edge of her lips when Ravine formed a sudden, psychotic grin when she dropped her gun arm down to her side, looking over to him while he made his running dash towards her, bringing his dagger back and aiming it directly at her now. Ravine made a single step back in order to dodge his first strike, silently making a shoulder turn to dodge his second retaliation only to find himself missing her every single time he'd attempt to make a strike down at her. As the wind blew, creating a light buzzing in her ear, Ravine drew up her revolver one more time as she had been in mid jump to the side in order to dodge his attack, aiming it towards his forehead that she knew well wouldn't have much of an effect over him whether if she were to fire or not.

When he made a strike towards her arm all Ravine had to do was bring back her hand and make a twist around, with the same psychotic grin upon her visage, she tilted her head upward towards the skies as she brought her gun around and directed its end towards the side of Grayson's head, bringing them both to an abrupt halt at that very moment. His yellow eye shifted to look towards her at that, watching her as though he could see through her, into Ravine's soul.

And in truth, he could. They both smiled.

That was when she fired. And then pain shot through her skull, causing them both to collapse.

~*~

In the past, Grayson had once confronted a man who had cared about Ravine very much, as she had for him. Whether or not if he still had was unknown, to both of them. Grayson hadn't cared, but on her part she didn't really know if she had truly cared if he still had. "There's a telepathic bond she shares with some people. I happen to have been one of them. Would you like to know why?" Grayson had asked that once to him, and then he continued with a lazy laugh and a lethargic grin. "It's because Death Children hold a bond to their victims, whether in life or in death. Once upon a time she had killed me. I have felt it more than once, so don't expect I'm going to beg for mercy at the slightest sensation of pain."

As the impasse was instigated, he then told him the next warning, the one that had kept him saved from being brought into any father harm. "Go ahead and kill me. Hurt me. Stab me. Shoot me. But whatever you do remember that she can feel the same pain that you are inflicting on me." No one would want to hurt a loved one, hence why the argument ended with that. Grayson's arm was almost broken that night. And it had been Ravine, naïve and still a little more callow than she was on this very day, who had taken in his agony and screamed in pain.

The sickening reality was inflicted that Grayson was upon the same kin as Ravine, not in blood but in experience. He had died upon her hand, and it had been upon the hand of the foe that he was brought back and turned into, what they call, a Lamb; a sacrificed being brought back into the mortal realm, given a mission whether if it have been by themselves or by some sort of god or element. At one point it had been what Ravine had thought she was, but she was of a higher being than Grayson, and in a strange way he accepted and respected that. Deep down inside he held a type of respect for her that was dim and gray, barely to be seen. Whatever bleakness had been within his soul, his grudge for the woman, it had been for a good reason, and she had respected his hatred as much as he had for her existence.

Yet their respect had gone upon a diverse level.

Ravine always tried not to think about the past that way, to dwell upon such things just to make her yearn for the past again. But that wasn't entirely it. Maybe it was this empty crevice in her heart that explained her aloofness to allude the memories in such a way that explained it. It was more of the empty guilt rather than the pain of remembering, which had been one of the worse penalties that she was forced to undergo with the sentence to live for eternity.

It had been a while before she managed to open her eyes again, and when she had she found herself staring for a moment at the grinning face of Grayson, who was looking down on her from the side with a trail of blood trickling down the side of his head where she had shot him. Ravine blinked, staring back and with that single close of her lids one last time, he was gone. Ravine didn't know where he went to, and neither had she cared much for it. The instant she sat up there was a bursting pain that shot its way through her skull and caused her to lay back down for a while, staring up at the starry heavens.

Her arms were spread out while her legs pinned against one another as Ravine stared vacantly with her mouth slightly agape, her hands twitching every moment with the desert's cool air. It started off as a single brunt upon her forehead when that tiny droplet of rain had fallen from the heavens, and then another came to impact her cheek. And with that came down an army of waters that turned into rain, a weather rarely seen in the wasteland such as this, and knowing that she allowed herself to lay there motionless, forcefully prohibiting herself to dwell in her mind again, and to just think of the stinging sensation of the cold air biting her flesh fervently.

