"I can't call this coffee; it's industrial sludge." He muttered back over his shoulder towards the person who chattered towards him as he looked forward. His thoughts ran away with him again, back. Back to the past, back to his life, back to that night. He sold his soul for a kiss. A kiss ever so sweet and a kiss with so much pain.

The kiss itself would never leave his memory, but the hours before and after? Even days before and after, those were lost in the vortex of his mind. Perhaps for the better, perhaps for the worst. Either way, it was done. Did he know at the time? Perhaps he did, perhaps he didn't. With his ego, he'd like to think he didn't. Though beneath the macho shit, he knows he very well may have.

Once again, either way, it didn't matter. To think back on it was nothing but to either stroke his own ego and preen his feathers to say he didn't know, or to get lost in the memories of what he could remember. Neither was all together healthy. But still, he sold his soul for a kiss. Why? He can't quite remember. To whom? He never really knew. When? It seemed like decades, but in all reality, it was just a few years. What happened? He, well, he changed, everything changed. The world changed.

After that night, or at least the day he came back to remembrance, he was a wanted man. 'They' haunted him and they chased after him. They wanted the secret he gained when... well... as mentioned before, when he sold his soul for a kiss. It was their bad though, that they chased after a man who couldn't even remember his own name.

"Mirak." His self-given name passed over his lips in a quiet whisper as he watched himself in the mirror behind the bar. That name, who knew where it came from? Surely he didn't, nor did anyone else. At least, not that he knew of anyway. His face, something people always seemed to never comment on. His face, oddly enough, was the only part of him that couldn't be made out, though the rest of him was in perfect distinction. His face was distorted as if viewed through cloudy glass, or even water. It was as if he wore a mask of obscurity.

Everyone overlooked that part, or did they? Perhaps, it was always perhaps, they were just afraid to mention it, or maybe they didn't want to see his face. As he heard once, to look into one's eyes is to gaze into their soul. Perhaps they were thankful to not look into the place where his soul was marked. Retail price? A single kiss: going once, going twice, sold to the lady in the corner holding that curved dagger.

That was about all he could remember of her as well. The curved dagger, the curved body he touched, and the sparks in her violet eyes. Pure ones, too, not those contacts they sell out there today. Violet eyes of which he got lost in many a nights, though he'd be damned to remember a single one.

Each night she promised him on the next, he'd get what he truly desired from her. Not a bumping of the uglies for which he already received, but a brush of her heavenly lips. Each night he was told patience would be his savior. That is, each night before the night he was told that. On the night, it finally happened. He kissed her, and with doing so, he sold his soul.

Her name, now that he thought on the subject, he could remember. Kyrsana, that was her name. If it were her real one or not, he was never sure. But he was satisfied to know that at least. Perhaps it was a name to make up for not remembering as was his, he thought. It'd fit the scheme, from what little he actually knew. If he knew more, perhaps he'd never have kissed her. But, then he'd have missed everything else, despite not remembering. He always questioned the worth of it all, and he'd do it the same way if given the chance.

His mind snapped out of the memories, or lack there-of, as the 'tender asked him for payment for the coffee. Mirak quirked his brow upwards, and looked to the discarded mug. He chuckled and dug around in his pocket for a quarter. He stood and flipped it with his thumb to the man behind the bar. He watched the tender, who, as did everyone else, seemed to make no note of his obscured face, and shook his head.

Turning, he strode towards the door. His hand, he noticed, had the scar on it again. He furrowed his brow again, and stepped from the door, out, and into his fate.

::December 22, 2002 10:08 AM

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