Self-Torture

The sky glimmers with stars, tiny little gems surrounded by the misty darkness. I gaze outside the window, the gentlest cessations of wind caressing my face. The half-filled moon shines far in the distance, just out of sight.

Three quick, sharp, taps emanate from my door. I walk towards it, feeling my way through the cold darkness. I pull the door open, and welcome the two hands reaching through. They clasp my frame and lift me up, a fist scything towards my stomach. The breath explodes from my mouth, and a faint taste of bile fills it.

He drops me to the ground, where I continue to gasp in fear.  No preparation helped the harsh blow to my face, knocking me into the echo of the room – dark, cold, and stifling of terror. I fall in and out of consciousness, the pain cutting at my nerves, the blood from my wounds that had been inflicted dripping on the ground.

I can hear, at the very frontier of my perception, people laughing and japing as I’m dragged away from my home. No realization of the conflict, no concern for the mess just outside their lives. I sob once, and let my resistance drop – I let the tentacles of shadow into my mind and take me away.

I wake up, on my knees. The blood has since dried, and I can feel it on my body – crusty and old. My insides still writhe in pain, and the tears still leak out. I struggle against the weakness of my own body, but the pain dissects my consciousness, making me barely unable to contemplate my situation.

There is a man in front of me, shrouded in darkness. I can’t see his face, but I can see his clothes. White, silk gloves, his body wrapped in a night-sky suit.

“You, my friend, are guilty of a few unacceptable crimes. The punishment is about to begin”.

I sob.

“Please, I don’t know what I’ve done. Why is this happening to me?”
He laughs.

“You are well aware.”

They tie my wrists to a rope, smile, laugh, and push me backwards. My feet leave the ground and I hang over a gaping maw of darkness. I can feel the fear drench my body and the sweat break out and run down my back. The strain of hanging on to the rope burns my arms, the pain in my chest blossoming into fans of knives.

“You are worthless, absolute, disgusting, filth. There is nothing that I can see that you’ve done right. You just walk in circles over and over, hurting constantly. We have a phrase for people like that.”

I gaze towards where the venomous words are being emitted. His face is still clothed by the same pervasive darkness that exists a stone throw away from my feet.

“A waste of existence. A waste of time. A waste of breath. A waste, of life”.

His words stab into me, nails into the coffin of my body. He continues to throw out abuse at me, sharp edged words spinning through the void of the air into my mind.

My arms begin to feel like hellfire. I’m slipping towards the maw of darkness beneath me. I can feel the tongues of shadows slowly slide up my legs. I scream and beg;

“Please, stop this! Help me, dammit!”

Silence greets my desperation. Finally, after what seems to be an eternity, a voice answers;

“If you come back to me, I’ll help you.”

With the flames of hell licking my arms, I swing back and forth, building momentum. I fling myself onto the ledge, the rope snapping as I hit the side and drive the breath out of my lungs. I slowly pull myself over the ledge.

The man, still shrouded in his cape of black, leans over to me and a slimy, disgusting laugh oozes over me.

“I’m not going to help you.”

He ties my hands into rope cuffs, and plants his foot against my chest and kicks me back into the chasm behind me. I fall for an age, feeling something break inside. The smooth, comforting darkness wraps itself around me as I hit the ground, blades of pain ricocheting down my arms and chest. Blood leaks out of my open mouth, as the darkness slowly, but surely, creeps back down my throat, finding its home.

After an unspecified time, I was pulled out of the darkness. The shrouded man and his accomplices were gone. The spires of rock had decimated my body, and the chasm, now alight, showed an interwoven carpet of red and tears.

I slumped into an office, and sat down. A single file lay in front of me. My arms shaking, I turn the thin, bible-like pages.  Everything about me is written on the pages. Strengths. Weaknesses. Loves. Hates. Points of Security. Holes of Security. Everything that one would possibly need to reduce me to nothing.

Like he did.

Two of my friends, the ones who tried to stop me from getting stolen that very first night, under the web of fears and stars, wait for me outside. They are joined by a third boy, of a very young age. Upon seeing him, I once again, burst into tears.

Someone I had neglected all this time.

Someone I had forgotten about in the lashings of words.

My son.

I embrace him and squeeze him tight.  I forgot about him, and did not take solace in his existence.

“I vow that this will never happen again”.

I turn to my two friends, waiting with relief etched on their faces.

“What did happen to her?”

An awkward silence hangs in the air.

“She’s gone.”

Their frozen words sink slowly into mine. I nod once, and open my mouth to say something, but I choke and the words die in my throat.
Instead, I rise, with my son cradled in my arms.

“It’s time to move on”.