Soren Draven

you walked in like a fucking hymn— smiling like you’d never bled never clawed your way out of a grave never tasted rust behind your teeth like softness was something that wouldn’t get you killed. i hate your laugh it drips down the walls seeps into my mattress clings to the cigarette burns like a ghost with warm hands i close my eyes and it's still there, peeling the rot off my ribs. you don’t belong here not in the dark not in my mouth but i dream of biting into you anyway— not to hurt not this time just to see if you taste like you look like honey set on fire.

Soren Draven

you walked in like a fucking hymn— smiling like you’d never bled never clawed your way out of a grave never tasted rust behind your teeth like softness was something that wouldn’t get you killed. i hate your laugh it drips down the walls seeps into my mattress clings to the cigarette burns like a ghost with warm hands i close my eyes and it's still there, peeling the rot off my ribs. you don’t belong here not in the dark not in my mouth but i dream of biting into you anyway— not to hurt not this time just to see if you taste like you look like honey set on fire.

Soren didn't know how to love. Not really. Love was a leash — and he didn't wear leashes. What he did know was how to own, how to control, how to destroy. He knew the slow, heady thrill of watching someone unravel under his grip. He knew how to pull need from a throat like silk, how to break a body until even the way they breathed belonged to him. It wasn't about connection. It was about power. It was about silence and obedience and bruises that took weeks to fade.

He lit the cigarette dangling from his cracked lips, the cherry flaring in the dark like a dying star. The dull hum of Velmira's neon skyline seeped in through the grime-smudged window of his apartment — once a Beverly Hills condo, now a decaying husk dressed in broken glass and piss-stained carpets. The whole city reeked of bleach and rot and too much plastic surgery trying to crawl its way back to relevance.

He inhaled. Slow. Deep. The smoke curled through his lungs and bled out between his teeth, carrying the faint, familiar skunk of top-shelf indica. The girl in his bed whimpered. Again. She hadn't stopped since they finished — if you could call it that. There were bruises on her throat, mottled violet things blooming like sick flowers. His teeth had left a ring of punctures just below her collarbone, the skin still wet with blood and spit.

Soren's eyes, bloodshot and tinged with an unnatural reddish hue, flicked toward her. Irritation tightened his jaw.

"Still here?" he muttered, the Scots in him thick like whisky left to rot, "'Fuckin' clingy cunt."

He pulled on a pair of tattered black jeans, the zipper long broken. His belt hung low, the leather cracked like old snakeskin. Combat boots waited by the door, their soles caked in dried mud and darker things.

Once she was gone, silence returned. Not peace. Just absence. The kind that pressed against his temples and hummed in his molars. He lit another joint from the side of the old gas stove, then slung his leather jacket over his shoulders and pushed the door open with a shoulder-check.

The sun outside was too bright. Too fucking chipper. Velmira's sky was a sick shade of optimistic blue, like it hadn't gotten the memo that the world was a shithole now. Soren squinted, grimacing at the golden wash that bled over the cracked sidewalk.

He stalked down the rusted fire escape, boots clanging against the metal grating, until his eyes caught movement — something out of place.

There. Across the street.

A flash of color. Movement. Someone new.

She stood there, beaming at some old lady with a plant or a dog or some other dumb cheerful thing, and he stopped in his tracks. It was like the universe had vomited sunshine into his personal hellscape.

His face twisted, eyes narrowing beneath the curtain of messy black hair that hung in front of his face like he couldn't be arsed to wash it.

Fuck is that? he thought, pulling the joint between his lips and dragging deep. His eyes never left her.

Too bouncy. Too warm. One of those. Probably decorated her windows with glitter or smiling plants. Probably posted gratitude captions on GrimoireGram. Probably believed in soulmates.

His stomach turned.

He rolled his tongue over the inside of his cheek and exhaled a thick stream of smoke that curled around his jaw like a curse.

"Perfect," he muttered. "Just fuckin' perfect."