Playing with Fire [COMPLETED]

32 ~ fear-induced hallucinations

Ice coats my veins as I open my eyes, my head throbbing and my throat dry.

I raise my head and look around, but my vision is swimmy, and I can't focus. I lay my head down on whatever is cold beneath it, and close my eyes. My heartbeat is all I can hear besides my breathing, and I can't find myself sensing Ruin. He's not here. I'm alone.

Then, my mind clicks into place, remembering what had happened to Death's Court, how we were attacked. Ruin needs me. I need to get to him. I need to find my sisters, I need to .....

When I wake up again, my vision has cleared up, and I can see the room I'm in. The walls are gray, the floor and ceiling are black, and there's no windows. My wings itch, and I unfurl them, studying them for any signs of injury. I don't hurt anywhere on my wings or back, but there's blood caked into the feathers. Maybe someone else's blood?

Sitting up, I take a deep breath in. The room spins around me as I try to stand up, so I end up falling back onto the bed. I groan and rub my temples, sighing. There is no way I am back at Pain's Court, and yet.... this room reminds me of her domain.

I sit in the room for a while, occasionally passing out, and then coming to alone yet again. I don't know how long I have been in here, but I'm both hungry and thirsty. My hands shake as I raise them, looking at the blood flakes that are under my nails.

The door remains shut and when I finally get up and knock on it, nothing happens. No one comes for me. No one is coming for me.

One time, when I wake up, I see Pain hunched over in a chair, her throat torn open and bleeding, her unseeing amber eyes aimed at me. She does not speak, she cannot speak. She simply stares and stares .... silently.

And no matter what I do, or how hard I try to ignore her, I keep seeing her. Sometimes, I see my sisters and mother. I see them as they were when they'd been killed. Some burned. Some torn apart. Some simply broken. I cry. But no one hears me. No one cares.

I lay on my side in the bed, curled up in a ball, sobbing. For a long, long time.

Nothing good is going to happen now that they have me. Nothing is going to change the past. I am slowly breaking. And I think .... I think that was the plan all along. To break me. To make me feel so sad and so depressed that I'd shatter — and Ruin would feel it. He'd feel me breaking. And my shattering would shatter him as well.

So I do my best to stay strong. I do my best to remain as strong as I can, never once letting the raging emotions in my heart and mind get the better of me. But I think I'm failing. I don't know what's happening to me, but whatever it is, it is a slow kind of torture. This fracturing of my mind is going to destroy me totally. And I don't think anyone cares if that is the goal. I think they're hoping for me to break. And I'm pretty sure that soon enough....

I very much might break.

My sister, Nafateri, appears to me one night (I think it's night) and tries to strangle me. I let her. Until I finally give in to my instincts and lash out, and she vanishes. I sit bolt upright and cough.

And it is then that I realize what's happening.

Fear. He's using his power on me. And it's working.