Salvation - Skillet
All alone, lost in this abyss
Crawling in the dark
Nothing to wet my longing lips
And I wonder where you are...
...Are you far?
Will you come to my rescue?
Am I left to die?
But I can't give up on you
Ren
I woke up face down on the cold concrete floor to the sight of black boots. I followed them all the way up to creamy thighs where lace garters held up black stockings and disappeared beneath an impossibly short leather skirt. I could smell my own cologne lingering on the woman who was staring down at me. She was slim and dainty but her dominatrix attire told me she was stronger than she looked. A black leather corset clung to her torso and her stance in that short skirt let me know she didn't care that I could see her panties.
"How long do you plan on sleeping?" She asked prodding my shoulder with her toe. I tried to reach up to grab her but my hands wouldn't move. "Don't struggle." Looking down I saw ropes tying my arms to my side, my legs were bound together as well, leaving my head the only part of me I had any control of.
Kicking me she shoved me to my back and sat on my chest. "You've been a bad boy, leaving me all alone."
"I'm sorry," I knew I was dreaming because the knife appeared in her hand out of no where. Her sadistic black smile failed to scare me, she'd never hurt me. At least I doubted she ever would kill me.
"Are you? Then why won't you wake up already?" Her voice came from behind me and her lips didn't move. I twisted my neck in search of the other her I knew was there. That one wore a striped sweater too large for her frame and nothing else that I could see. She'd been crying so much, her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. "You don't plan on leaving me forever do you?"
"No, of course not." I watched her slim bare legs carry her over to me. She'd lost weight, she was so thin she looked as if her bones would snap.
"Liar! You were going to see her!" The one on my chest gripped my chin digging her nails in and forcing me to look at her. Her knife glided down my face creating a shallow cut on my cheek. "I should punish you for that."
"You'll only drive him further away from us." She said falling to her knees and bending over my head. Her short messy hair hung down tickling my forehead. Kissing the cut she pushed the knife away. "I don't want him to leave me."
"I won't leave you, Na..." rough lips covered my own, cutting off my words with a brutal kiss. She bit down on my tongue and pulled on my bottom lip not caring how much it hurt.
"Is she who you want? This pathetic girl, who's been crying all day?"
"Of course he wants me! Without me he'd be stuck with you, you unbearable ice-cold bitch!" The dominatrix laughed sliding down my stomach until it was my hips she straddled.
"I think he likes me just fine. You're the bothersome one, with all your psychotic mood swings. Ren, tell her you don't need her here." Rolling her hips against me she made it hard for me to concentrate, but they were both waiting for me to speak.
"I love both of you." It was the truth. To me she was perfect even if she was crazy and a sadist.
"What utter bullshit. It's me he wants all to himself." She was a dressed up doll in an elaborate cage. "I sing for him and only him. Every thought I have is of him. He wants me so bad it hurts. His little house wife with three kids and a life built entirely around him. Isn't that sweet?" Cynical and defiant even though she had given in to my every whim. All around her cage there were pictures of me and children who resembled me, she wore clothes I had bought for her and a bowl of miso soup rested in her hands.
"You don't even exist!" The other two screamed at her, one crying the other holding her knife up as a blatant threat.
"Ren, you don't need them do you?" My little sadist asked still moving her hips in a slow torturous motion against me. "After all, you taught me everything I know. All that I am is thanks to you." My body reacted to her without my permission bringing a twisted smile to her lips. "See he loves me." Loud sobs echoed around the empty white space.
"Don't cry," I pleaded wishing I could make her happy.
"Shut up!" The knife swung out slicing through her sweater into her chest. They lunged for each other fighting over the knife.
"No!" Freed from my confines I forced my legs underneath me and ran to them but I could do nothing to stop the knife from plunging into her chest. "No. N...no... don't die. Don't leave me."
Naked and in one single form she fell against me, "that's my line." Useless to save her I fall to the floor cradling her head to my chest. "How many times do you plan on killing me? How long must I suffer, for not being more like her?" Confused by her words I looked down at her chest where the knife rested in my hand still stabbing into her. Melodic singing came from the cage but it was not my girl in there, it was Reira all dressed up and singing her heart out.
"You wanted her so bad you killed yourself for her."
"No! I don't want her." Setting her down on the floor I removed my leather jacket, it was full of both fresh and dried blood, our blood. I used it as a pillow for her head then took off my shirt to hold over the wound and try to stop the bleeding. "I want you. Don't you dare die on me."
