For The Hearts You Break…

…every time you moan.

“Perfection is really all about perception.”

Between his teeth, bones snapped and crackled; splinters of blooded white darted in where gums should have been, but none existed.

“It is about the way in which one views their surroundings. Eyes jaded by time and heartache view the world through clear, bright eyes. Those taste rather nice,” he told his meal, unconcerned that it would not answer back. She no longer had a tongue by which to do so.

“On the other hand, the eyes of the youthful, they are colored by rose-tint, as if nothing is wrong. Some might consider that sweet, but I disagree. Ignorance is not flattering, though it may be bliss.”

Out of the corner of his mouth, a tongue slithered outward, wrapping about a bit of escaping rib, dragging it back where it belonged, la dionée from Hell.

Getting through a ribcage is difficult work, prizing apart the finest of all cages: the cage that holds that which gives life. Bylah was, at best, a fine lock-picker.

“In the end,” he finally surmised, as a hand, a hoof, a wing, an octopus’ tentacle drew out the woman’s heart, “perfection is about perception. What you might view as worthless, I might view as glorious – that which sustains all things, great and small. Who were you, to scoff at that which I came from? You should have worried more about where, exactly, you were going.”

That first bite smothered his moan, choked and drowned it down with blood and still warm muscle; his words were the color of it, of deep red, the color of good top soil, where all rotting things lie. “You wound up going where I come from.“