DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. Lyrics from the song "Wait and Bleed" (in italics) belong to Slipknot.
~ Wait and Bleed ~
This is not how I pictured me.
Fleshless fingertips scrabble on stone. The skin is gone, long peeled away.
Can't remember who. Someone. Torture? Pain. Torn flesh.
The skin, the meaning behind the peeled hands...
Reaching for something far away. Something on the other side of the stone.
With blood for ink, bared bones paint indecipherable runes on the walls.
I can't control my shakes.
Cold. So cold.
Muscles scream in protest as the body tries to fold farther in on itself.
Something. Something other than the cold - a more important goal. A mission that is most imperative to the- something or other.
Ragged nails worked loose from their beds. Still clawing uselessly at the stone.
Freedom. Ah, yes, freedom - that was the thing. The thing beyond the stone, the thing which is deeply desired but sought in vain. Impossible to reach with these fingers - these bloody fingers with their ripped flesh and loosened nails.
Cold, so cold. Always so cold.
Breath turns to frost in the air, but blood still runs - drips, falls. Stains on the stone. Not life anymore, but red reminiscent remnants of previous vitality.
What does warmth even feel like? Can't remember.
How the hell did I get here?
Things, bad things. So many bad things.
A veritable plethora of them.
And pain, such pain. Some given, some received.
Someone screaming. Who? Unfamiliar voice. Or perhaps familiar after all. Can't remember.
Cold. So cold.
Screaming again, or still screaming from before?
Other screams sometimes sound, but this one is constant. Consistent. Inconsiderate. Inconsolable.
To whom does the voice belong?
Blood on the stone.
Ah, yes, the thing... And now, once more, scrabbling fruitlessly at the stone with warped and withered claws. Reaching to reclaim what was lost.
Beyond the stone, ah, out there, outside these walls, beyond the stone, beyond the realm of screams and cold and claws, there is something.
Something? What?
Can't remember. A beautiful, wonderful thing - or, at least, a good thing.
Must be a good thing. Wouldn't a bad thing. Have enough bad things already - a veritable plethora of them.
Something about this, so very wrong...
Can't remember any good things anymore. Used to. Used to remember good things.
Remembering good things makes it colder.
Almost warm now? No. Breaths still smoking in the air.
A little less cold, though. But not for long now... never for long.
And, ah, yes, the ice reaches through to places the sun could never touch.
A familiar voice from days long past. Not real, no, but an echo of such - a shadow that stains a soul with an indelible memento of memory.
Pain, so much pain. Like knives, like acid and glass, and also like none of those things. Indescribable.
But the peeled skin wasn't then, and it is now.
A different torment, this one fire.
Yet still the cold remains...
Is this a dream or a memory?
Someone is screaming.
Whose voice is it?
Ah...
Mine.
~end~