Sinners Salvation | Various Characters x Reader Oneshots

[?°] #006 KAFKA | ANGST! Hurt/comfort.

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With every stroke that strikes the hauntingly pale canvas, the aching prominent in your shoulder seems to grow as if roaring waves taking the form of liquid paint have crashed upon you without a moment's notice. The weight of each stroke takes its toll on you, accumulating like the darkening of the heavens and gathering of clouds before their fierce rage captures its victims in ominousness and instability.

In such a suffocating atmosphere, time felt like nothing more than a worthless nuisance, with its worth only to disturb the bothered and the unbothered. Has the star that this miserable home orbits already fallen prey to slumber, or has its opposite already shrouded the sky in its woefulness? How many times has the Earth already taken its rest while you fought your fatigue under the guise of devotion to one's art? How often have you endeavored to bring forth a masterpiece from a hand marred by mistakes and a mind colored with imperfections? How much longer can your heart allow you to continue this disgraceful creation you would dare call "art"?

Without any hindrance to your movement, another imperfect splash of color daubs the canvas.

Sweat that has amassed begins to feel like the submersion of the ocean itself, followed by the rise and fall of rapid breathing, a frantic attempt to hold a semblance of living in this polluted air brought about by your own destruction.

Your eyes bore into the incoherent carnage of colors. Trembling.

A genius is what you were; a fallen genius is what you are. A desperate soul scouring every inch of one's own being in search of that familiar sensation of flowing fluency, of inspiration, and of motivation. Only to find nothing more than broken pieces.

Without your consciousness's consent, the fuming flame that begs to be unleashed took over, and the hairs of your brush crashed onto the canvas. It takes a while before your lidded eyes glisten, before snapping open at the realization of your misstep. You shake your head nonstop, lips quivering at the distasteful spectacle before your eyes, a sight that nearly has you falling from your high stool.

Calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down! CALM DOWN!

You repeatedly try to tell yourself, your vision blurring again at the wetness of anguish that weighs on unfulfilled dreams stemming from swollen, red eyes. The strength of your grip tightens around the same tool meant to aid you, a tool that was never meant to destroy you, a tool you now feel immense shame to even have the rightfulness of holding.

NO.

Your mind is fooling you with lies of deception; yes, that's what it is; that's what it is called: lies, lies, lies. You're still the same prodigy you always were and have been.

This brush is still yours to bear; this brush is still your territory, your invincible sovereignty where no others can take it away from you. For the first time in months, your eyes wander to something beyond the impending doom of your ambition.

You mustn't give up now, no, not yet, not now, not ever, not until your heart ceases to beat and your body turns to ashes of the past. Fame or attention, it doesn't matter; you must, you HAVE to see this through to the end, the day of its completion, the day when it will bask in its infinite glory. No matter the cost, you will... or else—what was the point of all those praises?

They can't be mere meaningless praises of pity toward an innocent, simple-minded child, right? You're still the little prodigy your mother and father had proudly proclaimed all those years ago, right?

Right...?

The shuddering grip on the brush and the unbalanced posture reveal a narrative diverging from reality, a tale where truth has been distorted into a mere blemish on a meticulously crafted illusion. A revelation that you may be able to lie to yourself and others, but one that you cannot lie to your body and soul.