Catharsis

TWENTY EIGHT

TWELVE DAYS LATER...

Endless revolutions of the same thought process. For a split second, the flame of hope flickers at the very back reaches of my mind. As soon I get out of this godforsaken hell, as soon as the police bust down that front door, I'll never let her go. I'm never going to take her for granted. I'm going to tell her everything I couldn't -

But that flame dims, and it weakens, and then - poof. A wisp of smoke, and I realize that she's dead and gone. When someone you love dies, you don't really find out just once. Sure, the initial blow is the hardest, but you'll have to keep reminding yourself after that. I wished I could shut up the voices in my head that kept reigniting that damn flame. Then the day arrived. The day that hope decided it's had enough and isn't coming back. And now that's all I want. A flame, flicker, just a spark. Give me something. Anything. Just one more time, I want to be able to pretend that it didn't happen.

Most days I have to endure a transformation per Kaman's orders. I'll never get used to this, no matter how ingrained it becomes. The full doses put me out into relief. The half doses leave my human mind for the torment. I wish I could say that I didn't like it. Does that make me crazy? It's the only thing in this place that feels alive. The pain, that is. Having my mind and body forcibly ripped out of my hands is unsettling, but the unconsciousness is so delicious. Better than running laps in my mind, loosening the few screws that haven't yet dropped out.

I slit my wrists three days ago. The blood spurted everywhere and I sank silently in the corner, covered in red, determined to die. I felt faint and welcomed the darkness. But before I could bleed to death, I healed up and it broke my heart. No longer is this a matter of escaping or killing myself. Neither are feasible. So, I asked Emma: what's left? The feeling of my pulse? Is that all there is? She said a single word that hasn't stopped echoing since. "Yes." So, this is all there is. My heart beating away a day, an hour, a minute just for the sake of staying alive because I've been cursed with the inability to just die already. Now it's only a waiting game for the day that I transform and just like hope, I don't come back. The fact that it hasn't happened yet kills me.

Instead, I come to like this: closer to skinny than I am to lean, situated awkwardly against the wall. My ribs are visible. My hip bones, Sammy's phantom finger trace along them in the night. I can't tell if I'm a man or a host for a monstrous, feral parasite that's sucking me dry, wasting me away.

I tilt my neck, reveling in the satisfying cracks that sound out when everything pops back into place.

Her ring has been in my hand all night. I squeeze it tight then put in the front pocket of my backpack for safe keeping. For the first time in two weeks, I slip off the clothes Kaman provides me and get dressed in my own hoodie and jeans. Because, what's the point? Nobody is coming for me.

The swelling and peeling skin makes it difficult to thread my arms through the sleeves. The claws are the most difficult part. I have to curl my left hand into a fist and try not to dig into my own palm as I pull my arm through. My thumb is already too short for my hand to be of much use. Kaman says it's meant more as a foreleg than it is for grasping. I plop down on the floor. If I rest it palm-down against the concrete, I can almost see the dead needles, a pale-orange carpet that this hybrid-hand is designed to tread across. And the smell of damp woodland. And the warmth of blood on my tongue and -

"Hey!" A girl's voice.

"What?" I say abruptly as if I've been caught doing something wrong. What was I just thinking about?

"Good you're awake," Emma replies.

"Yeah. Good."

There's frost on the window and the cold is creeping in through the cracks. I cross my arms and rub up and down my sleeves. Basements like this get freezing when the first cold snap hits. I know from all those nights songwriting with Jonah downstairs. We'd have to use a space heater to make it liveable. Jonah. Jesus, if I stare long enough at the cinderblock maybe I'll remember exactly what he looks like. The image keeps escaping me.