LUSEA
I am in the room with his father, the stone beneath my knees, my flayed back bleeding with fresh wounds, tears falling from my face--I am on the floor looking up at him, and he is furious, screaming, but I cannot hear it because my ears are ringing from the blow to my head-
-I am watching him and he is reaching for me and I want to tell him to stop, to tell him it's pointless, that the more he loves me the more they'll hurt us both, and I want to reach back, to press myself against his chest, but my arms are bound and I cannot move-
-I am listening to the boom of his father's voice. It sounds like thunder during the floods, dangerous and closer, and I wonder how soon the dam will break, almost wish for it-
-I am looking at him, and he is looking at me, and I can see what is about to happen in his eyes, so I smile, smile, through my tears, and mouth the final words I will ever say, declare them in defiance as the blade slips across my neck-
-I love you, Sunny, I love you, I love you-
-The blood on my neck is hot and acrid, and I can feel it leave me, feel my body grow cold, feel the light as it escapes my eyes, but it's okay because the last thing I see is him-
-I am dying---
-I am---
-I-----
------
---
--
-I am alive.
I gasp as my knees hit the cold ground, inhaling one sharp breath and then another, my hands around my throat to stop the bleeding. The bleeding - the bleeding - I was bleeding, I was dying, and I couldn't breathe, but now? Now I am gulping down air, swallowing it like a starving thing, and it tastes so sweet I could positively die, except that I'm already dead.
So is this the afterlife?
Slowly, carefully, I take one hand off my throat, waiting for the feeling of rushing blood to return. When it doesn't I remove the other, looking at them both with wonder because they're clean, free of the red I know should coat them, free of any sanguine stains. Trembling I push myself off the ground, staggering a little as I stand, my body weak and uncertain after so many weeks of being bound. The pain on my back is there, but faded, more dull ache than stinging burn; so too for my wrists, once bound and torn by shackles, now simply scarred. I rub my hands over them uncertainty, exhaling, breath visible in the cold.
..the cold...
Why is it cold in the afterlife? Why am I alive? Nothing makes sense, and I'm so cold, clothed in nothing but a light shift, the same thing I wore in prison. Wrapping my arms around myself in an attempt to keep warm, I raise my head, looking for any sign of life in this apparently dead world. "Hallo? Is enige iemand daar?"
Hallo? Is enige iemand daar? - Hello? Is anyone there?
By the grace of the fire and the flames
You're the face of the future
The blood in my veins