"My line." She stated sullen and unconvinced. "Please don't leave me." Getting up on her knees she gripped the knife and gave it a twist. "Don't give her everything. Where's your fight? What happened to your passionate soul? I don't even know who you are anymore." Pulling the knife out she handed it over with what must have been her heart attached to it. "Sell out." It looked more like a guitar with broken strings than a heart, but it was beating and bleeding.
A sudden smile tugged at her lips then she laughed, "you have really fucked up dreams. Must be the drugs she's hooked you on."
"Stop blaming everything on her."
Sad again she glared at the woman who was still singing in the cage. "I'm so pathetic aren't I. Waiting for you to wake up when she's all you ever cared about."
She disappeared, leaving me alone and taking everything with her even the light. There is nothing without her, I don't even know who I am anymore.
'I'll give you anything. I'd give you everything, if you'd just come back to me.' Warmth spread through me, starting on my left side where something soft snuggled against me. It was so unbearably warm and pain shot through me as her hand came out of no where and stabbed into my chest.
"Wake up!"
Nana
Sometime during the night I felt something stir beneath me. Irritated that something had interrupted my happy dreams I groped around for the blanket to pull over my head and sleep longer. I was content in my dreams with Ren and a child. Whether it was a boy or a girl I did not know but it had choppy black hair and sweet brown eyes like Ren. This child had none of my harsh looks or cynical personality. This was a cute child, easily liked and never mocked. I was slightly jealous of it for having Ren as a father. I wanted to stay in our old apartment with our loving child and never return to reality, but the bed under me shifted stiffly and gave a guttural half moan half cry.
"Ow." It sounded like it said and a foul smell penetrated my nose, it smelled of sanitized death. The noxious odor of the hospital jolted me awake and my memories of Ren and the accident flooded back causing my head to spin. A croak left his mouth and I looked up as sweet brown eyes, exactly the same as the ones in my dream, opened and snapped shut again against the dim light that I had not shut off.
"Ren, you're alive." I tried to hold it in but I was overcome with pure bliss. My arms found their way around his neck and I began to cry forgetting the machines he had hooked up to him and that he was probably confused.
"Ow!" That seemed like the only word he could get out, everything he tried to say was a garbled mess thanks to the tubes.
"I'm sorry," careful not to cause him more harm I moved away and perched myself on the edge of his bed.
That hadn't lasted long, I couldn't keep myself from touching him. Despite the tube in his mouth all I wanted to do was kiss him. Without thinking I placed a quick kiss to his cheek then his forehead and all over his jaw. He said nothing, but his eyes fogged with confusion, watched my every move. His broken hands lay limp at his side but I knew he was trying to move them. I could tell by the look in his eyes both confused and annoyed that he wanted his hands to reach up and pull my lips to his for a proper kiss. I kissed him as best I could with the tube in the way, earning a curious look. Completely unsatisfied Ren grunted and tried to spit the tube out.
"Don't hurt yourself." I said petting his hair and taking deep breaths. "You were in an accident and they put this in." Lightly tapping the tube I tried to remember what it was for. "So you could breath I think or eat maybe." Eyeing the bags of fluids hooked to him through an IV I wondered if one of those was for giving him nutrients. "I Should have listened to the doctor."
I looked at him and my eyes welled up with fresh tears staring at his open ones. "You're alive." I squeaked pressing my face to his chest. The stench of charred flesh clogged my nostrils and I cried harder. "You didn't leave me behind."
Pained noises escaped his mouth. Short groans that almost sounded like words but still the only intelligible word was, "Ow."
Apologetically I lifted my head and wiped at the bandaged mess that was his chest. Those strong lean muscles used to make me feel as if nothing could hurt me but the accident had left them scarred and they had gone unused for so long he had become as weak as any human. In my own eyes, he was no longer as out of reach to me as I had once thought, he was not a wonderful dream I had dreamed up to escape my lonely life but a reality I had taken for granted. He was my life and I had almost lost him.
Crying I looked back into his soft groggy brown eyes staring at me. At first I couldn't place the look in his eyes but the longer I stared into them the more my heart broke. Those dark depths that were losing their coma induced haze gazed back at me still filled with confusion.
"Ren, do you remember what happened?" He blinked a few times as if there were an image painted on his eyelids that could help him answer the question.
Swallowing a few times he spoke as best he could around the tube in his mouth. "I... uh... I…drrrrvvg.." It seemed he was in pain from trying to remember the full details of the accident. After some time he gave up sinking deeper into his pillows.
"Can you tell me your full name?" It was getting harder for me to breathe the longer he remained silent, and I almost wished this was a dream. "Do you know who you are?"