I sprint down the street. No one else sees the monsters, but I do. Those wretched time-keepers, pretenders, acting as the Fates themselves. They stare at me, measuring out my life span as if it were one thread needed for a tapestry. So meaningless, so disposable. Replaceable. I am replaceable like a toy fire truck given to a child. A child too small to understand that every little thing it does has a consequence. So each time it drives that scarlet engine into those whitewashed walls, it damages the plastic in its hand and the plaster of that barrier. In this way it creates a ripple effect because now Mom and Dad have to go buy paint to fix the scuff marks. That money they gave the old cashier, with the piercing gray eyes that bore into the child’s own, will go back into buying paint for the store to restock. From there it travels into the purchase of dye and from there, as wages for those who produce. It then changes hands again to buy a little red fire truck for some other kid in some other apartment building on the other side of the world. It has a popcorn ceiling.

Popcorn. I’m popcorn as I sprint down these neon-lit streets. The air around me feels dense and heavy, it’s getting difficult to breathe. As if I were a kernel in a bag, losing oxygen as the temperature around me rose to a near unbearable heat. The congealed oils begin to melt, sliding down my forehead and onto the pavement below. Is it processed butter or is it me trying to stop the burning?! It all becomes too much as I continue to spin in endless, dizzying circles. I'm nauseous and my head feels like it’s about to burst as that ever-present humming noise plays in my head, over and over, driving me to madness. It’s worse than any white noise I’ve ever heard. Air becomes impossible to take in and I start to gasp. I look to my left and right and see other people bursting.  No… not quite bursting. It’s the monsters. They’re tearing the people apart, limb from limb, scattering them across the sidewalk in a mosaic of blood, bone, bile. Heads bursting, morbid popcorn. I'm coming undone at my seams and I run faster. The neon lights are both too bright and yet not bright enough. This back and forth of the lights causes severe pain behind my right eye.

Lights. I can’t stand these neon lights that I’ve come to loathe yet rely on all at once. They cause the worst of migraines. But if I don’t have them, then the monsters can finally sink their talons into me. I see them, their centipede-like bodies curling around skyscrapers and buildings. Their jackal eyes staring. Waiting for me to slip up. Even a small bit, so they can cut that tapestry-firetruck-thread and end my sorry existence. Would it be a mercy? What even is mercy? Because all of life is nothing more than an illusion before death. So bringing anyone into this world is nothing more than an act of cruelty because we all die one day. Living with that knowledge is the worst fate you could ever bestow on someone. But the lights somehow keep it all at bay, blinding me. Making my eye feel like it’s bleeding and that someone split my head open with an ax. As if I were Zeus, but this time, there's no beautiful goddess of wisdom formed. The lights give my mind something to think about, however painful. They keep those nightmares of shadows away from me. If those lights ever flicker out, if that forsaken neon glow ever fades even by one shade, I’m done for.

I’m too terrified to even think. Because those lights are spinning, or maybe I’m spinning, because the world sure isn’t spinning. I can’t tell what’s up and what’s down. Down. I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole now and all I have is envy. Envy towards Alice because at least she had the excuse of being on narcotics. Here, all I can do is sprint down the pavement with monsters at my heels, hands, and in front of my face. They whisper, scream, roar, all the beautiful and horrible secrets of the universe. Continuing to burden my mind even further, increasing the pain. I can’t breathe. I can’t feel. All I know is my feet keep slamming into the ground as I run like a man on fire. Oh stars and diamonds... I am on fire! Because everything feels too warm and the ground is spinning and the monsters keep screaming and I'm lost in a fever pitch. Fever pitch? Fever dream? Fever. I need to take my temperature. What are all the monsters going to think if I get sick? They’ll see it as a weakness. They’ll use it. The lights will go out, and they’ll all rush forward, desperate to take a piece of me before I’m gone. Like magpies. Magpies!? 

