"I can't take this anymore!"
"I can't take you anymore!"
Glass shatters against torn linoleum before a high pitched wail sounds, droning out all other noise with its overwhelming proclamation of misery.
"You can't take me? I can't take you!"
"Well, you can blame yourself for what I am! After all, I am who you wanted me to be."
"You're faulting me with the monster you are? I suppose you are suggesting I'm a sadistic masochist who enjoys being ruthlessly tormented and beaten by my significant other!"
"As a matter of fact, that's exactly what you are. You allow for me to do this to you. Perhaps you do enjoy it. Otherwise, you'd beg of me to stop."
"Aren't I begging you now?"
"Weren't you begging me before, too?"
The shouts cease, and a silence that is nearly palpable wedges itself into every crack and crevace of the decrepit house.
Quietly, now. A whisper so soft it could nearly be mistaken for a rush of air that managed infiltration through the faulty, crooked window.
"Every day I spend with you is another day that I kill a part of me in cold-blood. I wish I could just leave you. Get out of here and away from this madness that you've bound my hands and feet with. You've tainted all the sanity left within me. You are poison-a sinister entity masked by alluring seduction. I've drank from your cup; I've tasted the death which you bring me. I'm addicted now-trapped by your chains. I know you are no good, but I don't know how to live without you. You have become my sustainance."
"Then why do you keep fighting me? Stop resisting and succumb to what I am. You cannot change me. You can only change yourself."
Hands tremble furiously and a heart pounds rapidly against its prison of bone and flesh.
An unhinged door creaks open, as if beckoning for someone to step over its threshold.
"If I succumb to you, then I am giving up. And what would become of me if I were to lay down my arms and surrender?"
Gentle laughter, chiming like silver church bells on a pleasant Sunday morning.
"Don't look at it as giving up. This isn't a battle. As you made so very clear before, I am your significant other. We're both in this together. I'm willing to end this dispute if you are. In fact, I've been ready to end it for a while. You know what your heart truly desires. Stop masking what it yearns for with these petty arguments. Please, just listen to me. I promise I can be everything that you want and more."
The door inches open even further, its temptations growing seemingly stronger.
"You promise that we won't fight anymore? That I can finally be at peace? All I want is to be happy."
"Don't you remember? You came to me in search for happiness! This whole time the war waging between us has been solely because of you. All I've wanted is to
set your mind at ease."
"Then why do I always feel so miserable when I'm with you?"
"Because you haven't fully accepted me for who I am and the joy that I can bring to your melancholy life."
Another episode of silence that seems to press on for eternity. Then, suddenly-
"All right. I trust in you. But only on one condition."
The door opens just a little further.
"Anything. Anything at all."
"You have to swear to me that you'll take me away from this old life-old me-forever."
"I swear. And I have one condition as well."
Weary eyes shift, suspicion growing evident in the dimming orbs.
"What may that condition be?"
"You must swear to me that you will never leave me, even through any turmoil and hardships that you may face."
Hesitation.
"I-I swear."
The door is now fully open, revealing a room void of all light. It simply leads to a thick darkness that appears to expand on and on in all directions for eternity.
A hand reaches out, offering itself for acceptance.
"'Til death do us part?"
Another hand closes around it and they entwine fingers, locking each one into place with a sense of finality.
"'Til death do us part."
Footsteps growing fainter and fainter with each passing second.
The door slams shut.
A lock clicks into place.
Silence.