My Prison of Stone
I come to, just as they heavy stone lid shuts the daylight away from me forever. I have now been cast out for the very last time and I know it. My newly merged other self tells me it is so. The pain in my head hits me so suddenly that I cannot see the grimy stones before my eyes for a few seconds, though the reason for the agony is as clear as crystal in my mind. I hear my father's voice and feel the sheer desperation again of those last few moments above ground. Could I have done something to change his mind in those last few moments? I hear the word no gently glide across my mind and know deep down it is true. He thought he was doing something for the greater good, he thought he was saving the world from this abomination that was his child. So no, nothing could have saved me from this fate.
I clutch my head, as the pain washes over it again, though not so intensely this time.
"Your healing already my naive sibling."
The childish hiss echoed through the many corridors of my mind. What good is healing when I am trapped inside this ever- shrinking stone prison?
Whispered laughter caressed my consciousness, it made me shiver and huddle into myself even more. Pointless I know, as my stunted sister is within me, anchored to the very marrow of my bones. I cannot get away from her pure evilness any longer, I will see her ideas borne of evil thoughts and the desire to hurt. The realisation of it makes me cry out suddenly; an all consuming need to escape takes hold of me. I must get out of here! I cannot be merged with this preternatural being any longer, with her mind full of eerie whining and unfulfilled curses.
I shakily stand up, hardly noticing that the glacial water has eradicated all feeling from my legs. Hot tears start to falls from my eyes as the need to escape almost suffocates me. I hear the whispered laughter of my other self again, echoing all the way round my cylinder cage.
"Go away!" I yell, while grasping at the jagged, damp wall. The laughter gets louder and ignites my determination for freedom all the more.
I slowly pull myself up a little way, my hands already raw from the sharp, icy stones. My foot slips on the grime and I let out a scream.
"It's no use Sada-Chan….." I hear, though I cannot tell if the voice is inside or outside of my own head. "We are doomed to rot in this water filled sarcophagus."
I ignore her hissing voice, so like the sound of static or white noise and concentrate on regaining my footing. My head is suddenly filled with visions of my beautiful Toyama's face. How could I have not thought of him before now? So kind, so caring that's what he is. I concentrate on an image of him with his arms open for me and regain my footing. My Toyama. Just another reason that I have to escape this dripping dungeon. I very slowly manage to pull myself higher still, though I barely have a grip on the stones above me.
My hands suddenly become hot, not the gentle heat that comes from healing but a searing hot agony. As if the walls themselves were coated in acid. I began to shake and sob. I don't just hear my sisters laugh this time, I feel it too. It makes my bones feel as though they will crack and crumble within me as I cling to this wall.
"We cannot escape from here, for he has bigger plans for us."
I hardly hear her as an agony that should never be felt takes root in the tips of my fingers. I realise as I start to lose my grip that the agony is my nails being ripped out of their cushion of flesh! A blood freezing scream rips out of me as they finally tear free and I plummet toward the black waters below. The freezing mass pulled me under like a thousand grasping hands; I willed it to numb the excruciating pain away. I opened my eyes to the murky darkness and noticed to my horror that it was slowly turning red. I recoiled and broke the surface, shaking badly and unable to look at my hands. I kept them under the water, hoping its iciness would calm the tender, shredded flesh.
Again I heard her laughing at me in my head or over, I didn't know which. All I knew was that she seemed to be getting stronger as I was growing weaker.
"That's right," she said "soon I will consume your being and you will be nothing but an empty echo of a personality that once was, lying dormant and powerless in the depths of this body." I put my hands up to cover my ears; it was a useless gesture as the voice became amplified inside my head.
"Look at how the world has shunned and treated you dear sister." I felt her icy words caress my brain and forced thoughts of Toyama to the forefront of my mind. More laughter, though harsher this time.
"He never loved you, he merely feared you just like the rest of them."
"Noooooo!" I screamed in reply, her accusation wedging itself into my heart like a shard of glass.
"Yessss you fool!"
I forced my bleeding hands back under the water as soon as I felt the raw pain return.
"All this pain you feel is the fault of those around you. Those who were suspicious of you and hated you for it! Our own dear father even wanted us dead. You are a fool Sada-Chan, you who will let them get away with it."
I went to heatedly disagree with her but something stopped me and I pondered her words for a while. Was I a fool? Where they all laughing at me now?
"You know the world is glad to be rid of Yamamura Sadako, they hate all things that they fail to understand."
Another shard of glass wedged itself into my breaking heart. Again I thought of Toyama and the love he had shown me. Was it only through fear of his own life? I thought of his kiss, so tender and warm. No one could have faked such raw emotion. I clenched my fists in anger but the pain of my shredded fingers stops me.
"You liar." I hiss back, in the exact way that she does to me.
"Believe what you want naïve sister for I read it in his heart."
I go to scream at her but her earlier words suddenly come back to me….for he has bigger plans for us." An eerie whining immediately fills the atmosphere of the well, I look around for the source as the unnatural sound seem to seep into my very nerve endings and make my innards grind with fear.
"Wha…what is it?" I ask, starting to shake again.
"Listen well." Is the only reply that comes.
The haunting sound seems to consume me, images of static and nailess hands bombard me. I know this is her doing, I believe I am being shown the noises and images inside her head. The noise starts to sub side as quickly as it started and beneath it's whining I hear what seems to be whispering. I strain to hear it but it seems to be a chant or warning of some kind and I know she wants me to hear. The screeching slowly becomes one with the sound of the whispers that are rising up around me and suddenly the whispered words become clear to me.
"Frolic in Brine, Goblins be Thine."
The well fell silent as if I had imagined all that had just taken place but the warning had sounded so familiar to me. I knew it meant something important and that it had been said to me by someone I used to know! I could not think of that now though, I had to press her for more answers.
"Who has bigger plans for us?" How small my voice sounded! Her merciless laughter stung my ears.
"Who?" I asked, my voice full of misery.
Only silence answered me.
She began to force the images of the way people had treated me into my head. I saw my teachers never including me in lessons, being ridiculed in the playground, my mother slowly losing her mind to madness and my humiliation at the big performance this very day. The tears stung my freezing face with their heat as memory after memory was forced into my head. My troupe beating me to death, their accusations and hatred! Finally the one that hurt the most, my own father leaving me for dead in this stone prison! The shards of glass penetrated my heart for every single thing that had been done to me. For all the mistrust, hurt, name calling and being left to rot. Toyama was running out of space in there, the shards paving over his memory with bitterness and anger.
"Yes," I heard her whisper "all of them betrayed you."
"Why are you forcing these thoughts into me?" I asked, wiping the tears away.
"It gets easier to do, the weaker you become. You will notice that as you weaken Sada-Chan , the images will get stronger and then I will take you over completely. You must see the truth of your life."
"But why?" I dared to ask.
"So that we can take revenge upon the world!"
It was said with such malice that I was stunned into silence. I shifted my numb body, waiting to hear if she would say more. I still didn't dare to even take a fleeting look at my hands.
"Surrender Sadako, give your whole body to me now!"
At her raised voice, the evil whining started up.
"Stop!" I shouted, "Stop. Who has plans for us? Is it father? Is he just hiding me until things settle down again after all that happened today?"
"Fool!"
The words hit me in the chest full force, leaving me breathless and weakened yet further. The screeching intensified.
"Th..then who?" I managed to gasp out. Above the deafening sound of the eerie grinding, I heard her whisper the words in my ear, no more than a quite sigh it seemed,
"Our real father."