I slam to a stop with such force that I almost fall forward onto the concrete. My head on a swivel, it makes my nausea ten times worse as I scan the streets for any of those damned magpie-monsters. Or it could be that it’s not the Magpies at all but the Vultures. It’s some sort of scavenger. I can feel it breathing down my neck, humming with that stars and diamonds damned white noise! Sound for sound as if sound didn’t matter. As if it wasn’t powerful. As if it didn’t drive me mad. Because white noise is sound without meaning. So if sound has no meaning, I myself am meaningless right? Because if something as prominent as sound has lost all meaning, does anything have meaning anymore? I keep turning but whatever scavenger is there continues to remain hidden. So I start running again. One… two… three… four… rhythmic beats against the pavement. Even now, I can’t escape that rhythm training from all those years ago. Those years on a stage under those glaring spotlights… lights that warded off the monsters far better than these neons.

Spotlight. The name I gave to myself when I first came to this monster-infested wasteland of a city. As a desperate attempt to hide myself and keep them further at bay. But it’s not working anymore as everything spins, blinds, and hurts. The space behind my right eye and above it burns with an agenda so fierce that I want to pull my own eye out. I can’t take much more of this. This white noise, the spinning, the nausea, the blinding lights, the raging monsters, it’s all too much. I stumble my way into a dim alleyway, staying under the single lamp for some form of protection. Everything is everywhere, everytime, everyone, everyday, everyman, everywoman, every-all-of-us-in-between-or-off-the-binary. It’s all too much. The heat rises once again and bile rises in the back of my throat. I’m not exactly gasping for air so much as I am whimpering in pain, palm pressed over my eye. Everything is burning. I’m burning, my bright colors turning to nothing but dull, gray ash. I try to find a point to center myself on. But everything is spinning out of control and I don’t even think what I’m seeing is real. There’s no wall across from me, no concrete beneath me, only spinning illusions. 

It can’t be a hallucination, I didn’t take or drink anything! I haven’t even eaten today because I know a monster put poison in it. The thought sends another wave of nausea over me. I’m trembling… no the world is trembling. I’ve caused an earthquake with how many monsters have leapt from their perch and begun to close in around me. Buildings fall, glass breaks, stones crumble around me, only nothing is here. Nothing but empty, meaningless, white noise as the street lamp over me begins to flicker. I’m sitting in more nothingness, the darkness from which the monsters come. I’ve never been a religious person. But when I glance up at that flickering lamp, I find myself pleading for some higher being to pay the electric company and keep the light on. If only for a little longer. I'm not ready for these shadows to tear me apart. Not like this. Because that thought of self-preservation reminds me how young I am. I’m only twenty-one. But… if living is the worst cruelty, then is death mercy? No. Death isn’t a mercy either because then you have to face that black oblivion. That dark, unexplored unknown. 

I’m drifting through space and time as the monsters stalk closer and the light flickers again. I’m headed towards a black hole, something not even a spotlight’s shine can pull away from. The destroyer of stars and diamonds alike, a portal from which all goes in and all that remains is dark matter. The final rabbit hole in which no amounts of lead or tea or mushrooms will help me escape. It’s a harrowing thought, knowing I can't do anything to prevent going in and have to face my greatest fear. The unknown beyond this life. It’s all too much and I become popcorn again. I’m coming undone at the seams, about to burst. The heat burns, the lights jab knives into my head, nausea crashes over me in waves. That white humming noise is still following me and I still can’t breathe. The light flickers, I send out another desperate plea into the other darkness, the one dotted with stars. Help me, I plead, don’t leave me here alone! But nothing answers. No higher being swoops down to cast the monsters away, who by now have realized that I’m weak. I’ve always been weak. From the moment I opened my eyes I was nothing more than a weakling pretending to be strong. 

