Boy Beyond the Blinds (7/6/12)

To what lies beyond my window, I greet you, though I will never see your face. Blinds pulled down and closed; only if I look to the highest point do I see beyond the glass, to stare up to the black sky, the violent flash of a passing airplane to be the only movement. Egg shell blue in horizontal lines to be my barrier and my prison window bars. Dare I untwist the blinds and find out the apparition I wish to greet? Of course not! Conscious and reality strike me down; saying to me, “only an idiot would believe that anything could sit in wait outside your window, high up off the ground.” Malicious-baring voices ringing in my head, self-righteous and cruel. But in my mind’s eye I see his face, beauty-stricken and waning. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but in all honestly I wish it be true.

In my prison here, sent away from the comforts of home, to be confined in a room, segregated from the outer world. Three meters by five! Is that what I deserve to be afforded? To spend night and daylight here? My only chance to breathe be to learn, an ‘opportunity’ so graciously given to us, yet so easily disliked, even hated.

Oh, boy beyond the blinds, take me away from such a God forsaken place that I have learned to dread. Steal me away, so that my body may become translucent like yours. Books and papers have piled up in front of me, with words I pain to understand. They bleed into my mind; make me speak and make me think like them! My brain is flooded with nonsense and I can never comprehend what it is that I am to do.

I move through life, day to day, being and only ever being, nothing more. I understand things said to me, but they get lost within the chaos that is my mind. My tongue speaks words that I pretend to know and my hand copies those who have come before me. I am anything but myself and still I am applauded.

Little whisper from between the seams of my mind; my imagination seeps through to the conscious. I try to listen to that familiar voice over the loud and sullen voices of reality. It speaks to me comforting words I crave to hear, words of gentle distraction and mystical in nature.

I must open the blinds! I must find that boy beyond the blinds that might save me from my unbearable fate of catastrophe. I tear open the eggshell blue horizontal bars in a flurry of excitement; ever hoping those voices are wrong!

Blackness – endless blackness of night, a darkness that exclaims to me that time is still passing. I otherwise see my reflection. The reflection of a sad girl with books piled on her desk and a guilty mind.

I close the curtains, sit back down, and turn towards my books. Free of curiosity, my mind is further caged and my heart aches nostalgically for things that have never happened. 

