Story Title: Hell's Blessing

Author: Hawk Martin

Disclaimer: This is mine.  I wrote it.  Don't steal because I wrote it.  It's crappy; it sucks, so why steal it?

Dedication: To Toby, Duo, Quatre, and Fei.  …How fitting.

A/N: This is short—thus, a one-shot.  Please don't mind if it's bad and has no point—I really was just going with the flow.  I can't help it if I have no muses to guide me…

Summary: This is a first-person POV from a random person in Azkaban.  I haven't written HP fanfiction for a while so I wanted to give it a try.  It can be anyone you like—Severus, Sirius, or just a regular prisoner.  I personally was writing from Liz's point of view, an RPG character I created.  If you want to know about her, e-mail me at thesilencer03@aol.com for her profile and such.  By the way, 'My Beholder', 'My God,' and 'Him' are all about Fudge.  Just so you know. 

Notes:  None really.

Rating: PG-13.  To be cautious.

Warning:  Not made for the illiterate.

~"Death row is a state of mind." –Doris Anne Foster~

It was the screaming that got to me.

It was the low voices of death, moaning through the stony walls of my mind, of my barricaded sanity.  Blood would spill crimson stains upon the floor, and soon I was swimming in their fear, waiting for the one moment when I too would be broken.  I could revel in my blissful nightmares, and no more would the pain reach me.  In that state of being, I've a pain all my own.

Maybe I am alone. Maybe I'm not. Maybe I can love; maybe I'm incapable of such an act. There are a million things I could be, and yet, an equal trillion to offset the number. So many things I am—too many things I'm not, and never will be. I'm stretched, a mirror image of my own mistakes. And that's okay now. I don't mind being alone in a crowd of people, of being in love with hatred.

I don't mind being empty, being soulless—being damned.

Looking at the shards of glass lying at my feet, I kneel before my deathly god in an ever-mocking presence of worship. Heaven and Hell are tugging at my arms, begging my bliss or my purgatory. The statue of my Beholder bows his stony head towards me, a finally judgment merely seconds way in this frozen moment.

My mistakes echo harshly in the caverns of my mind; there's no mirth in those pale eyes, no happy gift before me. I know I am not going to Heaven.

His voice is of solemn amusement; my agony is a blessing of immortality to him—if another is broken, another laid dying upon the floor in this sanctum of Hell, then he has won.  It's more proof to be reckoned with, more ammo to hold and to shoot.

I am an angel, falling through the mists of time and space to my final resting ground—the one land of fire I'll ever know.  My Hell is cold though; barren with the grass long since faded and the sun hidden for ages on end.  I will not see my family again; I will not see the end of this war.  If I do, it'll be in a coffin, locked away and pushed into the soft dirt that shall be my only peace.  I crave for that, a desire I will not see until the conclusion of this sentence. 

I was innocent.

How could they not see?  I was innocent.  I killed men, yes—thousands of them, all writhing in the frozen silver I had thrown upon their torn bodies.  And yet…I knew of their sins, of their evils waiting to be punished.  I was a soldier; did what I had been ordered.  I was innocent.  Doesn't anyone understand?  No, of course not.

I don't even understand.

If I sit here, cold and still with mortal dreams running through my mind, perhaps I will beat this system of quiet torture.  Whispers of innocent suicides wash over my flesh, itching for a way to sink in to the bone.  I am serving a penalty not yet committed.  If released, I will become this person they dread.  I will kill ruthlessly, taking lives like humanity breathes.  I will remove any trace of love from this world, from this restless Perdition that beckons my call.

I wish the screaming would end.  Their screams are such horrifyingly dry tunes of torment, waiting to crack glass and bend minds.  But, I will walk the road of Damned, and I will pave it.  I will kill those that are blessed, and by doing so, save them.  In this ironic lunacy of mine, the world is clearer with every wave of insanity.

I was a killer, yes.  I was damned, yes.  I was insane by all rights.

But, I swear to God—

I was innocent.