Beauty's Beast

Then.

Heat. Prickling, burning heat with flames that licked his skin, singing his hair, brutalizing his skin.

He clawed at his body. Fire. Hot, too hot, too much.

With a strangled scream, he awoke, panting, scared. Everything felt so real, scarily so.

He hated that even his dreams weren't so forgiving because he couldn't even take refuge in them. If anything, his subconscious consistently betrayed him by tormenting him with memories.

He sat up slowly in bed, his soaked sheets a reminder of the torture his mind made him endure on a regular basis.

For penance.

He looked at his arms trying to make sure there really was no fire. He ran his fingers up and down the smooth skin where hair used to grow, and finally he touched his face. The scars webbed across his cheeks, nose, and half his forehead, all so smooth.

For penance.

Some said he was lucky to be alive, others said he hadn't deserved to live especially when–well, that was for another time, another day.

A familiar ache in his bones made him wince. Whether phantom pain or not, instinctively he reached for his medication and gulped down two. He welcomed the euphoric feeling of relief the opiates brought him, although he wished they also helped lull him into dreamless slumber, he supposed beggars can't be choosers.

Like a wizened old man with creaky bones, he gingerly got out of bed. A quick glance at his phone showed several missed calls but it was the time that caught his attention. Half past three in the morning.

The last few weeks had him waking up at around this time practically every night. His very own witching hour.

It was the same routine of nightmares jolting him awake in a puddle of his own sweat, and then the pain quickly followed by the drugs. After, the feeling of floating in a warm vat of honey, while everything around him slowed down, dulling even his own recriminatory thoughts. Lastly, darkness. Darkness that haunted him even in his waking moments.

For penance.

Before the effects of the drugs fully took over his entire being, he slipped out of bed. Slowly, gingerly, as if he were a ninety year old man in danger of breaking a hip complete with a cane, he got out of bed and padded towards the windows.

Outside, it snowed. Beautiful, peaceful, pure, a winter wonderland of dreams.

If only he didn't live in a nightmare of his own making.

He pressed his forehead against the window pane, allowing the coldness of the glass to give him some reprieve from the fire that burned in his mind.

The wind outside howled and with that his bothersome leg practically screamed in pain, a reminder that he'd been up for too long with no help besides the useless cane. Once more, ever so slowly, he made his way back to the bed. A mere few steps that he used to take for granted, but now? Now, his short, mincing walk left a lot to be desired.

For penance.

Actually, fuck that, he'd had enough of penance!

Can Divit laid back in bed, the drugs finally in full effect, his body felt like it floated in the air devoid of pain. He'd made his decision to embrace the darkness that haunted him by succumbing to it completely.

Tomorrow, he decided, was as good a day as any to die.

It was a sound decision. After all, murderers like him had no right to be alive.