The popcorn feeling becomes all too much, and finally, I burst. I explode, my hard shell giving way to the fragile interior, dissolved with ease. Destroyed with ease. Bile rises so fast I can’t stop it, and I retch onto the asphalt. I cough a few times as the monsters all shift around me, whispering their dark, demented secrets. Some whisper, some scream, but I can’t hear what they’re saying over the white noise. Something drips down my face, and I realize I’m crying. The whole world all at once is shaking and spinning. A rollercoaster neglected by refurbishment, ignored by repair. Unwitting passengers sent to their demise that no seat belt could ever save them from. I despise this ride as I retch again, choking on the bile and acid as the rancid taste fills my mouth. The light flickers again. The monsters are playing with the bulb. The world is shaking, I’m shaking. I’m on fire, but there aren’t any flames. None that anyone but myself can see, and for the first time since I came to this place, I’m terrified. I’ve been afraid before, but never like this. This dread weighs heavy on my bones and increases the splitting pain, pulling me down towards the asphalt. The light flickers once… twice… and then it goes out. NO!

The monsters stand there for a moment in sheer disbelief. After years of trying, they finally have me at my lowest. My heart stops when I realize that I am alone. In every sense of the word. There’s no one who’s going to save me. No one will care when I’m gone. I’m about to be nothing more than a meal to these rabid and raging beasts. I won’t even have a stone with a name written on with a sharpie. What would someone even write about me for my obituary? I let out a choked sob that turns into two, four, six, eight, this I do not appreciate. I’m sobbing, eyes wide open, staring at the ground. My hands run through and pull at my hair. Maybe… just maybe… if I pull it all out, then the agony behind my eye will subside. Maybe I can bargain with these monsters. But then the world tilts sideways and I’ve sprawled out on that dark stone that reeks of vomit. I can’t stop crying, tears stained with makeup, rushing down my face in raging rivers. I can hardly catch my breath at all. This makes the dizziness of there being no walls and no ground, but walls and a ground at the same time so much worse. Nothing makes any sense and the white noise increases to a fever dream. Pitch. Fever. I’m sick and the monsters know it.

Three of them with their shadowed faces and unidentifiable bodies stalk towards me, talking to each other. I can’t hear them over my own pitiful wails and gasps for air. Their voices are so distorted and confusing, that I register it as more white noise. Lynch would be proud. Their jeering faces glow neon and I realize that the glow that once protected me, was now about to play a role in my vivisection. I look at the leader of the three and we hold each other’s gaze for a moment. Part of me hears the word pathetic before without any warning, their tendrils and talons seize me. I can’t even fight back because as soon as they give the command, every monster around descends on me. They’re tearing into me as predicted, piece by piece. I’m awake for it all and I feel every horrible moment, too afraid to look. One of the main trio takes my prosthesis as I writhe in pain and casts it aside, preventing me from running. As if I could run with the pinsirs of a half millipede half cow monster tearing out my intestines. 

They drag me closer and closer to that black hole and the fear returns, spiking my heartrate to unhealthy levels. Hyperventilating is part of the experience now and everything feels like it’s turned to ash. My vocal cords won’t respond, they’ve been torn away and consumed by one of these fiends. It’s like I’m split between two realities now. One where I drift closer to that terrifying empty death. The other where I’m paraded through the streets in pieces by this troupe of horrors. They’re screaming, whispering, talking, jeering. So proud of themselves for beginning to tear life from limb. The buildings and lights around me are spinning and shaking so much that all I can see is a swirl of neon colors paired with the blacks and grays of the concrete and bricks. The glass that reflects the light does nothing to help. My head throbs as parasitic monsters burrow their way into it. Eventually, I’m dragged to the edge of the black hole and as I stare into it, panic evident, the monsters let out a rally cry. One of them says my name. Vincent Shane. I try to choke out the world no. But, torn apart and shoved back together to the point where nothing will respond. 

I’m alone. I’m burning up. I’m sick. I’m dizzy. I’m scared. Oh stars and diamonds I’m scared. It’s true what they all say, about seeing your life flash before your eyes. In so little of the illusion of time, I see it all. I see those moments in the golden heat of the sun. The rebellious sparks forged in the classroom as I cracked jokes and broke screens. I remember the horror and disgust on my parent’s faces when I came home with dyed hair. Based on those scarlet and cyan locks alone, they made up their minds that they never should’ve kept me. I was nothing more than a young Lost Boy who needed guidance down the right path. I remember the struggle to accept myself. I ran away from that place, the place where the monsters first appeared, when I was only seventeen. I see my time in the traveling circus, with its bold orange and yellow tents. I remember the roar of the crowd, The thrill of the spotlight. The endless hours of backbreaking practice where I would throw knives until the skin on my palms and fingertips tore. I remember that moment, where I realized the monsters had found me. There was one across from me, and I buried that knife into his neck. Every moment.

