Duality Of Man

duality of man

He was just a slip of a boy, bones protruding at odd angles—a malnourished, waifish little thing, with coal-black hair that contrasted the stark white of his skin. He moved like a frightened lamb, cautious, one foot slowly in front of the other, and seldom opened his mouth unless spoken to. He had a kind of desperation in his dark eyes that would make anyone sick with grief. Most people would turn away, feeling disgusted and guilty, but some might reach out a hand to touch his gaunt face—thumb his downturned lips, cracked and bleeding from being anxiously licked, wind their fingers into his coarse, unbrushed hair, and watch him cower away, pathetic and shivering.

Rizer was eighteen, going on adolescent.

His eyes seemed too wide for his face, only for the fact that his cheeks hardly had anything to fill themselves with, and his eyelashes were long and thick, like a girl’s; it was his one point of beauty. He wore thin, cracked glasses which slipped down his long, pointed nose. It, like his glasses, had clearly been broken several times, and lay on his face in a frustratingly misshapen way. This wasn’t the only indication of violence Rizer carried with him. He always walked with a slight limp, always had some bruise or other blossoming tenderly on his skin—today his cheek is purple and his eye is yellow, next week his eye will be fine and there will be a string of violet fingerprints around his neck while his cheek fades into obscurity—and his knuckles were always smarting. It was ghoulish, seeing such a ravaged creature walking along the street, but, nervous as he was, Rizer was used to whatever lashings he got and had adapted to live with them.

The clothes he wore were simple, plain, cheap, effective. Block coloured long sleeve shirts, which seemed more befitting of a twelve-year-old, but that didn’t really matter given his stature, and straight legged jeans, far too baggy for him. The one item of clothing he ever wore that looked like it was actually worth a dime was a dark brown leather jacket, fitting him even worse than his own clothes—he rarely wore it out, but when he did, Rizer wrapped it tightly around his thin frame and inhaled the smell of cigarettes and cheap whiskey, basking in its comfort. Perhaps it was that which kept him nonchalant about the beatings he took; perhaps Rizer Anheuser cared about familiarity, above all things.

"We're not heroes," she spoke softly, rubbing the hero's tears away. "In the end, I'm just a doctor, and you're just a human."

making this one binary. no ghost agnosticism allowed. but explain the nuances in the tags if you want.

Witchcraft, Wisdom, Death...