Two Person Inner Monologue

Garage: Why are we here? This is my favorite room. Do you feel safe? No, the monsters haunt me here too. Where do you feel safe then? Nowhere. Why are we here? It’s my favorite room. Why is it your favorite room? Because of my piano. I’m isolated here in the cold, but at least I have my music. Can you play for me? No. Why not? My music is only to lull the monsters. They like my music. Do they talk to you when you play music? They sit next to me and listen. I feel their cold skin against mine. So you feel them? Yes. They don’t usually touch me, when they want to harm me, but when I’m playing music, I paralyze them, and they don’t care. But I don’t mind. So they don’t speak to you when your playing, do they ever speak to you? Yes, when I’m finished playing. They ask me to play again. They ask me to keep going with the beautiful music. They say that if I don’t keep playing, they’ll hurt me and my family, they’ll kill everyone if I don’t keep playing. But you stopped? No, I kept playing. I was too scared. He let me see him, only his eyes. His red eyes sat beside me and bore into me, and I know if I just stopped he’d kill me then and there. But if you hadn’t stopped, you wouldn’t be here with me. But I’m not here. I played for days straight. My fingers started to blister and bleed and I was so so tired, but he didn’t want me to stop. I cried and begged him to let me stop for a few moments at least, but he didn’t let me. He told me he loved my music too much. So why are you here then? Because I’m dead. I passed out eventually, hungry, thirsty, tired. He must have killed me for abandoning his music. No you didn’t die. We found you, unconscious on you piano. We took you to hospital and you are here now, alive and breathing. Your family is alright, no ghosts have hu- They’re not ghosts! Don’t call them that. They don’t like being called ghosts. They’re monsters. Okay, monsters. They haven’t hurt your family, and you’re alive. The monsters didn’t kill you. But they will. They’re just waiting until I’m alone. If anyone sees me die by their doing, people won’t think I’m crazy, people won’t think I’m making this up all in my head. But that’s what they want. They want me to seem insane to everyone else. They feed off that isolation. Do you think I’m crazy? No, I don’t think you’re crazy, but I don’t think there aren’t any ghosts here with us. Monsters! Yes, monsters. I don’t think there are any monsters here in this room. That’s because there’s not. They’re hiding. They’re scared of you. That’s why I wanted you to help me. But you didn’t choose me to help you, I was assigned by the hospital. But I willed you to be assigned to me. Don’t you understand? I need your help! You are the only one who can save me. How can I save you? I don’t know, but I know that you can help. The monsters have run away and I am safe now. If you are safe, will you play me some music? No. Why not? Because the monsters will come, whether or not you are here, just to listen to the music. Can I not fight them away? I don’t know, I just know that they don’t like you. Play for me, and I will keep you safe from the monsters. No, I don’t want to play. Please play for me. No! I don’t want to! Stop asking me. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to upset you. The monsters understand me though. How so? They know what terrifies me. They don’t haunt me by just making noises in the night. They show me worlds that feel like dreams, but hurt me more than reality. How do they scare you? They drag me down into a world that at first is beautiful and happy, but then things change, I don’t know how, but it’s like a dark cloud covers the sun and this beautiful world becomes a sick, perverted world where I am just their plaything. But theses are only dreams. You can overcome them, I can help you. But these aren’t just dreams! They’re worse than dreams. They’re visions, and they attack me at anytime, anytime I’m alone, or in front of dozens of people, so the monsters can watch and laugh as I scream in terror for no apparent reason. Will you bring the monsters here so I can speak to them? They won’t speak to you. They don’t like you. Please. Play your music, so I can help you. They will hurt you. They will kill you. You have to listen to me, there are no monsters. Theses monsters are in you mind. They can’t hurt me. Please don’t make me play. I don’t want them to come back. But this is the only way I can help you. No! Please play! No! How do you expect me to help you if you are going to be so stubborn? You can’t help me, no one can help me. I can help you. You just said I could help you. They speak to me, they told me about you. They told me that they are scared of you, but if I bring them here, they will do anything they can do get rid of you. They’ve told me that they will rip you to pieces. They will tear each inch of flesh from your bone while you’re still screaming. They will do everything in their power to destroy you and I will be blamed. No one is going to kill me, you will not get blamed. You need to calm down and let me prove to you that there are no ghosts. MONSTERS! There are no monsters! Get out if you don’t believe me. Leave me alone if you’re not going to trust me. You think I’m crazy, just like everyone else. No one can save me. No one can save you if you are not willing to let them. We will have to work on this back in my office. I will arrange another meeting next week. I won’t be here next week. Where will you be then? I’ll be dead, and so will you. You will eventually believe me but by then it will be too late. No one is going to die. Yes we will. Our bones in lie in the earth side-by-side, stripped of flesh and life and the monsters will live on our fear long after they’ve stolen our lives. Who tells you these things? The monsters tell me the truth. They tell me things that I don’t want to hear; whisper to me in my sleep about their plans to kill me.

There is beauty in a large endless field, with no buildings breaking up the sheets of green merging with the crystal blue sky. They are isolated from great human expositor, but not so forgotten to let nature take back what once it owned. The grass is clipped, and the animals graze, but the trees run wild, stretching their limbs to the heavens like a waking giant.

There’s a point between normality and happiness, and the explosion within the mind that is insanity. It is one moment in an innocent day, where you can feel yourself going mad, those points where you know you should feel calm and happy, but all your insides are screaming in agony to fall apart and let themselves decay with the precious earth it grew from. And you are not certain for what reason they want to give up. Your mind just doesn’t want to try anymore. Inside you are dead.
I am dead, mentally; ready to give up my body to the demons that haunt me in the night, the ones that live under my bed. They are my friends. They understand me, because they know what terrifies me. They are prepared to take my soul when I let them, saving me from the real word that rejects me and my words that were so innocent and precious to me once.