It amounted to nothing. In every memory there’s a feeling of inadequacy. My entire life, from start to finish, was all a mistake. An insignificant, disposable, replaceable speck in the entirety of existence. I can already see who they’ll replace me with. Somewhere out there, there’s a rosy cheeked infant, smiling up with large, innocent, brown eyes. Her family crowds around her, crooning and repeating gibberish back to her like parrots. She doesn’t know that those people are pretending to be kind. That behind their bright eyes is a dark resentment towards her very existence. Even so, when they turn towards me, eyes glowing with a frigid white light, I see they resent me more. They’re ecstatic that I’m soon to fall into that black hole behind me. They see it play out like some sitcom, complete with my overacting and this lack of decent lighting. I hear them laugh, it’s a white noise and laugh track hybrid. Those laughs…  they’re the laughs of the dead and the far gone. I’ll be one of them soon because everything I am has been nothing more than a pitiful mistake. 

I’m tired, exhausted from holding up this facade of being some confident showman. I’m rotting from the inside. Repressed anger and resentment finally bursting through, turning my insides to sludge. I’m terrified, I sleep with the light on like a toddler scared of that thing with claws hiding under those four corners of the bedposts. I say all the wrong things, pulling myself and others further into danger because stars and diamonds forbid I not take the flashy way out. Let them forbid that I ever dare to think of not keeping this mask on. I was right the whole time because now the mask has fallen and the monsters have gotten ahold of me at last. The white-eyed freaks drag be even closer, talons digging into my shoulder. It adds more pain to the pile. I sense the greedy pull of the emptiness mere feet ahead of me. I hear the monsters’ cruel laugh. I try to say something, scream something, choke something out in response. Or maybe I don’t because I'm torn in half, floating through two realities and I’m about to die in both of them. 

Finally, the leader of these monsters with his piercing gaze stares into my soul. Burning. Spinning. Blinding. Everything hurts and everything is too much. Life is too cruel and death is no more of a mercy. We hold each other’s gaze for one moment longer before I’m shoved into that dark abyss. I don’t register it at first. I just fall backwards like a torn ragdoll knocked off some polished oak shelf. Falling past dusty china plates and worn-leather bound books. Then, it all registers all at once. The white noise screams as the unbearable heat is now replaced with freezing cold. The endless vacuum of nothing surrounds me and it’s every bit as terrifying as I always knew it would be. I open my mouth to scream but no sound comes out. They can’t hear you scream if you’re alone in nothing. No one is coming to save you. No one cares. Worthless. Pathetic. Replaceable. Disposable. Foolish. It feels like every atom in my body is both on fire and drowning in liquid nitrogen. Maybe it is. Maybe in one world, I’m burned. The other, frozen. 

Because it’s the vast nothingness of space, I begin to choke. There’s no air in this endless void. The less air I have, the louder the white noise becomes. Now it’s some horrific hybrid of nails on a chalkboard, the scrap of metal against metal, and the screech of microphone feedback. I can’t hear myself screaming with it, but I can feel it. That burning cold enters my lungs where the air used to be and I start trying to force it out with desperation. The more I try, the more that ink all around me, the line at the edge of the universe chokes me. The icy burn spreads over my bones, collects at the back of my neck, and then shoots down my spine. Pain laces down it, as delicate as thread and as sharp as white-hot barbed wire. That’s when I see it. It circles this entire void before turning to face me. I can’t tell what it is. All I know is that the moment it sees me, the moment I see it, I know that I’m about to die. Eyes, glowing scarlet, the only light in this place, is not enough to illuminate the rest of it. It’s far too vast for the glow of mortality, which only makes it more terrifying. Its mouth is nothing more than an emptiness, somehow even darker than the total black of this space. For the first time in my meaningless existence, I have nothing to say. Nothing to think about. As if paralyzed by the cold that I now realize is a product of its crimson gaze. Before I can try to form words, it charges at me. For one moment, I am a tree and in the next I’m consumed by a blaze. The white noise blares until my eardrums bleed and as soon as it snaps its jaws around me, everything goes silent.

