Title: The Forsworn ~ Shards
Author: Sita Seraph
Genre: Angst
Pairing: Unknown
Rated: R
Warning: Suicide, angst, depression
I think I fell asleep at one moment. I don't remember when or how. I just remember waking up from some dream of where I was touching your smooth skin, where I had the chance to run my fingers through your beautiful hair. I remember waking up with my back pressed firmly to the bottom of the once bottomless pit. My hair was tickling my nose as it gently blew around from the current of the hole and I let my eyes slip open to the blackness of night. I thought I saw stars in this entrapped void, gently twinkling as they fell from the sky. I watched them with enrapt interest, anything to bring my decaying mind away from you. And as I stared at the shards of light, I noticed that…they were real. And they began to multiply right before my eyes, more and more in the pitiless black. I wondered where they had come from and what they represented. If they meant hope…or a symbol of the future.
They were so beautiful, trapped in the sky above me. Shining brightly in front of me, slowly growing closer and closer. I wanted to raise my hand and capture one as soon as they came near so then I could hold the light close and imagine the star was you. You were always that unreachable goal that faint galaxy among the millions that I never got close to seeing to holding. Maybe the light could heal my bleeding heart if I held it close enough. Maybe my tears would stop once the warmth of the star grazed my cheek. Oh, beautiful warmth, light, star…Please forgive me for my sins. Please heal this broken body. For once, in a very long time, I felt hope; Hope of something better.
But…then something changed. The stars…were twisted. The sparkle that they reflected was nothing but a trick, an outer layer to deceive the weak and hopeful. Oh, how naïve I was to think that this abyss would give me something to hold and cherish. How stupid I was to hope that you would have forgiven me.
The stars were not stars. The light was not light. The warmth was not warmth. They were fake, like I. Fake and ruthless; a murderer with a smile; a joker with a frown. And just like I had hurt so many people with my mask, these fake shards of hope were going to cut me deep for all the ghastly things I had committed.
For the shards of light were in actual truth shards of glass. Each licked with the blood I had spilled upon the ground, their appalling edges brimming with ruby dew. And now they fell faster, growing closer to their destination. Me.
I let my eyes slip close once again, blocking out the night and their stars. I held my breath for some odd reason. Maybe I was hoping it was just a dream or maybe it was my anxiety growing from just knowing that something was about to happen. That when those starry tears would come close, their picks and thorns will appear once again and shed the night in red. For whatever reason, I sucked in my breath and held it, till my lungs were burning for new oxygen. I tried to raise my hands; to block the oncoming blow that I knew for sure was coming. But they were trapped against the ground, stuck by something that circled my wrists and kept them back. And I could only wait, with my lungs burning and my body exposed and spread upon the black table. And I had done it all. I trapped myself in here. I did it all…me and him.
I couldn't control my lying. I couldn't control the smiles. I couldn't control what he did. I wanted to say that it was all his fault…but it was mine too. The mask…I was him and he was me. I created him and told him what to do, what to say, what to lie about. And then I got so lost thinking…pretending that I was the mask and that what I said was real. I really began to think I was a happy-go-lucky person. I really began to think that the sniveling, depressed soul was just my imagination or something that came out when I felt sorry for myself.
But he proved me wrong.
In all actuality, while we played around with smiles and cheerful laughs, the part inside, the real me, was dying. The part in me that tried to break free and show everyone it was a lie. The part inside that cried every moment of every day, begging for these chains to rust and break. The part inside, the real me, that wanted help so bad, but couldn't…didn't have the strength to reach out.
He was so much stronger than me.
Like some slave, he would beat me down with pure logic, telling me that no matter what I said to them, what slip I might make, they would never notice. They wouldn't notice the pain I would express. They would never notice me screaming in the very next room, for someone to help. They couldn't hear me when I talked to them as they slept, pleading them to just look harder in hope they would see it. The pain. The little hole in the mask. But…I tried…and failed. It was true. They never did notice. They never heard. Was I such a good actor? Or…did they truly not care like he said to me?
He was everything, the mask. He was this hole. He was those shards. He was these chains.
I remember, when I got so close to getting your attention. That day, when you looked at me so hard…I thought I saw you notice. I thought I saw that glint of suspicion. And then…I kissed you. I was so happy for that split second…to just know that you might accept the real me…or even the mask. I love you so much; I would have given you anything!
But your fist connecting to my jaw changed everything. And in the end, the mask won out. For once, since the beginning of this stupid war, I cried openly…and then slit my wrist. I thought I would be free from everything. I was so tired at pretending then trying to get all of their attention. I was tired of dying slowly inside. I wanted to cry until the tears burned my eyes out that day…every day. I always thought of taking that blade to my throat…and then held myself back because of you. There was just that chance…that you might notice, that kept me alive one more day. But when I hit the ground that fateful night, I knew NONE of them would notice…nobody would notice. It was too late; the mask had done its worst. And if I didn't kill myself then…the mask would do it for me. He would do it for me.
But even in death, he still haunts me. He still controls me. He still tortures me.
It wasn't long before I could no longer hold my breath. I let it out with a small whoosh, sucking in another gallon of air. But it was immediately lost again to the pit, as shards of pain rained free upon my bare body. My eyes shot open, a cry etched upon my lips but it would never escape, except released in silence. I watched the once beautiful stars fall upon me like rain, almost in slow motion. Their edges would glint with their ruby pearls before they fell in silence across my body, into my skin, or into the ground beside me. In a matter of seconds, my body was filled with thorns of hatred remnants. In a matter of moments, the ground surrounding me was nothing but shards of shining pain. And I could only watch, screaming out a silent cry that never left my lips. But soon, no longer could I watch.
Finally, a small gasp was released from my lips as a drifting piece of glass attacked with efficiency, straight into one orb of violet. It dug in, like the thorns of my tears and I could only blink in pain as it tore my eye apart. Soon, I was crying with refreshed tears, only this time, their color was red. They dripped down my cheeks, joining the dried tears on the glass upon the ground. The pain in my eye was immense, attacking with each blink as I tried to get rid of the shard of hate. The pain seemed to spread with my tears until my whole body was nothing but agony. And yet my torture was not finished. Seeing with only one eye, I felt the rise of something wet lift from the ground and slowly begin to surround my suffering form. Twisting my head, my cheek encountered not only glass, but blood. Blood of my own? Blood of my enemies? I did not know. I only knew that it was beginning to rise.
I was going to drown.
My hands, bounded to the ground by torturous chains sucked into the very land. They kept me down while the ruby water rose. My body would slip under the surface of the blood and I would be lost forever in the massacre I had spilled. I would suffocate in the flesh that I ruthlessly murdered. Twisting, fighting, then dying by the hands of my enemies and probably my own.
I was going to drown.
It kept rising…and so was I. Floating upon the exterior of the claret pool beneath me. My locks waved and twisted in the blood, turning them scarlet and stained with the grungy substance. The chains cackled as my body lifted, reminding me that I would soon be taken under, into the hands of vengeance. There, in that red hell, they would run their hateful claws down my exposed flesh, tearing it open and letting the beads of cherry life become one with the crimson carnage.
I was going to drown.
And then I would cry out and the bitter liquid would empty itself into my open lungs, painting the pink walls with vile contempt. There would be nothing I could do but accept my bloody fate. Accept their last moans and their last sighs as death took them away. Accept their blood that covered me inside and out. Accept what I, myself, had set before me. Accept the failure that cowered inside while my other played a part.
Accept what a mess I made, pretending to be who I wasn't. Accept that without the mask I was nothing. Accept that I needed the pain, this punishment for not being myself…and hurting you.
I was going to drown…for you.
