Cruor Pectoris (Blood of the Heart) - Flash Fiction collection

Voices (TW: self-harm)

I fought again last night.

Even with the bedside lamp turned on, the impenetrable darkness was closing in on me.

Its choking black tendrils suffocated me, weaving their way into my mind.

They awoke the voices that had lain dormant there- the voices I had defeated mere days ago.

They rose again, the voices, they returned to haunt me.

Do it. The shadows sighed. Open that drawer. Take the cold blade in your hands.

The darkness that had closed an unforgiving fist around my trembling heart sent unwanted images to my head- of those past scars. The blade, with a thin sheen of blood lining the edge. The scarlet dots blossoming on my skin like the reddest of roses hopelessly trying to hold out on the harshest of winter fields. The thin lines marring my arm that looked like faint pen marks- except that I couldn't wash them away.

The grip of the roiling blackness manifesting its roots in my soul was as cold as ice- ice of the ninth circle of Hell.

The voices were the oldest and strongest of demons, with the power of those trained by the Devil himself.

I couldn't banish them; they would not budge.

They surround me- the small version of myself that I keep locked up in a concrete cage inside my heart.

Even the impassable stone cannot shut out their whispering.

I'm here- do you see me?

I am curled up in a corner.

Hunched. Defeated.

I'm here! Do you hear me?

Nobody is listening to you. Nobody cares that you're suffering. Nobody cares that you're broken.

The murmurs sound soft, but they are as solid and as sharp as the blade that still carries remnants of my cruor.

They tell you they love you, but they don't. They say they need you here, but they don't. They claim they will cry and they will hurt if you die. But they won't; you know it.

Give up.

Don't keep fighting. It's a lost cause. You're a lost cause.

The voices cut me, deeper than the blade. They burn me- they sear my soul.

I'm here.

I'm blind.

Where are you?