This silence is far too loud, far too total for anyone to understand. No simulation, no substance, no dramatic loss of hearing would ever match this complete and total muting of the universe. Memories show themselves to me before breaking away like ash and fading into oblivion. I see it all, watching my own personal movie, a life filled with endless misuse of time. I want to cry but I can’t. I don’t have the strength nor the breath to cry. The tears I had fought back for so long never get a chance to spill over, never get to carry my pain away. For too many years, I pretended I was okay with my life. That when life gave me lemons, I would put on a brave face and learn to juggle. In the end, what did it all get me? I poured my soul onto a stage for an audience that couldn’t be bothered to learn my pronouns or get to know the real me. So I traded the black stage and red curtains for bright tents and brighter costumes. A jack-of-all-trades, I stepped in when needed and never let the exhaustion show during my time in the light. But everything around me was trivial, that this came and went and came and went in a repeating cycle. I was stuck in a loop instead of running forward. Which is how those monsters came to find me. 

My time in the Abyss was as empty as my time in the circus. I played the role of a confident leader, keeping all my fear and sorrow behind the locked door of my apartment. I never let them see the real me. Who even was the real me? Whoever they were, they’re gone now. I can feel them leaving as the little memory pieces float away. I see the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, that I’ve been here. Each triumph and defeat, every moment of hope and despair. My past floats away, followed by my present like a lost boy following John Darling. It leaves me with the empty expanse my consciousness floats in. My desolate, non-existent future. Everything dampens and dulls, any and all feeling giving way to a hollowness. I’ve become one with the empty around me. There is nothing, yet I am everywhere. I cannot see, yet I see those fading, fuzzing memories. That bittersweet final memory, holding the hand of a person whose face is already lost. We stand on some sandy coast, waves and sea foam brushing against our feet. Then, as the sun goes down on the perfect scene, that small memory fades, and so too do I.

*****************************************************************************

There’s a light. There’s not supposed to be a light, but it blinks into existence nonetheless. It flickers there, leagues away and nothing more than a pinprick of white against the empty backdrop. It’s the ocean liner on a rolling, stormy sea, as the castaway clings to a baord in a sea as black as the ink on the page. No, it’s not the salvation of a ship. It’s the lighthouse on some forbidden island that draws the shipwrecked soldier in. They’re pulled closer by a rolling tide, the light growing. No, it’s not a lighthouse at all… it’s the searchlight of a helicopter, scouring the sea for the escaped prisoner. The water is choppy, violent, and angry. An elemental reflection of the escapee themself. There's no sign of them… they must’ve drowned. Yet, it’s not a searchlight at all. It’s nothing more than a firefly that’s hovering inches from their face, too small to be insignificant. Strange and pale, it beats its tiny wings. The light grew until it was no longer a firefly, but the lure of an anglerfish.

The lure floats there and it becomes obvious why small fish become entranced by it. Not for the food it pretends it is, but out of fear of always lurking in the unknown and unseeable abyss. The light grows again until it’s roughly the size of a headlight on a car. It hurtles down the freeway at breakneck speed in the middle of the night. The roads are dark and barren. All that remains are the ghosts of those who attempted to run this same course, only to have their brakes cut by fate. All of them sent careening into oblivion. Forever and always tied to this desolate stretch of empty. The hitch hiker stands on the side of the road, listening to the light - the car - drive past over and over. The passing light is almost peaceful, in a way. They take a step closer to the road, hoping someone would notice them. The light seems to notice and it grows a bit bigger. Less of a car, more of a truck until it stops in front of them. It never makes a sound. There’s no door, but they know they can ride along. So they move forward to do so, but they look up at the emptiness that was the sea and is the endless twisting road. 

