A/N: This is the first time I've written in second-person, and it's pretty rough seeing as this idea just hit me and I typed it down in an hour. Anyway, enjoy. =)
***
You know those days where you're all alone, and that's not what's odd. What's weird is the fact that you feel alone, and the walls just stare back at you, silently asking:
"Can we crumble now?"
"Can we fall?"
"Just - please? Teach us how to fly."
It's one of those days when you know the glass is neither half-full - nor is it half-empty, because there's matter everywhere - and yet you feel empty, like your insides have been carved from hollow caverns the sea abandoned a long time ago. There's a vacuum inside you, but your eyes are black holes and all the light and the energy has been sucked away until the bleakness yells out at you. The screams are echoing ... echoing ... and you wonder how the world manages to sleep amidst these cat-calls and the jeering laughter that overwhelms you. You could call it a cacophony, but it sounds more like a despairing melody.
Have you ever felt cold? Like your insides are freezing up? Forget homeostasis and all the other dratted laws of science; you just do. Your fingers are numb - turned to stone. Your soul is of iron, and you're melting, even if you can't make sense out of it.
Hail the waterworks; open the door and let them glide in. Just one thing though: don't leave the door open. Pull it shut with a decisive snap. Even better, why don't you lock it? Then there's no-one to bother you with the "Are you OK?"s or the "Want me to stay by you?"s. There's no one to see you break down, to realize that your face is not an iron-plated barrack and you are indeed human.
And you're fine with that. Really. Because no one understands. And you have a feeling you don't want them to understand either.
You're not being stubborn. You're not being stupid. You're being practical, even though your feet are barely touching the ground. You're in a limbo; somewhere between cloud nine and the sinking stone we've termed as "gravity." And you're struggling, trying in vain to hold up the veil that hangs between you and the utter, stark reality.
You're scared. You're just so scared.
Reality smiles at you; a cruel, pointy smile that pierces through you like jagged bits of glass. And her cold fingers caress your face so gently, every second seems to be a lie. You shiver involuntarily and Reality's smile grows wider.
So cold. So cruel.
And her eyes are hungry.
"Like ice, the writhing mass that is your heart;
watch it crumble and quake.
Your heart may be maroon but red embers
stampede and crawl in its wake.
Are you awake?
Oh darling, are you awake?"
She sings to you like echoing ghouls in a garden shed, and you watch her dance, mesmerised. She twirls and un-twirls, pirouettes and leaps like a ballerina; a rampant moonbeam shattering the silent night-scape and shredding the rest of the night into wallpaper remnants, as though a tiger has clawed through a silk tapestry and you watch it crumble to the ground.
The world is rolling up, rolling up. The walls are coming closer. And you breathe, and you sigh, but every breath you take tears your lungs out and singes your eyes.
And it's crumbling. The night is crumbling.
Faster and faster andfasterandfasterandfasterandfasterand-
she stands by you again, holding an hourglass. Her fingers are snowy white and as she swipes them against your face you can feel the blood rushing out, like rivers of molten dragon fire. But you don't care. The blood is like an old friend, because you're used to it. In your dreams and every single nightmarish day. You remember his anger and his hard hand striking you until you cry and beg for it to stop.
Please stop.
You raise your eyes to Reality's cold ones, and she gracefully slides a scroll towards you, along with a quill fringed with turquoise lace. It looks strange, yet beautiful and forbidding.
"Sign it in blood," she whispers to you, sounding strangely sincere, "and exact vengeance."
But isn't sincerity a snake? Can you ever trust Reality?
Her grip on your hand is vice-like, and you feel your veins clogging up; your erythrocytes and corpuscles and goodness knows what other cells are pleading with you.
"Make it stop!" they scream, "Please!"
And that's when you make your first mistake:
You relent.
You start writing the letter, Reality whispering in your ear all the while. It comes to you smoothly, like music. Except that if this were music, it would be a deadened chord: a funeral march playing.
You're done. You've inked the last letter, and Reality finally lets go, nodding at you appreciatively. You gulp and all of a sudden you're swept over with a feeling of nausea. You watch as Reality's ghostly face fades away, yet the feeling of sickness still lingers.
Like waves sweeping off the shore.
And carrying the land away with it.
~*~
You're standing in the middle of your room, surrounded by heaps of paper and mountains of gathered dust. The air around you is heavy, like a dusky cloud filled with velvet smiles.
The piece of paper Reality handed you is still dangling from your fingertips, and you're reminded of a chandelier that's about to fall. But if it did, you think to yourself, it would mean disaster and chaos. So you raise the paper to your eyes, your knuckles white, your fingers trembling. You remember how Reality told you to "exact vengeance", but the only person you'd want to do that to is the "friend" that forced you to turn your own home into a prison cell. His name was Sam, and you hated him with every sinewy thread of your heart.
But are you ready for this? Are you sure?
Is this really the best way to fight?
Because when you finally read what you've written, you realize that you are far more afraid than you have ever been before. The letter says that you want to talk to him, resolve your problems and part as neutral parties in a war. As happy, different people. But that's not what it should say, and only you know the true meaning behind those words as you drop the letter by his brightly painted apartment door, fingering the knife in your pocket and walking away. An uncharacteristic grimace contorts your face, and your face is replaced with her's. You are not you anymore, but heck, you never knew who you were before either.
Until reality swept by your side, and you were never the same again.
You stand in the foamy stardust waves, a silhouette against the coal sky. The waves crash against the cliffs like a racketing symphony, as if eagerly waiting for the curtains to rise and the show to begin. Your face burns with hatred and terror, but you're not afraid.
Not anymore.
And you whisper:
"Meet me by the starry seacove, and I'll show you how to die."
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