I watched her. Ever since she had been just a mere teenage girl growing into the mind and body of a young lady, I had watched her. I had seen her through her toughest times, hidden away by the shadows of my own trapped mind, unwilling and unable to let her see me. She, a beautiful mortal lady, so perfect and so stunning in my eyes, even if she herself and others of this harsh world saw differently… saw the opposite. I was right.

I am always right.

I had been there the nights in which she cried herself to sleep with the harsh words that the human race spat at her daily plaguing her mind. I had been there every time; unable to offer the comfort I so yearned to give. Unable to reach out and to take her into my arms, to whisper in her ear just how beautiful she really was, how rare, how the blood she let free against her pale white skin reminded me of a rose petal lying there, untouched, against the snow.

How I yearned to speak to her of the love I held. One thing that I was determined of; she would be mine and I would love her for eternity, I would care for her and I would never let her go. Then, she did a foolish thing and it brought me to realise that I would have to make her mine, soon, before she fell any deeper into the idiocy which seemed to be catching.

Soon, the day in which I could hold her, could caress that white unblemished cheek in the palm of my hand and could press my lips to hers to savour the taste, would come at last… sooner than was right, for to take her now would be against the rules of nature… yet I would not wait. I had, in the past, punished those who dared to hurt her, who dared to be the cause of such precious tears being spilled. Punished them and sentenced them to death, I had cheated the laws of the universe for her before, and I would do so again… one last time.

For she had given her heart to another.

Only a year ago now; I had taken away the sight of a boy who was too foolish to see her beauty for what it was. Stupidity had always made the hatred pour through my veins, and so I left the boy to suffer with his loss, to live without his sight. A mistake that I would never be repeating.

For with his sight gone, the boy appeared to have changed. His heart had opened; he became withdrawn from everyone… everyone but my petal. She, even after the names he had called her, and the hurt he had caused, befriended him. She helped him and I decided, at the time, to let it slide. That perhaps she was just feeling pity for him.

I was wrong. For once.

My beauty, my petal, gave her heart to him, and the boy, lesson well learned, had taken it with a reverence that seemed to make her love him more. I despised this, for I knew that he was playing games with my love, I knew that nobody could ever make her happy as I could, nobody could relieve her pain like I would… for she was mine, she belonged to me!

So I killed him.

I stepped out of my shadows, so that my beauty, my petal, could see me for the first time and I ignored how much it hurt when she flinched away from me. I ignored the pain that coursed through me at seeing my love clinging to his arm like that. I acted out of anger and I did so in stupidity, for I killed him there, with my love watching. I slammed my fist into his chest and tore out the heart that my petal adored and then dropped it to the floor to walk on it.

She wept, she screamed, she clawed and she tried to run… but I would not let her. With a simple flick of my wrist, all doors and windows slammed shut. I tried to talk to her then, I did, I told her that I had been watching her for years, that I loved her and that only I could take care of her. I told her that he deserved to be punished, for he was playing games, but she would not listen. I told her that it was time for her to come with me now, so that I could love her openly.

She refused me.

I ignored.

She was just upset and scared, I knew that, she didn’t mean it and as soon as she had calmed down, she would apologise for her cruelty. So I smiled at her gently and held out my hand, I told her that I had tried my best to take care of her in her own world, that I had punished everyone who dared to make her cry and hurt. It seemed as if she couldn’t process that last bit of information. I cared not.

For now I had taken her into my arms as I have yearned to do and dreamed about for so long now. The struggles she tried to give were useless against my stronger self and so I held her as she wept, kissed her brow with my cool lips and finally, when she fell asleep in my arms, I prepared to take her.

I placed her down carefully on the bed and arranged her so that she looked beautiful, as always. Then, carefully, I leant over so that my lips were nearly touching hers and I breathed in, inhaling, dragging the soul of my petal from her mortal body. She would take another form in my domain. Then I kissed her and as I did, I pulled from her the last of her mortal life and gave to her an eternity.

Now, I sit beside her bed in my world, waiting for her to wake. She is beautiful, more so now than ever before, as she lies there with her lips parted and her eyes closed softly. I have waited for centuries for her eyes to open and for breath to move her chest once more and I will continue to wait, for I refuse to admit that I had been stupid, I refuse to admit that my love now rests in heaven.

I refused to admit that I had made her cry.

One solace, perhaps, is that I have the man she loved with me. I have him locked away in my dungeons, crying out his agony.

Now tell me this: Do you still believe that death cannot love?