There shouldn’t be any other light. But there is. There’s another light up there. Small, yet brilliant, it blazes with a bright intensity. They stand and stare for a moment. If they squint, they can make out something quite odd. While the light in front of them is a total white, the one in the emptiness seems to have the faintest hue to it. Some semblance of saturation that sets it apart from the rest of the spurious sky. The light blazes a bit brighter, the hue becoming clearer. A muted magenta… no teal…? Out there in the nothingness, unbothered by the empty space. The longer they stare at it, it becomes clearer to realize what it is. It looks like…

A star…

They stare at the star for a few immeasurable moments. The star glows brighter and seems to come closer. The light behind them grows again, the blinding white light reminding them of a spotlight. Spotlight… the word feels so familiar and yet unknown. That hesitant feeling of deja vu…They ignore the light behind them, and take a step towards the star. It flares a bit brighter and then glistens as if it were…

 A… diamond…

They venture out into the nothingness until they’re right next to the star, the white light trailing behind them. From this close, the light is almost blinding as it burns with a teal, magenta, violet, and sapphire flame. Beautiful. Wild. Strong and free. For the briefest moment, there’s a flicker of orange. The marigold petals of a sunset. They reach for the star. In the traces of the star’s light, they can begin to make out their own outline. At the same time, that colorless spotlight reaches for them and seems to start pulling them away from the star. The star reaches for them as well, and they’re caught between the star and the spotlight. A hapless rope in a tug of war. But something tells them to fight the spotlight. Part of it was the star, part of it was their own voice, but either way, they struggled. They struggled and fought to get away from the spotlight and towards that still burning star. The closer they get, the stronger the memory becomes and without any warning-

*****************************************************************************

I slam back into myself. It happens with more violent force than if I had leapt off a skyscraper and smashed into the pavement below. I’m paralyzed and begin to panic because that means I can’t keep struggling towards the star. There’s something so familiar about that beach and the star’s light and I need to know what it is. Because if I don’t know, then that empty light behind me is going to consume me. Because if I don’t know, the force of my own madness will destroy me. I can’t move so I cast my mind out as if it were a fishing line and it plunges into that memory. I’m standing on that golden shore with my feet touching the edge of the surf. The blazing apricot sun scorches my skin but it does so with a warmth I haven’t felt in years. There’s a slight sea breeze that provides the balance of scorching heart and merciful cold as the sea foam whispers around my ankles. I open my mouth to exhale and I taste salt and candied ginger. I look down at my left leg and I can’t stop a small chuckle. I spent so long worrying the ankle would rust and I would have to fix it, but now it seems so trivial. Trivial because there’s a beautiful darkening sky above me. There’s an endless beach of gold and copper sands behind me. Before me is that endless tanzanite ocean. But next to me, is the figure I’m holding hands with. I finally glance to my right to see them and then… everything hits me.

Ward. 

Ward.

Ward.

This isn’t a memory at all. This is the promise I made to them. The promise to take them somewhere they can hear and feel everything they’ve missed in life. The promise to help them escape. The promise that one day we would manage to escape the confines of both The Abyss and our own decaying minds. They’ve suffered through too much in this lifetime and I’ve done nothing but make it worse. I’ve been horrible to them, screamed at them, pushed them away, threatened them. But somehow, someway, they’ve stayed by my side, seeing through the desperation to drive the monsters off. They believed me when I broke down and sobbed for almost an hour before I even was able to apologize for what I had done. They took on the Magpies when they sunk their talons into me and threw me in a cage. What have I done in return? Hardly anything. That’s why I need to help them escape, to help them get home. Because all I am is a small, insignificant speck in this universe. But they can make a change. Because they are as bold, as brilliant, and as reckless as a star. 

