❝ 𝙉𝙤 𝙇𝙤𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙃𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣 ❞ LONG HIATUS

: ̗̀➛THE DEEPEST HELL

The mind of the demon, in first person point of view.
———————————————————————

   Summer.

The worst season, by far. Too hot, too long, somehow both too much and too little needing to be done. Every year it seemed to worsen. Global warming, perhaps. It's possible that the oppressive heat and incessant sunlight will ultimately be enough to take my life one of these years.

I was sitting on the ground, back and head propped against a tree. The heat was so intense that it was almost impossible to move since it was pushing down on me from all sides. Even the grass withered and died away from it, taking on a thin, sickly yellow coloration.

The atmosphere felt oppressive and suffocating. It started to feel like cotton was lodged in my throat, prickling, dry and wet, clinging stubbornly to the walls of my fragile airways, each breath an exertion. In...and out...each breath demanding an excessive amount of work for an insufficient amount of oxygen, leaving my body feeble with little possibility of building up any major store of energy.

Around me, the air seemed to buzz. A pulsing, quivering chorus of noise. I could see the sea in the distance, if I strained my eyes a little. The water was grey and dull, the waves agitated. As I looked out, it all seemed to blend together, the waves and the noise and the heavy air and the clouds above, until there was no longer any distinction between them and all began to turn to a fuzzy white.

Then darkness.

My eyes slipped closed, shuttering themselves against the pale light's assault. I was aware, then, of the ground beneath me. It was hard and as unforgiving to my body as it was to the dying grass. Only the most resilient weeds remained.

Tall, waxy stems rose up around me, their rough leaves brushing against the exposed skin of my hands where they lay on the ground at my sides, palms turned towards the sky.

With my heavy eyes closed, the buzzing of the air grew louder, pushing its way into my conscious thoughts. It dipped, then swelled, the pulsing rhythm of a million voices screaming.

Who was screaming?

Perhaps it was the air, or the water, being boiled beneath the pale sun. Perhaps it was the damned in hell, suffering eternally, or even those I had killed calling for vengeance. Perhaps it was the trees themselves. Perhaps it was me, my own voice drowned in the cacophony so that even my own ears could not detect it among the others. Or perhaps it was nothing, no one, a trick of my mind in the heat.

I was melting now, the line where my body met the ground, that defining, separating, isolating line, was blurring to indistinction. I and the ground, that dry, starved earth, were no longer distinct from one another. Every point where my body touched the ground was sinking, melding them together as one, inseparable being. My entire lower half was gone now, molten, swallowed by the hungry earth. My knuckles burned where they touched the dirt, they were next to go, I was sure. My shoulders and head were already being devoured, melting into the tree behind me at an ever increasing rate.