Sympathy for the Devil

44

On Tuesday, it rained. As if the sky was crying out for me, it fucking rained. In December. A frigid, icy rain.

It's been a month since I've been back home living with my brothers.

Nothing has changed.

Everything fell apart and never mended itself.

I was transcendently broken.

Even my thoughts are fragmented and jarring.

My hands reached for my face again, and they seldom let go. They held my face up as I could barely keep it together.

Despondence shot through my skin and settled there like a virus. And deep down I know that Arawn is watching pleased. He caused this. And after all was said and done, he let me go. He had already accomplished what he set out to do. And he freed the caged bird in the end, knowing that a deeper cage waited—a condemning one.

I held a letter in my hands—a summoning from the gods. My name, along with Julian's name were written on the front.

In three month's time, we will face our reckoning day. We will be punished. The gods don't invite you to their court for no reason. It's not a cordial extended hand. It's an example to be made.

I crushed the letter with my hands, but it still looked as pristine as when it arrived. It looked golden and reflective. Intricately designed godly bullshit. It won't rip or tear. It's not manmade.

I didn't let Julian see the letter. Not yet. I've been avoiding my brother for the most part for the past few days. Not because of what he did. He didn't mean any of it. His actions weren't a resulting malice. He just wanted his family to be whole again. His emotions were a devil's playground. I can't fault him for that. Even if I wanted to, I'm not allowing myself that anger and bitter resentment towards him. 

I can't stomach being home much, though. Not after everything that took place. Dying. Venturing to hell. Everyone I love being served to me on a silver platter only to die. Home is trauma now. It exists as a festering wound. It's too grounded in the past. I've been spending the majority of my time at the hospital with Bennett. Hospitals skeeve me out too, but I feel comfort in Bennett's presence. I don't want to leave him again. 

I left to give Micah space with his son, not because he requested me to leave. He wouldn't. But because he needs space to his own grief and I'm not going to disturb or trespass on these moments that are best reserved in isolation. I left after leaving Bennett another letter this morning. The letters are filling up his nightstand with no room left to budge. I started collecting the letters in a notebook for him to have all of my thoughts written out. Sometimes I feel selfish writing them. It's my fault he is trapped in his own autonomy in the first place. 

The car horns blared below like a haunting melody of the city streets. Everyone is on their way towards somewhere while I'm stuck in a state and mindset of nowhere. 

Still too stuck in the past to move. 

I sat on a chair on top of the building where my mom was murdered. Not for peace or comfort. To feel something again. Agitation crept into my form as I hunched over my guitar. I liked the red grooves of the aged wood. I haven't played since my mom passed. I want to play today. For myself. I'm trying to do more things for me lately without the attached guilt. 

I ran my thumb over the smoothed crystal edges of the necklace Lugh gave me that holds a piece of Killian inside of it. 

I strummed a few notes as I let the letter fall to my side. I haven't sung in a long while. A haunting melody escaped from my lips as the guitar amplified my tone with lowly held out strums. 

The rain continued to pour as my hands continued playing. I didn't care that I looked like a drowning cat. I stopped caring too long ago. The cold didn't bother me anymore. I felt at ease in the frigidness of the city. 

I didn't dance in the rain, though. I refused. Not when Li's face is plastered all over town. Her missing face strung up on posters of people maddened with unknowing and absentminded grief. 

Sally's murder was fabricated as a break in. But again, no body was found. 

I don't want to be here.

I set my guitar down with a hardy slam as it cluttered on the ground with a harsh thud. 

Fluidly, I moved towards the edge of the building and jumped off in one swift motion. 

I let my body blur at the edges, slipping into a quieter space, leaving my guitar behind in the noise I couldn't carry anymore.

Before I met the ground, I teleported in bound freedom. The rain didn't relent there, either. It was bleak and gray. No matter where I went, I was met with shackled independence. 

My hand will always be forced and controlled by the gods. I'll always be a part of that. There is no escape from this divine destiny. 

My head dipped lowly as I let the rain turn my hair into a river of blood. 

I found the meadow of loss and sorrow—the one in my mind, the one Killian and I had once stood in together. It would always exist like that now, calcified in memory, a place where we had reached the limits of simply being.

It existed in Ireland. A place where we could watch the sunset and know that we were watching the same one. There were no blurred edges of limitations here. We could solely exist and be. What a peaceful concept. 

My lips touched the grass as I rolled over and met brown eyes traced with gold. He wasn't real. He no longer exists. My mind is the biggest prison of all. 

Killian's cupid bow lips traced ghostly patterns on mine until I rolled over with a groan as the shadows of grief bellied me. 

Some people aren't meant to have happy endings.

My hands brushed the lush greenery of the meadow. I fell into the blades of grass while my head rested for a little while. Eyes closed and mind pressed.

The wooden grooves in the tree beside me still held our insignias. Forever will we have been here. KP + EL with a heart keeping our names safe from harm.

I hugged my knees tightly to my chest, breathing a notable sigh. Not of relief. One of tired defeat. Tears fell harshly, burning my eyes. 

I felt tugging on my insides. A rippling pulsation blooming on my skin. Not painful tugging, but demanding presence and space on my body without regard to my feelings towards it. A violating permanence. 

A name tugged at my flesh, knitting it together in black insignia. A tattoo. A hunt.

Silver burst vividly in my vision as meadows and grief and blossoming feelings of passivity paved way for meaning and deep understanding.

Understanding that someone, somewhere would become like me. 

 This hunt wasn't the end of anything.

Not at all.

Somewhere—somewhere far beyond this moment—someone else just felt the first tug of their life ending. 

And I felt mine finally start. 

The name ripped through my flesh and stained the area permanently. 

I had a time stamp of fate.

I had a name. 

I had a blotchy violation of my skin.

I lifted my shirt as I caught sight of a W forming beneath my skin—a cursive mark taking shape, belonging to something far more volatile than anything I could name. It spread across my hip bone like ink forced into flesh, intruding on what had once been blank.

Wren Atkins. 

I tucked my shirt down as a vision swept over my eyelids and a scream expunged from my lips. 

The meadow shattered.

The vision hit. 

And everything went fucking dark.