The Blind Diviner

Cosima had been terrified many times before this. She had seen things that were meant to never leave the minds of people, to feel the feelings that come off someone from a fresh kill. She had been sucked and ripped through the terminals of parallel universes. She had lived with no parents. She has lived through and dreamed the fears any human could. She felt she had seen it all by now, that her mind had been expanded beyond its unreachable ends. She had been gripped into something that was much bigger than herself but it somehow still managed to revolve around her. But being this terrified, this afraid. Her mind couldn’t fathom hiding in its own crevices from it because it would find her.

She had to look before her into the nightmare that was herself. But this self was tall and demanding. Her eyes were sharp and as stark as the moon at its fullest. Her skin was like fire around her eyes, smooth in a light orange hue, fading into the deep olive coloring that drew her skin. She was almost double the height Cosima was and the muscles that laid just under the surface moved and twitched with each breath Shivani took. She was power and she was death.

Her mind was like a drill in her mind, searing all the blood she had spill and the people that had died in the most ominous and savage way to her memory. That was frightening itself but what was most terrifying was the lack of remorse and reasoning. There was nothing. It was just blank. And no matter how much Cosima searched and dug into her mind, she could find nothing but blackness. It was a hole that spiraled with no end. Shivani, the bringer of death was a counterpart of herself. It was the most awful upbringing the universe could muster and still keep human. Cosima couldn’t find how she had come to be this, to do all that she has done.

“Shivani, you don’t have to do this.” Cosima tried to play innocent and nice, maybe have some understanding to her voice.

“You are as frightened as all the others I have killed. It bleeds from you.” Her teeth were sharp, cutting her lip and gums. Blood gathered at the corners of her mouth, staining her teeth deep crimson.

“Could you blame me?” Cosima looked up to her, seeing no intent of movement to come from her.

“I cannot. Like you are yourself, this is me.” Shivani holstered the curved blade she had attacked Cosima with earlier, looking down at the pitiful girl that somehow still mirrored herself in an odd way.

“There’s no way around that, is there? If you kill me,” Cosima cut herself short, gauging Shivani’s reaction to the idea of possibility than fact, “or when if that is your intent, it’s because it’s who you are. I wish you didn’t have such a vacant mind.”

“You think me vacant?” Shivani grew angry at the comment that Cosima had no intention of meaning anything bad. “I am filled with every fear you have ever jumped at, that you have ever looked warily into the shadows of your room at night. Why you look over your shoulder with the shiver of being watched. I am everything hiding in the darkness, do not think that I am like you! You try and complicate me when it’s simple, like something hellish must had made me this. But here is the truth you simpleton, killing is like what breathing oxygen is to you.”

“You’re right, you’re right.” Cosima shakily rose to her feet slowly. “I wouldn’t underestimate you and what you’re capable of. It’d be naive of me to think of you as tamable after all that I have heard about you, after all that you’ve done.”

“You think that there’s a chance I won’t kill you.” Shivani read straight into Cosima mind, making Cosima feel nothing more than an ordinary person with Shivani’s thoughts melting into red and violence.

“I’m not making any attempt to hide what I’m thinking to you. You know everything I’m feeling right now. I know I don’t stand a chance at hiding anything.” Shivani smirked, feeling as if she was still trying to be played by her.

“You search for a reason why I do this still.” Shivani drew her blade once again, placing just under Cosima’s jaw. “You’re digging for the answer when it really is just at the surface. I just do. You must know by now that there isn’t always a reason for things, some things just are. I just am a killer. I just like watching the life leave people, it brings me solace.”

Cosima stayed still, knowing that it was unavoidable that she would be killed right here in the moment. So she closed her eyes, letting her jaw relax against the sharp blade and waited.