"If you can't soar with the eagles
Then don't fly with the flock.
Are you still getting high?
Did you catch your own reflection
In the knife my mother held?
Or the hell in my father's eyes?"

And the snakes start to sing, Bring me the Horizon.
...

The bathroom was empty.

Even though his heart wanted to believe he was gone, he knew well where to find him; Eric, his sweet lover, his beautiful replica of Jude Klein.

"I'm sorry, Eric."

He whispered to himself, hoping to find some comfort on apologies would never uprise to heaven, but dive right straight to hell.

The emptiness of the room almost seemed dramatic, as the darkness covered the chaos that he had made all drunk in anger.

He walked then, towards the gargoyle figure that protruded from the wall, almost invisible as it was covered by the dusk in the room and pulled it down. A tall bookshelf that laid beside it moved aside, with a slow-motion and a loud clatter, uncovering a narrow passage to Florian's secret place.

The space between the wall and the shelf wasn't too wide, but enough to let a person enter, announcing with a gelid breeze the deeper cold resting inside.

Florian followed the path by memory, even climbing down some stairs, heading to what he called "The snakes' nest", and soon, a pale, bluish light enlightened the dark journey.

A silhouette of a slim, naked man standing like a statue was drowned in front of his eyes. Florian's heart stopped by a minute and beat again with a different feeling on it. He had been feeling some loud pain in his chest, although now it became on something more like anxiety and desperation.

The man standing a few steps from him was so petrified that remained oblivious to Florian's steps, approaching in the dark.

That secret place was colder than the rest of the house, and probably colder than outside, still though none of them was shaking.

"Seems I have been discovered..."

He finally said, his voice as cold as the air in that basement, and harsh as rock, echoing in the wide space. Eric turned electrified by Florian's presence and giving him deeply scared eyes.

"Florian..."

"Eric...my precious Eric...."

"Is this....?"

His voice broke like torn by a knife, his arms hugging himself now, and his eyes staring at a transparent glass huge box that rested a few feet from him. The crystal box was like a shelf from an exposition, and it was sweating waterdrops from cold. Inside, a beautiful, mature woman, was suspended by thin metallic threads like flying with the enormous white feathered wings she had attached to her back.

"Is this Marina?"

Eric's lips could barely utter the words he spoke, startled and paralyzed, both by cold and fear; although he was still trying to find a reasonable explanation for what he had seen. But Florian's expression and voice destroyed every small hope he might've held with a terrible aggravated "Yes."

Eric's eyes crowded with frozen tears, as his tremor became perceptible and almost tossed him to the ground.

Florian walked to a wardrobe where he grabbed a thick blanket, tossing it over the man's slim shoulders to protect him from the cold.

"I didn't want you to see this, Eric."

His frozen bony and pale hands posed over Eric's cheeks, whose eyes were wide opened like a pair of plastic balls.

"You were not supposed to see this. No one must see this...Do you understand dear? No one can know. They would burn me... Not that it matters, as I am already dying, but I haven't made it yet you know?"

His breath was pressing against Eric's face, as his eyes reflected a foreign excitement and a gaze that Eric had never seen. He was so scared now.

"You understand, my dear. I can't love you. You are not him. You look like him, you are almost as smart as him. You are beautiful and loyal, but you should've stayed in bed. Why didn't you?"

Eric was so frozen and terrified he didn't even blink.

"Answer me!!"

Florian burst in a raging scream. He was losing his tempers. Then he remembered how sweet and fragile was Eric, and he lowered his tone, uttering a sweet voice, just for him.

"Why my sweetheart? Why did you find this? Do you know what happens now? DO YOU KNOW??!!"

Eric couldn't help but shake his head. He was crying now. He couldn't believe such a sweet, great, stunning person was a psychopath. He closed and pierced his eyes, praying for all of that to be a dream. His whole leg was aching badly, and the cold was penetrating him to the bone, not as much as the fear though.

"I will have to kill you, my dear."

Florian's hand travelled to his pocket, while the other one held Eric's waist gently. His skin ruffled to the snowy touch, and his heart raised as he felt, still with eyes shut, his lover's lips approaching to his own.

A wet, warm kiss possed over his lips like a butterfly over jasmine, and a piercing ache, followed by a burning feeling, stung on his neck.

The needle dropped on the floor.

Florian hugged Eric's body as if someone was about to take him from him. His face got swallowed by agony, as many tears wanted to form on his leafy eyes, but never did.

Eric's cold faded into warm comfort. His eyes opened to stare at the beautiful face of Florian, who even in the deepest of the sadness-if you could call that sadness-, seemed like an artwork. Soon Eric's limbs weaken and gave into the poison that travelled his blood.

"It was for the best, my sweet Eric. I have saved you from the misery of getting to love me, or even considering to forgive me."

"I...." Eric's throat tried to spill some words with incredible difficulty. "I lo...loved. You."

They both lied on the freezing ground, tangled once more like beautiful lovers. One of them completely absent, dead. The other one absent as well, travelling through the halls of his own mind, wondering why was him such a monster, not only because his tears wouldn't come out, but the only true reason of his genuine self-hate: He enjoyed taking a life and turning self-hate memory.

He couldn't be a famous painter, only a famous killer. Although now he knew he was as dead as his artworks, it was only a matter of time. If an incurable disease is knocking on your door you might want to run faster, to live faster before death can reach you.

May the snakes start to sing...