Inexorable

11:Of Bloodless Crimes and Storytimes

Her mouth tastes of bitterness and blood. The strong, cutting taste slices past her lips and sinks down her throat. Vera wants to gag although her lips refuse to crack open. There is something that is holding her body back from moving according to its own will. Without her mind's consent, her legs continues to walk to its own accord, one foot in front of the other into the absolute darkness. 

Vera's eyes are shut closed, as if her eyelids were sewn together. A feeling of fear and terror rises up her throat, the sharp pain slicing at her insides as she tries to lift her eyelids. She wants to scream, to yell for help, to shatter the terrible darkness with her voice. But to her absolute dismay, her lips too, are seeming sewn shut as well. 

Alarm and raw terror washes her body as she struggles against the blindness that is binding her from seeing and screaming. Her screams are trapped in her body as she continues to walk down the path set in front of her. Something whispers to her that it is only a dream, or rather, a nightmare, but she is too paralyzed from fear to listen to the soft voice that breathes in her ears. She doesn't hear her own footsteps and she trudges down to the oblivion held in front of her.

Vera's throat tightens and her body wants to quaver in distress as she realizes that she can not feel her own skin. There is no sensation beneath her as the heels of her feet meet the ground in a soundless thud. Numbness slowly devours her from bottom to top as she continues to make her way down the path. It has already eaten away at her feet and has stolen her body's control. No matter how much she struggles against her unseen restraints. Her mind screams at her to to open her eyes, to yank free, to wake up. But Vera's body refuses to listen.

Cold slivers of paralysis trail to her knees and up her thighs. Slowly, yet at a terrifyingly swift speed, it manages to swirl around her waist before swallowing her midsection. Another scream desperately tries to escape past her lips, but it is caught between the invisible stitches embroidered around the outer skin of her mouth. She has lost all sensation of her legs, although that is only the start, for the darkness continues to envelope around her mercilessly tear away her flesh. What frightens her most, is that she can not register the pain as the shadows began to bite away at pieces of her skin. 

She can not feel the pain, yet she can bring herself to sense herself being torn apart. It is an indescribably sensation that is almost so strange, so hauntingly agonizing; it is what she would call an unimaginable type of pain. What she does, what she says, what she sees, what she hears, what she comprehends, what she feels- all of her essential human constituents are being stolen from her without her choice.

And for Vera, there is no pain greater being robbed of her own will.

No matter how hard she she has tried to fight against the black oblivion surrounding her, the dark matter is still ceaselessly feeding on her. It seems as though the nothingness is hungry not for her flesh, but for the remaining shards of will held within her ribcage, hidden far inside her beating heart. 

And although her lips are sealed and her eyes are shut, she screams against her sewn restraints as she watches the darkness mold itself into faint shadows of human figures. And although her body is robbed of any sensation and her ears are covered by layers and layers of utter silence, Vera continues to feel the slim trickle of yearning drip down the corners of her eyes and listen to the weak twinkle of hope sound in her head. 

Distorted shapes that seemingly resemble human bodies reach out to her as she takes her remaining steps down the path leading to the terrible void of nothingness. They are all faceless, black looming creatures that only desire for what she holds in her heart. They bare no face yet they wear red smiles of sinister pleasure.  Hands like claws, fingers like talons, nails like knives , they continue to rip away at her body, their bodies shuddering a remorseless shudder of glee as they find themselves closer and closer to the now dimming prize.