Devil to the Damned (Prequel #2 )

1|5 - Sinew

An ember in the cold, fated to slip into obscurity as nothing more or less than a beautifully disappointing flash. As my veins chugged the bitter sand, I released a silent farewell and let my body relax. Though, despite blind retrospect and acceptance, my heart continued to beat. Invigorated by a hellfire so intense that my eye flared open and stole a glimpse of the ghosts surrounding me before they too faded away. A snapshot, a memory quick to dissipate. New life slithered within.

I feel my spark fading and there is nothing I can do.

I don't know how long I've been here; I don't even know what here is, but nothing ever seems to progress. That sting in the left side of my body endures; never stops and never changes. Constant. As more words skipped around in my brain, a conscious part of me assumed that I would get used to this, and it would simply be.

The woman who appears behind my dreary eyes does so identically to every time before. A shocked expression, cut-off shriek, and blood ejecting from her chest in dramatic, painful slow motion. As time went on, more color and small details became clear but never enough to feel like genuine truth. The open doorway behind her, a vaguely human shape close at her back, and a porcelain clatter somewhere close to my perspective in the scene.

Tired.

The silhouette with yellow eyes has been watching me, though I've not moved an inch. I tried, many many times I tried to wiggle a finger or reset my head, but I'm stuck like this. Flat on my back with my head fallen to the right; staring through the gaps of prison bars as the figure moved about the room.

Who am I? I projected to nothing for the nth time today.

The cycle of breath burdened by a minute of silence between, carried with it a snippet of what I assumed to be a dream. Vignette visions of myself sitting upright, staring past the bars at an elderly man mumbling enthralled praises. The dryness of my charred skin tempted an itch, dribbling thin rivers of life to the floor where I would eventually lay.

My throat burned. Had I been yelling? I tested my diaphragm and found no will to emit noise. No more than an airy grunt or whisper. Wavering shadows looped another day in a second; a vivid retelling of simpler times watching over a dark-inspired girl. I could almost touch her, embody her sorrow in a way that left me ill and wanting.

I was suddenly propelled into awareness by a scream. Inhaling through the half-slit of my mouth, my pupils dilated and snapped onto the desk which held the candle. There were more now; many little balls of flickering orange life delicately placed in the room beyond my cage. They revealed in muddy detail more desks, bookshelves, and stone walls.

That scream sounded real enough. Childish and suffering. My body ignited in a firework show of goosebumps, arousing the sweltering pain but also expanding my sense beyond prior limits. This cage was small, I could see that now from my newly found comfort. Throbbing back pressed against the back wall, knees raised to my chest, and arms wrapped callously around the shins.

Fossilized, glued to the floor and wall by endless flowing gore and hot shivering pain, my left eye peeled open and a faint purple hue illuminated the bars. Another surge of stinging ice in my skin, and I could see the old man. In a blink, the room became visible like daylight; a yellow and purple highlighted vision latched onto the elder.

A familiar headache snapped my focus like a twig and nearly dropped me to my side; I cried. The next thing I knew, was chewing. The stringy meat caught between my teeth, desperately hunched over and scooped hot liquid with my fingertips.

Licked clean and ever unsatisfied. My eye opened again but only halfway, a corpse before me, a deceased mid-terrified shriek mummified. Slight hesitation, and a gurgle in my belly. Then a raspy exhale and widening of my jaw before I plunged my face deeper into their chest.

My fingers dug through the squelching rot while my teeth scraped against thin ribs; inhaling blood through my nose and coughing subtly.

Though darkness blanketed my vision, I can feel the pressure of reanimated desperation within my loose grip.

Stop. This is wrong. A muted cry was exerted from my soul.

"Let me go! Please!" The voice pinched my ears.

A wistful suck of my teeth, before clamping around the spongy meat again. Satisfying, almost delectable. This is what I live for, why I endure the screaming burn that dictates the start and end of every waking second. This flavor, those fleeting little tremors of the dying.

I'm so hungry.

I'm so tired.

Suddenly my head raised in alarm, and like a jolt of lightning, I was simultaneously observing from above, and living in my own body. Standing mere feet from my indulgence was a young boy. Innocent, dead; hands grasping the bars I now realized were there.

He looked at me as the chewing slowed and skin fell from my slack jaw. Eye wide and iris trembling at his visage. He looked disappointed; heartbroken. My clenched fist released the bone I had snapped free and began a stiff reach for his shape.

"M. . ." I verbalized.

A fist-sized hole suddenly bursts from his chest, though he seemed unaffected by this. The shirt he wore soaked through with blood and his face only grew more dissatisfied with me. I felt the tears worm through dehydrated ducts and my mouth spat the gore as incomplete noises sputtered.

A flash of orange lit the child's face and everything was different. Back against the wall, head lowered and arms clutching my legs. Sharp intakes of thin air rattled my brain as I slowly raised my head and peered around in the absolute darkness. Horror-stricken, and the most human I'd ever felt.

Questions burned. It all moved so fast and slow at the same time. Each second is a lifetime of agony and deafening screams. Another second of eternal silence and two-dimensional darkness. Flashes of the woman's face and the old man; each vision less tangible than the last yet inexplicably within reach.

Real wasn't a concept to be debated, because everything was logically sound like a ghost in my face.

The only constant was the bars, unless I forget.

A voice; deep and reverberant. "Eat, it will make you strong."

Chittering breaths pressurized my airways; clogged by snot and meat. I choked. A pat on my back relieved the blockage and I continued. Then, a tiny prick in the back of my neck sent spiritual shivers across my body; the soft tug of blood being drawn almost distracted me from the meal. Almost.

I'm still crying, and this taste stuck between my teeth won't go away. No matter how much I swallow or drool, I can't get rid of it.

I just want this to stop.