Sicarius

1.The Altar

All the hardest, coldest people you meet were once as soft as water. And that's the tragedy of living. — Iain Thomas

SKYLAR:

The pounding of my head, reaches my ears, it is numbing. The round heaviness of my eyes as they roll behind silent eyelids and the plain nausea that consumes every weakened second of my consciousness is all the byproduct of thinking. Excruciating thinking.

it's an obsession. a delusion. a defect. I scream at the top of my lungs again.... but i choke and i feel the tears begin again. the pressure on my stomach is eating at me and because of the crying i throw up on the floor. All i have in my stomach is acid and water.

I'm trying desperately to wake up and END this sleepless nightmare. I throw a punch at the softened wall of cushions and breathe. It's the inability that angers me, the fact that i just.... Can't open my eyes. It's staring at myself that scratches my brain raw. It's wanting to peel my face off. I've been in this cube for 80 hours. Pushing the walls, screaming for help, screaming out of pain, hunger, thirst. Crawling on the floor, knees numb, I rest my head on the ground, feel the usual coldness of a black headpiece that looks like a virtual reality set, and every hour a voice reminds me that i haven't found a way out of this dark hell.

the crying seems inevitable. it bowls out of me like blood. i can't breathe anymore, fatigue consumes this body, this lifeless body, now nothing other than flesh. Having more scar tissue than life itself. "is this what you want?" i whisper with a small voice. knowing they will hear me. "is this.... what.... what you want?" i choke again.

it's a test, to figure me out, to figure out how i think, and IF i can think well enough. what's torturing about this it's knowing, just knowing there is a way out. And not finding any. it facilitates self-hatred, self-conscious loathing.

i came to be here after finishing the first part of the test. i went through miles in the woods, about 30 hours of being constantly in motion; constantly cold, hungry and wet. there were fires, and there were reptiles crawling over my neck when i stood op from the mud. Then, immediately after i was blinded and put here. Put here to escape. i could ask for help. i could give up.

i suddenly felt like nothing, or rather Nothing, a pre-tornadic stillness of zero sensation, as if i were the very space i occupied. Then an emptiness in my chest arises, a primal anger surges from my lungs. The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you. i remember. i stand up, slowly, methodically. And rip. not knowing, not feeling, not worrying. i scratch my nails on the soft cotton of the plush and finding the seams i sink my claws on the threads and pull with my teeth. Sharp stings of blood have their way down my fingertips but i rip and destroy. and rip. and destroy. There is no point.

Blind anger. i pull, and disincarnate this prison of its walls.

A breathless mess, i encounter glass behind the cushions and in one blind rage I pound many times, break my knuckles over, and over..."IS... THIS.... WHAT YOU WANT?!" ....and over. i scream at the top of my lungs, rattling my own ears. i pound until blood stains the glass, until the shattered hole cuts my forearm and a shattering sound reaches my numb ears. My body fights the glass tirelessly until i can push through with nothing left to lose.