I snap out of the memory, struggling towards that magenta star with everything I have left. I have to leave my paralyzed body behind so my mind floats towards it. It feels like being both a snail and a fish out of water. It’s combined with that ever-present paranoia. The feeling of about to drop on a roller coaster but without the exhilarating satisfaction of hurtling towards the ground. The feeling that Earth stopped spinning and you’re sent soaring through the air. Forever bracing yourself to smack into an obliterated building and die. But this time, I don’t brace myself. Because stars and diamonds damn it all, I am not going to die. Not now. Not when I only have one  month left before I die anyways. I made a promise and I’ve already broken too many. It’s far too late for me to hope for a second chance or a shot at redemption, but it’s not too late for Ward. I will not break my promise to them even if it means I don’t get to join them out there, in that endless expanse we drift in. 

When I finally reach that magenta light, it envelops me and drags me away from the white light behind us. But as soon as the white light is gone, pain explodes through me. My mind dives back into my skull and I regain access to move my limbs. The pain is worst in my chest and with a horrifying realization, I realize there’s water in them. My eyes snap open and I immediately turn to expel it. Something between coughing and vomiting, I try to hack out as much of the liquid as I can. My entire body hurts, with a majority of the pain coming from my chest. As I’m coughing up a morbid imitation of watered down Hi-C, I realize something feels broken. Someone broke my ribs. My head snaps around and I try to take in my surroundings. It’s not easy considering I can’t get my body to respond to much and my head is screaming with pain. The monsters have all gone, their purpose fulfilled. They’re no longer needed, so they’ve gone off to torment another soul. 

The realization crashes into me with more force than life did. It gets twisted around in my broken chest and I release it as a gut-wrenching cry. The kind of cry you save away in the bottom of your lungs, praying to whatever deity suits you that you’ll never need it. It’s something strange and foreign to me because there’s so much grief in it. Part of me feels relieved that I’m here, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, vomiting onto what I can only assume is a roof. But there’s that part of me still, crying out for the monsters. A lonely child crying out for its mother. I’ve gone through so much of my life surrounded by them. So to have them give me these beautiful moments of pain and peace, it’s strange. The cry turns to sobs and I find myself choking on water, vomit, and blood as I retch again onto the cold stone beneath me. It digs into my knees and palms as my hair sticks to my face. Someone with raspy breath moves close to me and I snap my head sideways to try and see who it is. As soon as I do, the sobbing gets even worse. Ward.

I lose myself in the sobs. Everything hurts and to say I’m exhausted both physically and mentally would be the cruelest of understatements. I try to say something to them, to tell them how grateful and relieved I am, but it comes out as a sickly splutter and I give up. I move to sit on my knees, still quivering and sobbing. My chest and head burn with fever and the pain of my broken ribs. Both of us have unsteady, raspy breathing and it clicks. They saved me. They saved me… they revived me… and that thought alone is too much. I’m a horrible person and an even worse partner. I’m trying to choke out an apology, but it gets lost in my coughing. I want to tell them everything I saw and everything that I’m sorry for. That I want to make it up to them in every way I can. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, plays over and over in my head but I can’t get any words past the crying. I try to form words again, but they wrap their arms around me. They’re shaking and I can’t tell if they’re cold or as afraid as I am. With how messed up I am right now, ice would feel like fire and fire like ice. 

I don’t know how long we sit there, holding onto each other. Long enough for my anxiety to return. Because although the monsters have gone, I know they’re waiting for me back at Prismatic. Back at the apartments. Because I know I’m weak enough that I would keel over if someone so much as bumped into me.  Aside from my delirium and broken ribs, I can feel painful bruises and cuts along my sides and back from the monsters. The pain worsens as the adrenaline rush slows and then stops altogether. This brings new tears, which makes my head scream, which creates yet another cycle of pain I’m forced to be a member of. Yet another ballroom dance of agony, waltzing around in circles. After what feels like another eternity, I open my mouth to break the unbearable silence. Because silence is the last thing I can tolerate right now. If it’s silent, I’m going to go over the edge again. When I speak, I’m taken back. Back to that six year old kid on the swingset, reaching up for that endless sky, only to fall. To crash into those wood chips and say with a tear-stained and reddened face in a broken voice,

“I want to go home.”