"In my own turn

I'm trying to reach out I know I'll get there soon

There's a hole in the earth here

And we're walking round the edges

You were flaunting all your open wounds

I can't express them better than you."

Music by Daughter,

"A Hole In the Earth."

Bruce's Point of View

(A tie-in with "The Blade's Redemption (yet

To be published.)

The music sounds so loud in my ears, and it's the only thing I can hear above the high chatter of complete strangers accompanying the warehouse with me. A deep bass is pumping in and out from my chest, trembling my toes and fingers while making my skin vibrate--working with the lights and bodies jumping all around over the quivering floor. The energy is purely sensational; the music and feel and people on every single side of me. Emphatic, full-volumed sound mixed with an intense feeling that drowns out everything from the city. The noise, the talk, the crimes, the sirens, and the wails of the helpless is all nothing but distant ringing in the memories of the mind. And everything I feel is nothing but a deep exhilarating innervation pulsing in and out of every inch of my skin.

Hot, skin against skin, bumping alcohol soaked shoulders with my dance mates and friends who are as high at the nonexistent stars overhead, but it is something I no longer bother to trouble myself caring about. Just as I don't bother to care that I've consumed well over my weight and age in alcohol--and some of my friends are already well on their way to throwing up. I don't even have a clue about what I'm doing anymore but moving my limbs in such a jagged, flailing motion as I am overwhelmed with so much sensation and fake joy then anyone could ever ask for. The burning coated over my lips makes me forget… and sets me free.

My sight is blurry but the colors of the party remained clear pinks, blues and yellows spinning all around me. Flushing past in vivid swirls and blinding illumination. Faces change their shapes, and hands touch me all over but I can't be bothered to pull myself away--even if it feels wrong. I should be afraid, I should want to push past them and flee into the safety of my home for the way they make my body feel; but all I want to do is pull them closer and let them touch me in inappropriate places. And even though that frightens me, I am much too far away in the lights and the sound to care. Much too high on the energy propelled from body to body with all my troubles falling through with every step I take, bouncing off the step of the next person.

Each drink of hard liquor is like salvation on my tongue. A poison that feeds desire and addiction swallowing up every regret I've ever had and all the faces of those I'm seeing floating away in the crowd. Every sip puts them further into my mind until I can't see them anymore. Burning at first but then falling down as easy as water itself. Taking my problems down with it and replacing them with the crazy want to do things I've never imagined doing before. Things that are so outside myself that almost make me not myself. I am a body, that is me, but the insides are all screwed up. Like meat in a meat grinder.

A girl--Grace, I think, comes up to me and puts her hands on my chest. Her mouth around mine in a second and we're kissing. Drunken, sloppy gestures of embrace that only escalate as the moments count beside us. I don't exactly know what I'm doing, but when she sticks her tongue past my lips the vodka coated inside my mouth figures out what to do when our tongues began dancing together as close as we are. I don't even think about any of it as her tongue overlaps mine and mine to her inside our lips--or the way her hands move against me, forcing us more together. The way I have to keep my eyes closed so I don't see her face, and the way I feel like I need another shot because my hands are against her bare shoulder blades shaking and afraid; it's like I am horribly aware but so far away from control. Out of control and unbalanced, the feel of Grace's arms around me and the flick of her tongue somehow being the only things to keep me steady.

Someone passes me another shot, someone I feel as though I know, but I'm too dizzy to register who they are or what they're giving me. But still, I put some distance between Grace's face and she gives me space wiping her cherry lips with the back of her hand. She mouths something beneath her wicked smile and before I'm able to ask what she said the DJ playing the music pops another bottle and the contents are spraying all over our faces like acid rain. Everyone starts to scream and holler with an overwhelming sense of exacerbation and soon enough I am joining with them. The rain soaks our clothes and turns us wet; I turn to my drink that is half filled and let it kiss me the way Grace had, its kiss beginning to overflow over the rim of the glass. Like the tap water in a tub filling the basin. Fast and hot until it's reached the very pinch on the edge, overflowing and spilling like a fire in the woods. Feeling better I finally open my eyes and stand in shock and fear. Grace is now gone and it is just I, standing alone in a wide circle of strangers. But they are not strangers actually… they are Alfred and Selina's mother, Maria, dancing together in a warm, passionate embrace. Jim and Lee are there too… Grace and Tommy are there too, and ten-year-old Ivy Pepper with a much older Bridgit Pike--kissing almost as Grace and I were. And Karen is standing there too somehow… her skin covered in the color of blue ice… She leans her chin on Bridgit's shoulder, begging for the same kind of attention. Alex… He too is standing there in the crowd with a familiar trail of blood running down his school shirt. My parents are there too--they are ignoring me and dancing close much like Maria and Alfred, but a bit more freely.

My lip is quivering and I try to take a drink to silence the faces and make them disappear again. I've failed to even notice that the music seems so far away now… One sip trails down my chin. Then another, missing my mouth more rapidly, trying to catch up quick with the first sip. The third time the glass falls from my fingers and smashes deliberately at my feet--shattering into deadly shards I'm sure someone could trip over and severely hurt themselves with. I look down to make some kind of gesture to remove the infraction--but I almost fall over and feel like I'm going to be sick. The translucent bit of drink in my glass has turned to thick stains of blood at my feet--spreading against the dirt on the floor.

I shut my eyes tight and press my palms against my temporal lobes, trying to block out the silence and the faces on my own. I open them foolishly and see the skeleton of Ra's mocking me. Mimicking the pain I inflicted on him over and over. I shut my eyes again, breathing heavy with my heart rate going so fast I think I might explode. I realize then that the wetness on my face and the tears in my eyes are not from the intoxication that had once graced the air, but from the tears in my eyes from crying. Hot, wet drops blocking my view… I sink to my knees in despair and the feeling of an utter failure--wipe the tears from my face but they just keep coming and coming until I feel a hand on my shoulder and come to the deep sorrow that I've never cried harder in my whole life. It is just a hand without a face or a person, I can see it in my mind's eye, but I am too afraid to know, but I wonder if it is Alfred. If it is my father, begging me to come to him. Maybe even Jim, pleading that I see the glorious light once again. It is a comfort… yet when I open my eyes again, it is all diminished…

"It's like an old ruin

Your father's a liar while my father's lying down

In a hole in the earth there

And I'm scared I'll forget him

I'm still haunted by those open wounds

I won't express them truly to you."

… there, lying on the ground in the blood from my glass, are my parents. There arms and legs bent in such a fashion that is grotesque… their faces so white and their mouths open. My father lying like a man gone to such waste in the ground that has manifested beneath my fingers. Fresh dirt digging into my nails when I squeeze my palms into fists. Fresh blood seeping from their mouths and chest… I've failed. I know that now. I've always known how I failed them, and everyone who I am trying to forget…

How I hurt.

I scream. As loud and piercing as I can muster with all but my twelve-year-old boyish lungs; until I am so red in the face with the tears residing in my memories burning again and my throat turning raw. I am screaming so loud and yet I cannot hear myself. I am screaming until a white light shines down on my family and I am screaming alone because little by little, the faces have started to fade away--bodies and all. Disappearing into the dark and making way for the light…

"I have so much hurt inside me

Friend make sense of me, friend make sense of me

I have so much hurt inside me

Friend make sense of me, friend make sense of me."

I scream until my I feel my heart might give out, but I find a hand to my chest and beg it to hold on just a little longer so I may scream some more. I scream for my parents, and I scream for the city. I scream for everyone else who has ever lost a life and I scream for every life I have ruined. I scream alone until a stranger comes from the bright light, grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me through the crowd.