There’s a music that sparks an anger within me. It is music that is on the brink of perfection, igniting in me an idea, a world so pure and perfect. But I still wait on the other side of an opaque window, not being able to touch my creation, but watch it vaguely. It drives me insane! To have something so close an it is so agonizing to not be able to put this unspoiled world into words, to share and admire. To be able to see it as real. It can never be done.

Stolen in the passion of night; time, money, love, life. Blood runs through to the fingertips that touch skin and pass through from soul to soul that hunts in the darkest hours, adopting the shadows like a god. Faces concealed and identity lost in the masses, they won’t be the same when the daylight strikes. Who will I be as the hours pass, cunning eyes searching the crowds for my next victim. My heavy eyes hung for him, waiting for my chance to strike. His lips curl at my sight, the skin of the lips thin, blood coursing a palpitating below, waiting to be touched. Come with me, I call, the darkness enveloping his soul within my fingers. Don’t worry about safety honey, we’ve only got tonight to wander through the unseen and find ourselves in the unknown. Follow me when I leave, lets run away from these people who only know our names. We’ve got death in common, lets abuse it. The goodnights of the soulless bodies drone our departure. I want to be hidden again, his hand in my hand, wrapped in the warmth, searching out for something more. The body is physical and real, but the mind can never been truly realised. It isn’t held like your hand in mine, would you believe me if I said that my mind has long gone with the disease. I live on air alone and desire to drag along your company, a heavy rock to hold me down to this earth. I will take you along for the ride, just close your eyes and hold your breath; it’ll all be over in a minute. Don’t think, just do, you won’t regret it. Kiss me, touch me, consume me while the darkness prevails, it’s retreating quickly. Tomorrow they will find us and the nightmares with return, don’t let the passion burn out. You’ll be mine forever, your blood on my tongue; my heart is your hands. Don’t let me go. Don’t let me go.

The Art of Failing Gloriously

I looked out over the crowd that was mercifully shrouded by the darkness, while I felt stark naked and vulnerable in the harsh brightness of the stage lights. My voice had left me and I stood still with my mouth open, my audience waiting for the words that I was desperate to express. But they had disappeared from sight, and I was left helpless to the scrutiny of the eyes of my peers. I could feel the words forming behind my eyes, but my lips made no attempt to process them. I was stuck in a trance and sinking into a sick place that I had no desire to visit. That same sickness was building up within my throat, threatening to beat my words to my mouth.

"I bet I could change your life." I could see the ghost of my mind travelling before me, clear cut and perfect, saying and doing exactly what I should be doing. And all I could do is watch.

"I bet one word could change you life. You might not even notice it when it happens, but trust me, it'll happen one day."

I had to push myself, force the words out of me, but I couldn't. And as I watched myself move with such grace and speak with such determination, all my audience could see was my failure.

"When I think about Annabelle, I don't think of all the things she did, like her stellar grades or her good sense of fashion or even all the friends she had on facebook. All I can think about is how she changed my life, and now because of the people in this audience she'll never know."

I was a failure. This whole time all I wanted to do was to glorify Annabelle for who she really was in life, not for what people thought about her or what they saw on the surface, because all that was a lie, and only I knew the truth. If only she was here now, maybe I could do it.

"Get off the stage retard!" yelled someone from the crowds. I realised that they were speaking to me, and they broke me out of my fixation with this ghost of myself.

"I-I-" I looked around the stage, at the people, at the darkness in front of me. I couldn't do it and before I knew it I was back stage, away from the uncomfortable stares of the audience, on the floor sobbing. My heart had finally caught up with me and was thrashing against my chest. I was gasping for air and desperately trying to find my inhaler. I ripped off my jacket, searching though all the pockets, but I couldn't find it. My breaths were short and rapid, and I gave up my frantic search to focus on my breath. Maybe I could settle myself it I just could concentrate. But all I could think about were the people down there, confused and judgemental. Annabelle would be disappointed.

