The Bane of Light

Recovery

"Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness.

Everything passes.

That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings, where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell.

Everything passes" - Osamu Dazai

∞

The days after being drained were foggy and always covered in a haze of discomfort. I felt nearly nothing, if not for the incessant, dull ache that lingered in my body. It was always discomfort, never a full pain. Nothing comprehensible, nothing corporal enough for my mind to grasp it. I couldn't even have that relief; the relief of knowing what was wrong with me, instead having the lucidity forever out of my grasp, just on the tip of my tongue. I wasn't even allowed that closure, which in turn ran my mind ragged, inhibiting it from being put to rest.

During these days, I did not walk; I floated. I floated about from room to room, each bleaker than the last, as if I were a phantom soul looking for purpose. I never found it, whatever I would hover about for. No matter how many times I relocated, that perpetual feeling of dulled hopelessness greeted me. Maybe if it was real hopelessness, I would have had reason to be so miserable. But it wasn't even that.

Whatever meager feeling I had, it was incomprehensible. It was not real hopelessness. It was not real depression. It was simply an awareness of lacking. I was lacking something...something in my life that made me content. The scientific reasoning behind it was my lack of magic, my being and soul feeling unwhole without it. But I did not care for the scientific definitions of anything, during those days. It was simply about what I felt, and I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I poured myself a steaming cup of green tea, so hot that it was most likely burning all the tastebuds off of the surface of my tongue. I did not care, as I gulped down another sip. I preferred it to be scalding, because this way, could feel the hot liquid as it trailed its way down my esophagus. It was a comforting feeling of warmth, the boiling liquid blazing it's way through my frigid insides.

It was nice to feel something warm, something alive throughout the mass of empty nothingness that I held inside me. During the days of my lows, the cold that constantly surrounded me felt ever the more biting, ever the more isolating. Instead of greeting me fondly, it nipped at my exposed feet with its uncomfortable ache, lashing at my numb limbs despite my layers of clothing. It was the only times I willingly seeked comfort from warmth, and that was through my cups of hot tea. They made my insides warm.

My bones croaked and moaned, with a tiredness that belonged to a senile, elderly lady, when I attempted to rise up. The mounds of pillows on my bed shifted, as I put great effort into throwing my weighted blanket off my frail body. A knock at my door was what prompted this shift, most likely being Ibet to walk with me down to lunch. I missed breakfast already, that was most definite by the blaring light outlining my drawn curtains.

Trudging to the door, I winced as the cold bit into my sensitive feet. Everything was always so...iritable during these days. I creaked the door open, peering out as an old, unfriendly crone might. Ibet's marvelous eyes greeted me, lined in wings of kohl that made them seem all the more feline. The eyeliner went all the way from her wing to the corner of her cat-eye, making the jade-green even more vibrant.

I creaked the door open a slight bit more, but not enough for her to gouge the severity of my current state. Her gaze caught on the bruise under my eye, from where the calka had hit me in the face. The scratches were long gone, thanks to the elixir. The bruise remained howerver, having held no demonic DNA. I relied on it to fade naturally. Though the medicinal properties of the potion had brought the swelling down, the red bruise fading to a yellowish-maroon, it was still  blatantly evident on my cheekbone and eye.