Page 2 of The Tattoo Artist

ALEXANDRA JONES

HE STOOD THERE.

He stood there the entire night.

I saw him.

Our eyes locked, his piercing through the distance, penetrating the very fabric of my soul. Although his face remained hidden, veiled in an air of mystery, it was the way he looked at me. As if he claimed me.

As if he owned me.

As if I were his.

And only his.

However, fate had a different plan in store for me because I never saw him again. He vanished like a phantom into the depths of the night.

Days turned into weeks.

Weeks into months.

Months turned into years.

Two years to be exact.

And yet I still, till this day yearned for his presence, sitting patiently by my window, waiting for a glimpse of him and for a reason that I did not know. Why did I want to see him again?

Maybe it was because I felt something, a connection of some sort that is indescribable. A connection I’ve somewhat felt before…

Yet, as time mercilessly marched on, a haunting realisation settled within me. It seemed as though Diávolos had disappeared from existence, as if he had succumbed to an ethereal fate. No whispered rumours reached my ears, no sightings or murmurs of his name floated through the air nor the newspapers anymore. It was as if the world had swallowed him whole, leaving no trace behind for me to follow.

And so, this makes me question: did I in some way frighten him? No, I couldn’t have, how could I frighten the man in love with death itself? If anything, I should have been frightened. But instead, I smiled.

I fucking smiled.

I remember the way he looked at me.

I liked the way he looked at me.

No one ever looked at me the way he did.

I read about him online, in the newspapers, the inside of my cupboards are filled with ripped papers, extracts about him.

But I guess it was harder than I thought.

He remained unknown. An enigma. An elusive figure devoid of face and identity. He was only simply known as ‘Diávolos’ and nothing more. He thrived in being known to love death. To love blood. This I knew, for on that night I witnessed his act of violence—where he pushed a knife into the man’s heart, extinguishing his life in a breathless gasp.

All whilst we looked into one another’s eyes.

However, it didn’t affect me as much as I thought it would. Not a single nightmare passed through my mind, he probably expected me to hide and run to safety-to lock all my doors and fear him.

But I didn’t.

I didn’t fear him because he intrigued me.

Instead, my gaze was sealed on the necklace around his neck.

Something oddly weird for a man such as himself…a gold butterfly pendent. Though he gave of the sense of a killer, that necklace shatters it all. Its design shimmered with an elegance, an enchanting symbol of fragility. And something about it consumed me, much like my unwavering obsession for art.

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