The Exchange

Rosalie Emery was as perfect as a sixteen old could be: brilliant grades, good at sports, a loving home and amazing friends, but the devil that coursed through her veins was unknown to all. To everybody who saw her, she was a pretty and talented girl, but I knew better, oh the secrets she hid, the lies she spoke. How incredible, fabulous even, but evil her mind was. I could go on for days and days about what lay beneath those fake smiles and those kind words, I could spill every secret there is about her to you; but, that wouldn't be fair, now would it? I'm tempted to but how can I, for who will love sweet Rosalie after I have betrayed her? Who will guide her to the path of success? So I hide, deep within the chambers of her heart, I pry my way to her soul, I wrench open the locked doors that lead me there, and manifest my poison. Bit by bit I make her ache, I tear her apart piece by piece; I take away everything she has, bit by bit. her cry of pain delights me but a part of me thinks that it is quite terrible. I make her beg for death, as I take away what she cares for the most.

Now she is just a shell, and I am the snail that inhabits it. She moves at my will, doing what I want her to do. Her soul was as bright as the sun itself, but it is now as dark as night, darker than the deepest pit of misery.

It makes me sick that I did this to her, but the joy - oh the blissful joy I feel when I know I control so much with tiny whispers delights me, it is addictive, and there is nothing I can do to rid myself of this.

The darkness that was once strange, is now comforting; It wraps me in a crushing, suffocating embrace. Rosalie doesn't have her light anymore, I took it away from her certain it wouldn't come back, but a person can hope, and hope can do dangerous things.

Now I am doomed to see the dawn from her dead eyes, the world from a frosted glass pane, a filter that brings about the worse in everyone, but today is different, I can feel it. At first, it is a heavy feeling like that of a warm blanket on a cold night, but then the comfort overwhelms me, and yearn for something I never had, what I took away from all, a wish of light in the soul I call mine.

My desire crushes me, it takes away all that I possess. It makes me hurt, but there is no joy left in watching pain now. All I can think of is Rosalie and how bright she was. She was the sun and I took away her light, I underestimated it, forced it to obey for too long, and now the sun will destroy me for all that I have done. It takes months, perhaps even years for the light to completely destroy me. I've lost track of time now, and know tha I take no pride in my darkness anymore.

The ecstasy of actions has been wrung dry. All that is left is the silent dread that creeps into the hole left behind. And for the first time, I realise what I did to countless others including Rosalie.

Oh, the beast I was, the beast I am. It will never leave me, beasts are weak and stubborn, they don't submit to light. I have known that all along, but until now I have never hated myself. I scream with all that is left in me, I scream for the beast to stop, but it doesn't listen, it lets the light consume me until I an no more.

Now I am just a part of the light, isn't that what I wanted? It frightens me and delights me at the same time. I still remember what it feels like to be in constant pain, when your body betrays your mind. Even those memories are fleeting fast. The last thing I see before the light takes my memories, who I am, I see the words ' Fear God Alone ' printed on the back of my eyelids, and  just like that, I am gone, forever lost.

I wake up to the alarm ringing, the bright sunlight forcing it's way through the blinds, dancing shadows on my bed. I take a moment to compose myself and make sense of my dream before I drag myself out of my bed.