Black spots were forming in front of my eyes and I didn't even have the energy to cry out for help this time.

The gifted one

Every night I see bone, my bone, flesh coloured. They say I'm gifted, I'm special, that I'm their saviour. But I don't want that. I'd rather starve like the rest of them that live the life I'm forced to live.

These days food is scarce, and the nights when we can't find a scrap of food my people turn to me. Their pleading eyes, how am I supposed to refuse them. They're kind to me, to say the least. They don't force me to give in, unlike the stories I've heard about the people like me.

Every night I die a more gruesome death than the night before, and every morning I wake up with the bruises, deep and black, haunting marks of my so called "gift".

I am a feast, a meal to some. The flesh is stripped from my body by a man with hungry eyes and drooling lips, eager to satisfy the roar in his belly. I usually black out about the time my limbs are completely bare of anything but bone. I've gained strength...stamina since the beginning, when they discovered my "gift". I used to black out at the first sight of blood - my own blood - spilling to the ground by the litre.

Every night I cry and scream in pain, but not for the doers to stop, but for them to go too far, for them to be that little bit too greedy. I want them to do it, hoping that I don't wake up in the morning. Praying that my eyes stay forever shut, and that my body is finally laid to rest, deep down in the earth where I can finally decay for good.

They're skilled though. They know exactly when to stop, exactly how far I can go. They've had generations to practice, on my mother, on my grandmother, all of them were exactly like me. It's a family thing, something in my genes. They say it comes from the before time, when food was still plentiful. The people of the before time could see that their food was thinning, plants were dying, animals were disappearing. So they made me - well they made a distant relative, decades ago, to feed the people that could no longer feed themselves. I am their saviour, or so they say so. I don't know if I believe them. Every day, in the hours that I live, I pray for a real saviour, the real gifted one that is supposed to save my people. And every night, as my torture comes to suffocate me in a cycle, to repeat itself over and over, I pray for my death - my final death.

Shutting Down

Shutting down, closing down.

Everything is stopping, slowing. I can feel it happen before they can see it. My vision is clouded with images, outer worldly and my hearing stalls. Stomach acids are moving and filling the places they shouldn’t, sending waves across my body. Every muscle contracts uncontrollably. Oxygen is passed through every vein, every capillary, but I’m filling with the poison of the outside. My skin burns, itches and irritates until it bleeds.

Shutting down, turning off.

My body seems to be delaying the sweetness of unconsciousness, the utter bitterness of the cold blackness. It wants to hold me here in a painful embrace, holding me to grasp onto the life I no longer care about.

Shutting down, power cut.

Souls, trapped in the bodies of idiots stand, lifelessly trying to help the lifeless. They could do so much more, but they don’t, and I applaud them. Paper rain, and roses in the shapes of hearts showers me from the heartless loved ones. Maybe the heart shaped roses could replace mine? Maybe I would wake and see the world differently. Maybe, maybe. But maybe not.

Shutting down, zoning out.

Tick, tick, tick. But no tock. No clock makes a sound so sinister. The sound beats away in the darkness, beats away in the brighter days, beats away when all else has fallen to the floor. My whole body shudders with this sound. I lay, seemingly motionless, and watch as the sinister clock, counting down the seconds of life, trembles within my chest, like a monster, beating at the ribs to get out. Playing its musical number.

Shutting down, blacking out.

My throat tightens, cutting off golden breath and taste. Ice cold. Touches of something horrifying and sharp. Needles and pins prick the skin red. Drops of rubies, so precious, gone; mixed with the dust of the floor of the attic. Dust fogs up my lungs. I have been stored. Put away. Forgotten forever, like windows of the past we only ever take out once in a decade. I’m stuffed in a cardboard box, rotting away, decaying.

Shutting down, shutting down.

Gone.

