A Waltz Of Lies

06. Chapter Six

the king

I wake up.

I wake up alone and cold and freezing and scared and I realize-

I realize this is how my life is, nowadays.

I laugh. This is how my life's always been: a continuation of yesterday's fear pouring itself into the next twenty four years and cycling, pedaling again and again until I'm a ball of endless misery, rolling to a waiting bucket of endless darkness.

I wake up and, of course, my head hurts.

It's dark: black like a stranger's soul. I can't make out anything but spots of tiny colors forming right before my eyes because my mind is fucking going to explode-

My throat scraps against my skin. I try to clear it. Cease my efforts midway. Cry out in pain, asking for nonexistent help, then stop that, too,  laying down on the dank ground, staring up, down, around, here and there at a sea of gloom ...

Where am I

Where am I

Where am I

I close my eyes and start to count to twenty. I start to think about mom; her pretty face, her wide gaze. I think about her innocent ways and I think about her shell of ignorance. I wonder if it helped, believing this world really wasn't that cruel, protected under a steam of goodness and love-

I think about her words. The promise I made, her arms; soft, around me.

"New," she'd said, smiling like the angel she was. "That's what you need, babybear. A new set of everything."

That's why I'm here, I think, now, bitterly. For a new everything.

I start to lose consciousness. I start to feel my eyelids grow heavier and I start to hear voices that don't seem distant but probably are because I'm alone, right? I'm alone in this world, I've always been.

My mind fogs. My vision disconnects with reality. For a small second, I am dead.

Then.

I hear it.

I hear them.

Words. A language. Distilled conversations, in sounds, in tones like honey, soft and loud and one angry and one probably light and I regain energy, I start to shout for help, I say, "Someone," I croak out, "Please," I beg, "Anybody out there, please!"

The world desists. The voices halt. The uttering is gone and I'm scared, I'm scared I scared them away and I'm scared if I'd imagined it all, if really, there hadn't been anyone, if, really, I'm just fucking losing my mind-

One last time. I strain one last time. I jerk my limbs. I order my brain to move, to stand up. I crawl over to the left, right, some direction, and I say, "Hello?"

A filter of hope shows. A tiny orb of light. Floating in the air, bright yellow, like a miniature sun, floating and floating and diving through the air like a cloud and its halo casts shadows across the wall, the walls I'm surrounded By, and I think, I'm in a cave, I think, how is the light moving? I think, yes, I'm probably crazy.

I cry. I sob. My chest heaves and every energy I have inside me goes out and I scream and I hold my head in between my hands and I chant, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up-

But I don't. I don't have to.

Because just then, I feel it.

The presence. The air of it. Them.