Picture an apple, beautifully red, tantalizingly ripe, dangling so enticingly above your head.
But the core of its beauty holds a cruel manifestation of pestilence.
A poisoned apple, if you will.
It’s a cunning little metaphor for what you’ve been doing, isn’t it?
Chasing after me, determined and hell-bent on tracking me down. Why does the forbidden always appeal to us so? A tempting but fatal fruit of our own fear and uncertainty, drawing us in.
Yes, Luther.
Fear.
Fear can be a powerful motivator, can’t it? It’s a primal instinct, taking us back to the days when we were the hunted.
Your fear, my dear Luther, has made you an inferior version of the hunter you believe yourself to be, the one who kills jinxed young men for sport.
You see, I don’t run from your fear, I cultivate it. I tend to it.
I nurture it and watch as it grows into a gnarled tree bearing poisonous fruit.
Fear, Luther, is my domain, my element.
Your fear of not catching me, of not being the great hunter, the great leader even, you’ve convinced yourself and others that you are, has been manipulated like strings on marionettes. You fear the unknown, the unpredictable –
You fear me.
All those moments you thought you were one step closer to me, you were actually falling further into my labyrinth. As I told you last week, I’ve been spinning this web around you, my dear, and each of your fears is just more silk for my design.
Fear of failure, fear of the unknown, the fear of death. On and on, around and around, you’ve been dancing to my tune without even knowing it.
Your fear is my domain, and I, its goddess. Your desperate attempts to conquer it have only plunged you deeper into its consuming darkness.
I am a nightmare hidden in plain sight disguised as a delicate, juicy apple. As you reach out to pick it, reeking of excitement mixed with dread, you fail to realize, your doom is sealed.
But let me pull you out of your dark dream for a moment Luther.
It’s not the apple that is poisoned, it’s the fear that has been seeping into you like a slow, debilitating venom. And you have been savoring it, all the while oblivious to the toxic decay spreading throughout your being.
Darkness has a funny way of highlighting our fears, doesn’t it? It gives them shape, colors them with our darkest imaginings.
Your fears have been my canvas, my flourishing swarm of altered reality, and I the cruel painter, the misguided gardener, have grown them into nightmares too vivid for your weak heart.
In the end, dear Luther, you have been nothing more than a creature of the night, chasing shadows and nursing fears, drawn by the intoxicating allure of a longed-for triumph, which in truth, has always been a bite from a poisoned apple.
A poisoned apple now stuffed into your foul mouth. Your downfall, a feast of your own making.
But not your feast.
Mine.
And your fear is delicious.