Fingers traced her face. Her brows furrowed and she shifted her head just barely, trying to shake it off, but she found that her body had been lain in the same position as always. The way the hand shook, the memory became clearer as to what it had been of. She tried to shake it off, push the memory away, but it just chased back after her, holding on like a child would to their mother.

With her eyes closed, she turned her head slightly. "Gabryal?" But she hadn't spoken through her lips.

Not again. She already told herself that she didn't want to remember. The feeling of her mouth being touched. At the time she liked it, although she wasn't so sure what to think of it now. Not so much as she hated it now, but Ravine loathed looking back on it, and not sure whether if she yearned for it again or if she didn't like the memory for that. Perhaps it might have been it, because she didn't leave her lover because she didn't care about him anymore.

No, that wasn't it.

There's so many things.... "Welcome back. I...." No. Go away. "I thought I'd lost you. When you fell and I couldn't reach...." I'm too far to be reached out to now, for I am more lost now than you ever could have imagined. "But that doesn't matter now. You're back and that's what matters." At the time I suppose it did. And now...it just feels different. I feel different. Far too changed to ever want to yearn for it again like I had back then, so just leave me be.

Never would it leave her alone, for remembering would forever be her penance. And had she regretted it all, felt any remorse for the bloodshed and pain that she had caused, what severed ties had been inflicted just because of her mere, simple existence?

Not at all. She felt nothing. Death Children were meant to be that way.

Without any love and affection, just to kill and absorb the living, take the lives of those who she felt that were no longer needed in this world, such as those men in the alleyway. She had killed rapists, murderers, whores, and sometimes she'd taken the lives of innocents who had lost their way in life because Ravine needed their deaths; it flowed within her veins. She could feel it course within her very soul, and with this feeling and blood others could feel it nearby as well.

For when Ravine was near, it was like a chill on the back of their neck that forced their hairs to stand on end, spike and prickle down their flesh. They would shudder and walk on with the ignorance that the chill had been just the wind since it was a new feeling, they alienated all other possibilities. Whilst they walk further on with their backs turned from the illumination of the moon, they would veer their eyes from the aura from the gloom that surrounds them, where the cool silver glow should have been lain on their spine. These would be the people who Ravine had spent a while watching, perceiving them talking on the phone, taking a shit, going into restraunts, work, and to home, and when they were home they would talk to their family or friends, speak to them without shame. It was a prodigiously fine act they pulled.

Maybe she did enjoy it, the feeling of pulling her hand through their flesh, her fingers burning as she seeped through the organs towards their intestines, tearing into their bones and igniting their marrow. It was exhilarating, but did she like it? Not even Ravine knew this. She felt numb. She felt nothing. Many years ago she had lost her reason to care, her soul that did at least. It was the most her half-heart would allow her to feel, was minor ambiances that reminded her of the emotions she once felt, which happens ever so rarely anymore (not for two hundred years, at least.), and the human sensation of physical contact, one in which she allowed not to happen much anymore. How had she missed and yet detested it all at the same time.

Dawn peered over the horizon and still Ravine had not moved an inch. Her head still ached and she could barely move. Grayson was gone, there was nothing left for her to do; seldom had she slept and by now it had begun to show clearly than before. Normally she wouldn't have bags under her eyes like she had at the present instant, and neither would she have felt such fatigue. But she did and that was what kept her pinned to the earth, the thought of Ravencrow being at the motel didn't seem to bother her all that much knowing well that his ending days would come soon anyway.

Ravencrow knew that as much as she had, and that was probably what bemused her so much when he kept moving on. Ravine wanted to use Ravencrow as an understanding, an answer to human sentimentality as to why they act the way they do, and what happens when a human knows they're going to die. In a way the thought was kind of intriguing, and reminded her a lot of those with terminal diseases, such as cancer. Ravine's philosophy was that ailment were placed on this planet for control, a way to keep things in order from overpopulation. Of course, her being an immortal soul she wasn't much of one to fret over getting anything of the sort, unlike the poor fools who were contaminated with them. Ravencrow was like a walking disease, and at any given moment his life would come to and end and he knew that. She could feel his fear and his fear of her, he had a pretty good reason to fear her. As a matter in fact, she would be surprised if he hadn't ran off after she left the motel.

As Ravine remained prone through a hazy deliberation, the white La Baron pulled up beside the road.

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