If Only

The fierce, antagonising anger burned under my skin, so close to the surface, it was a wonder I didn't rip the hair from her head right then and there. It was another lecture-public bitch fest to my face I was forced to endure with a smile on my lips. Each word etched itself into my brain, digging its venomous self deeper and deeper. I wanted to scream so badly. I wanted to swear and to yell back, to show the world that I wasn't just going to sit here and let myself be degraded by someone who knew nothing of what she was talking about. it was infuriating! How could anyone be so selfish?

But I didn't say a word. I never do. I kept on a clam face, making it look like the dark, venomous words would drip off my skin like water on a ducks feathers, not peeling at my flesh and boiling my blood like it really was. Maybe that's why she never gave up on taunting me. Maybe she really believes that my front is as deep as it goes; that she hasn't broken me. She persists and digs deeper, hoping that one day all her hard work will finally pay off.

but I won't let that happen. The invisible tears run down my cheeks, drenching my collar, but I won't let them see it. i won't let them judge me with their piercing eyes and tongues as sharp as devils' horns.

"Your stupid if you think you can get away with this forever." The words were barely whispered from my tongue, but I let them sink in, a torment of the mind. I left her there, speechless, her stupid blue eyes, reeling back on what had happened. What had happened? I wasn't sure myself, but the blood of my enemy left under my nails told a different story. Bones crack like dry twigs and crumble to dust. How was I to know?

it was never held against me what I had done. the one who had never done anything to correct the wrongs in her life before has finally cracked; one big explosion in the brain that set of thousands of sparks and reactions until it was all one big nuclear war within the mind.

but I wish i could take it all back. I wish I could reverse the time. I wish I could control it all, but it's all out of our power isn't in? If only....

Transformation

I transition into my new self. I can never get used to the unsightly process that is my transformation, but one has to live with what they have. If I didn't I might have been dead decades ago. Though as time passes I wonder if living in the shadows is any different from death? I must protect myself from the humans, unless I dare wish for a long, painful death, stretched out to possibly years. I guess I can understand their curiosity, without understanding their method. They do not know so much about the world they live in; they live in a world kept in a bubble away from the vast power and strength that comes from my world. I wish I could say sometimes I feel sorry for the human race, but I've watched them, and I can assure you, I feel nothing more that hatred for the despicable beings who have forced my people into hiding.
My spine snaps awkwardly to the left, and my whole body, for one moment freezes, unable to move, before a tidal wave of pain shoots through me, ripping each of my nerves to shreds as it passes from muscle to muscle. Unsuccessfully clawing the air for something to steady me, I fall slowly to the ground. My surroundings are now only a blur, a room of indescribable shapes and colours. Sadly this situation was not one I was new to. Any human in the same situation would be left paralyzed, head to toe. Transformation is a desired and one very difficult skill, and any loss of concentration could result in mistakes; and that distraction then stood in the doorway of the darkened room, her small glowing face swallowed by the stacks of books that lined the walls. She couldn't take her eyes off me, and as partially human, her eyes conveyed similar emotions; curiosity, fear, empathy, sorrow. Her bright blue eyes portrayed so many different thoughts, but it was those same blue eyes that made me forget that one second. Her already large eyes widened further when she heard the agonising snap, but her face defined perfect calmness, a small sign that distinguished her from the humans.
"Could you help me?" I asked, assessing the large break in the bone, protruding slightly through the skin, with my hand. She looked at me carefully, stepping over me, and disregarding my pain and discomfort, she placed her knee on my back, facing against the new shape of the bone and roughly pulled back my shoulders, snapping the bone back into place. A sudden warmth swept over me, and the transformation continued until there wasn't a single mark on my back, and the only evidence was the blood on the back of my shirt. I sighed, frustrated.
"My favorite shirt."
"You'll get over it." she muttered. I noticed it then, but I didn't know how I could have missed it before. She helped me up, though I didn't need the help, and then quickly let go of my arm and took a few steps back. She felt incredibly intimidated by my kind; though being partially one of us, she was still partially human. My previous life lay in a heap on the floor, discarded like clothing. The young girl glanced at it, at first with curiosity and jealousy and then in disgust.
"How often do you transform?" she asked me, not meeting my eyes. I towered over her with my new, strong build, but I still didn't know what I looked like.
"Every decade or so." She was curious and jealous, knowing that she was going to die some day. I wonder how much she would change if only she knew that so many of my kind were made and not born that way. She knew so little...

