Page 152 of Lost in the Dark
LEAD ME THROUGH THE FIRE
YD LA MAR
Shattered moments, dripping with the memories of past and present and everything in between. It’s how we always seem to find ourselves these days. I’m not even sure how we came to this point, to be honest, and I’m starting to not care.
He’s never acted this way before, and I wonder if I pushed him too far. Everyone and everything have its breaking point, and maybe I’m it. The heat of the room makes me perspire, but it’s the growing inferno inside of me that truly burns.
I shouldn’t feel so proud of myself, sosatisfiedin his suffering. It isn’t right. Yet, here I am watching as he paces and throws his head back in a howl that speaks of internal pain and a hunger for destruction.
“No. No, no! NO!”
I don’t say a word as he leaps toward me in aggression, a show of power, an attempt to draw fear. Let him kill me, just like this. I’m tired of it all. The push, the pull, the tortures he puts me through.
“It was never simple for me either,” I state flatly.
“Simplicity doesn’t fix anything! You dare bury yourself inside of me and then claw your way out? This isn’t how it works!”
His fangs are covered with blood, whose I’m not sure. That simple fact alone makes my gut churn with something nasty. I’ve finally come to understand what it is now, after beating myself up and cursing him to the depths of every level of hell.
Jealousy.
My rage overtakes me, and suddenly, my fist lands on his face with a crack. The growls and snarls that follow are the only things I can hear through the pain of my flesh being ripped and torn from my neck as he bites down in his fury.
Does he revere the warmth of my essence in his mouth? Memories of our time together flit and fade. I hate feeling this way. I hate that he’s made me feel this way about him.
As my body sags, and my mind begins to let go, my last thought is not of death, but of the audacity of him to tell me we were one when I still don’t know who’s blood coated his fangs.
“We can’t figure out what’s wrong with your son. All his vitals and tests came out inconclusive,” The doctor’s voice drones.
“You’re wrong! There must be some mistake! Please, there has to be another test, something!” My mother’s frantic voice grates on my nerves, but I have no choice other than to lie here and let them talk over me like I do not have a mind of my own.
My mother wails when the doctor continues to tell her that nothing can be done. Her voice fades into the darkness, and suddenly, the memories of my childhood warp into something different.
I’m standing in an empty field. The ground is cracked and dried under the sun but funnily enough, there is a small body of water before me. It glistens and ripples every so often, but my emotions are not present at this time. I feel empty. A shell that is pretending at life.
My vision blurs from the heat of the environment, and I wonder why I can feel the temperature around me, but not my limbs.
A shadow crosses over me, blocking the sun, and I tilt my head up to find a creature with horns protruding out the side of his head like lobster claws. It turns in the air, screeching and doubles back.
My mind ponders why fear doesn’t course through me at the sight.I should be afraid, right? This is a nightmare within a dream, is it not?They come so often; I’ve become used to them. Like the tolerance of drugs in your system, the doses must increase over time for you to feel anything at all.
You slowly become poisoned until you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not—nor what issupposedto be normal.
The creature lands on its hind legs with a loud boom and runs toward me. The ripples of the water vibrate harder in my periphery with every step it takes, making the land shudder.
Death. This will be my death.
I guess it was always meant to be this way.
I stand there and await my doom when one of its arms gets ripped apart by something I cannot see, shredding a wing. It topples to the side with a shrill cry of pain and crashes before me. The rhinoceros-like horn that juts from the middle of its head almost impales me by the time it stops sliding on the ground—but, as they say,almostdoesn’t count.
I almost envy its ability to feel.
The grey cast to its skin starts to darken and turn maroon, until its entire body finally melts into the ground like it’s been cast into the flames of a thousand suns. But there are no flames that surround us, just barren wasteland, and this body of water.
Living water.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with him, doctor.” My mother’s voice rings out desolately, like nails on a chalkboard.