Pain
a chapter of Living Lost
by The Pop Tart Spirits
"Life as told by a little lost puppy on the wrong side of the tracks... a collection of angsty Jounochi one-shots."
You know that much. What I haven't yet told you is that there is no rhyme or reason to these little snippets of black. When I feel like killing something, instead of taking up the sword in reality, I come in here and kill Jou. Why Jou? God only knows. I apologize every time I do it, as though that makes it better...
Believe me, though, these monsters on the other end of your screen do feel guilt.
Pain.
He felt pain.
Pain encompassed his very being, made him feel sick, made him feel weak all over.
Pain was the song his heartbeat sung every time it thudded against his bruised chest. Pain was the beat of the throbbing in his arms, the dripping of the blood from the cuts there. Pain was the background hum of the betrayal in his amber eyes. Pain radiated from his broken body.
Rage.
He clenched his fist. His rage overshadowed his pain. His rage was what kept him walking through the pouring rain, to no end, one foot in front of the other. His rage drove him relentlessly. His rage was white hot behind his amber eyes. Rage hissed out of his clenched teeth in staggered breaths.
Loneliness.
He couldn't help but feel lonely; not one other person shared the rain-slicked pavement. Loneliness slowed his steps, made him weaker than the pain, made his amber eyes fill with unwanted and unshed tears. Loneliness was what he felt at the end of the day. Loneliness encapsulated what was left of a broken teenage heart.
Abandoned…
He felt abandoned. Tossed aside. Trash. Unimportant. Worthless. He didn't want to feel that way, but he had no say. Like his tormentor sneered, "No one wants you. You're a piece of garbage. Look at you! Worthless…" Abandonment was, if possible, worse than loneliness. Perhaps even worse than abuse. Definitely worse than physical pain. Physical pain healed, went away. Physical pain could be ignored at times. Not abandonment. Abandonment tore at your very soul, left you feeling like the only way out was to drop into the gutter and wait for the end to come. Sometimes the feeling was so bad, you felt like bringing the end to yourself.
Resolution.
"Not gonna let that happen again," he growled through his pain-clenched teeth. "Not gonna let that bastard son of a bitch touch me again…" His fist slammed into his open palm to punctuate his resolution. He felt somewhat stronger. His despondency, that feeling of despair, was leaving him.
A blinding blow to the head. He felt himself falling backwards.
"Fuck!…"
A blurred shape above him. He recognized that shape. He screamed, not in terror, but in denial.
No one to hear him.
He felt something brush his side, then he lay on his stomach, and the same thing brushed his back. The brushes became harder. They became whip-lashes, strokes laid with a glass-encrusted leather thong.
The rain fell harder.
A solitary tear… his blurred sight… a single rose hung in front of him…
Again, he screamed.
His pain returned.
Pain.
This is the first one ever, written in 2003. They get better, I promise.