Steel Skin: Pitch Black (Explicit)

Special Chapter: Kimber, Reckoning

Vanessa Linsky's mournful cries filled the dull and eerie hospital room as soon as her mother left.

Her rabid cough synced with her sobs, so her own breathing was not able to go in between, and now she runs out of breath.

She knows she is running out of time, because the immense amount of blood on the pillowcase she used to cover her mouth is larger than her usual experience.

Natatakot siya. Natatakot siyang mamatay. She has so many unsettled parts in her life that needed fix, but she knows realizing these things are now too late. To die alone is what scared her the most, and she wished so much that her fate might change, and her mother might share time with her as she watches her die. Umabot ang kanyang pagdarasal sa puntong dinasalan niya na ang labin-dalawang disipulo ni Hesu Kristo.

But it seemed so the heavens shuts itself from her, with all the cruel and bad things she did in her life.

Going to hell was not the cruelest punishment God had given her, but it is to die alone. To have no one to hold you as your life and all your memories flash before your eyes, and to begin the idea of no one to hold your ashes when you die.

She will be an unclaimed jar of ashes in a crematorium.

She began the world unloved.

She will leave the world unloved.

Oh to be born a sinner. To live a sinner. To die a sinner.

We were born with the idea of original sin wearing atop our heads like crown of thorns, and we were taught to live to makeup for the damages that Adam and Eve. But Vanessa Kimber Linsky didn't always do as told, as she did the contrary.

She believed she was a sinner, so she lived by the common idea and swept the world up with her violence.

She wiped away her hopelessness and stared at the grayed while ceiling of her ancient hospital room. This is nothing like the place of luxury she once used to enjoy. But those had no value to her anymore.

The notebook she always had with her to accompany her perhaps 'til her last breath is laid on the table beside her bed. Kinuha niya ito at binuklat. She tore an empty page and took her pen weakly.

Napabuntong-hininga siya nang mailinga ang sarili sa kanyang paligid. No one else made a sound.

Saka niya ibinalik ang tingin sa papel na patong sa matigas na notebook na nakahiga sa kanyang hita.

'Auburn,'

She barely wrote, with the letters of her writing in squiggles.

'Mama will spend the rest of her eternity paying for her sins including her sins to you, and I will not in any shame expect you to forgive me. You may find it in your heart to forgive me, or you may spend the rest of your life hating me as well, but I never will blame you.

I am so sorry I had to give you to them. That's the best I can do. Knowing well you wouldn't be safe around me, and I will never become a rightful mother to you, I thought about this place tolerable, better than my arms. I will never be good to you, and even when I try to be, I am already too late.

Mama has to go away, far, far away. And by not knowing me, you wouldn't have to go through grief and sadness. You will not cry for someone you do not know, and my heart is at ease knowing these. You will be okay just as I had fought for your life when I had you inside me, so I know the strong, bold little girl that you are will be well.