Run.

As I was sprinting to the back meadows I realised something was different. I'd run this way every day; my record was one minute thirty seven. But I was no longer running with those words skimming across my brain. "This is it." I'd tell myself. "This is the grand finals, the race to end all races. All you have to do is win, then you'll never have to run again." All false promises. I can never stop running, whether I want it to or not. Running was in my blood, and every day I cursed my blood just for that. But the hope of leaving the competitive world behind got me to run faster, like a burst of energy, even if it was just running from the house to the back meadows. But today I didn't think of that hope, I didn't try to push myself, I didn't think of anything at all, just how good it felt to move without demand. I had never noticed how the wind brushed past my face and through my hair. I had never noticed how it felt sometime to run so fast it was like i was flying. I just ran - for what reason, I don't know. To escape maybe? Nevertheless I found myself running faster than I ever have before. I was in the meadows before I knew it. Out from the dense bush land that sealed the sky from the ground, bursting through the canopy and into the powerful warmth of the sunset. I checked my watch, briefly entering my competitive frame of thought. One minute twenty six! I couldn't believe how quickly I made it there.
I could hear my father screaming from the house. My name echoed through the farm. His voice could have echoed through the whole town. But I couldn't stop now. I really was running my last race - the race that my whole career, my whole life depended on. I kept running, reaching the boarder of the farm. I wasn't going to stop, but I didn't know where I was going to go. But far away from here was the destination.

My Frustration

Terror courses through my veins. it bites at my insides, ripping me apart from within. The fear takes over, leaving me in the dark, where my eyes are useless. I don't know who i am anymore. Darkness has taken away my identity. I am a puppet to worry, to stress, to pressure. I am sculpted by the cruel words that hit me like rocks and cut me like knives. Expectation and assumptions are what keep me up at night. They are what scream in my ears - "YOU WILL FAIL." until i scream and kick with frustration, but they're gone the second i try to look for them. Insomnia eats away at my sanity, and the temptation of false bliss floats about it all, whispering in my ear that it could all go away.
But I will break through, I will stand strong. I am power and I am strength. Nothing and nobody can or will ever keep me down. I may carry these weights on my back, but I keep my head held high. I will not be broken.

Through the Rains

The days and the nights roll on, the only constant in my life. The people come and go, each time taking away pieces of me. One day i'll be nothing. Until that day I move through life like a ghost, an empty vessel, my journey to no where getting shorter and shorter. My past is like an empty glass bottle. It should be filled with the substance I have set my life to doing. Yet I find that success and achievement have met no length or award. And with no substance my past is breakable; so easily shattered that it's as if it doesn't exist to anyone other than the one person who has to clean it up.
I try to run, far away where I can live in peace, but in this world there is no such thing as peace, only destruction and heartbreak. I look to the sky in the high mountains, the crisp blue looking down at me. Clouds roll over to break the beauty and to shower down on me with ice and pain. When will it end?
I fall to the mud, where the earth and the sky fight, the rain pelting down hard on my back. I'm so cold, and I know my voyage won't continue on for very much longer. Is this really the end? Is this really what my life has boiled down to? I yell at the sky asking why, to anyone that might be listening, but suddenly blinded by one ray of light that has fought the grey clouds to shine down, not on me, but in front of me and I look down to see a tiny sign of life, pushing through the destruction to grow. A tiny flower bud, that would live forever.

Soldier's monologue

The nights grow darker every time I'm on duty. No matter how effective my weapons are or how many people I have backing me up, I still feel like a child, alone in the dark. Those reds, they could be anywhere, ready to attack. They're monsters.
My family are proud of me. "My son's a soldier" I can hear my father speak. But why is it when I fight, do I feel so sick, to the pit of my stomach? I'm just doing my job right?
Yesterday I killed a child. A little girl, not much older than my own. She was so small a fragile - just skin and bone, crouching in the shadows, squeezing her eyes shut. I don't even think she heard me coming. I heard her screams in my dreams last night, and I know it won't be the last time I hear it.
When you die, you don't go to Hell, there is no Hell in the after life - this is Hell and I'm living it now.

Rose

I need help! Will you help me?
I’m trapped; a prisoner to a cruel and evil master. He has trapped my feet under ground, holding me in place; eliminating any chance for escape. He has cut off my arms, right to the shoulder. But when the fingers begin to show, my master, he gets angry. He sharpens his knives and cuts deeper into the flesh.
“To preserve your beauty my dear.” he tells me. My head is his prize; my beauty is his goal. One faultless head to preserve forever. Our only purpose in life is to reach perfection. I have seen many times my brothers and sisters falling to disease, dying before their time. Others I have watched reach acceptation from the master, only to reach the chopping block. My poor friends; I loved them so.
But if you’re lucky; if you’re perfect, you may get to live. My lucky brothers and sisters have their one foot in the grave, far, far away from our master. That’s what keeps me going.
Our conditions are harsh. We get fed once a day; always cold and in liquid form. But it is sufficient. Everyday we are groomed, to keep out arms and feet in check. The master slowly tries to sculpt us into his perfect prize.
Can you save me? Will you save me? My name is Rose; don’t let them kill me. Please don’t.

The Words of a Hated Man

I don't like where I am. It scares me. Every face I see; it's dark and soulless, empty eyes staring back at me. I try to escape, but it's impossible. I made a deal with the devil, and I have to accept that. Clawing at the walls of my mind, trying to find a tear or a rip is pointless. All I asked for was a good and long life with my family. Was that so much to ask? And in return all he wanted was for me to live within my mind. How hard could that be right? In my mind my world was my own; I could control everything. But I was sorely wrong. The fears and the nightmares that I had tried so hard to lock away at the back of my mind have found their escape. They terrorise the perfect world my mind has come so accustomed to. It was a beautiful, peaceful world. But that now is shattered. The ghosts of my past come back to haunt me, and though I no longer live and walk in the world, they still hurt me, reminding me of the horrible things I did while I was awake and walked the Earth.
I look upon what I have left behind. I see family, beautiful children, mourning for their loss. Oh if they only knew of the pain I had caused in my life, of the horror I had created. I guess I had it coming.
The blood shed by the men I once knew, but the men I trusted was done by my command. I am truly sorry for what I have done, but I couldn't change it even if I had the chance. There was no other way, right? What's done is done. These people's lives have shattered in my hands like glass, and I do not regret my choices. It is my people that I must protect at all times, and if that means living in hell for all eternity, then I must do what I have to do. Again, I am sorry.

Nightmares

Screams and the sounds of rock crashing against harder rock.
That's all I hear. I'm pretty sure some of those screams are from my own mouth, but I don't care. I have to get to her, I have to save her. But something is holding me down.
Warm rippling muscle, twisting around me, turning me away, focusing in on me with sapphires with darkened souls. Their darkness wrapping around my wrists, taking me away from my world. More screams - this time I don't know where they came from - and then there's silence. A kind face shelters me, telling me everything's alright. But he lies - there's something wrong, I know it.
A bright light blinds me, and I'm gone from the world that scares me, and I'm back home. Back in my warm bed, snuggled under my blanket. I don't like my dreams any more. They scare me. I thought dreams were like worlds our minds create when our lives are hard, a place we can retire to after a hard day to live in a strange sense of bliss. Why can't my mind just be kind to me and give me a break for once.
"honey, what's wrong?" my mum asks from the door. "You were screaming."
"Nothing, mum. Just another nightmare."