Praying Under Pressure

8 - The Sun

I don't understand where I am. The bed isn't soft but the light is. Softer than the light should be in a room like instead of lightbulbs the sun shines right in. The bed feels rough like shitty sheets or a quilt.

It's a quilt. Tan, grey, white. I don't see a pattern I don't see a reason. The sun is ruining my vision, making everything fuzzy and blob-like. 

I groan, but I don't feel myself do it. I don't see my body when I attempt to sit up from the bed. I feel it when a hand pressed on my chest and on my stomach, pushing me down onto the quilt. 

"Oh, no. Good little boys stay in bed until told otherwise." The sun looks so pretty. Pretty enough to cover the sweet sickness of the voice all around me. Unfortunately, it's too pretty that it covers the source of the voice. I just want to see who loves me. I can feel it. 

I think it's love. Or it's perfectly planned torture. 

"That's okay, pretty boy. I know you don't mean it sometimes," I wiggle under the pressure confused on why the voice is acting like I'm talking back. The pressure just holds down harder, the only relief I have at the moment, "But you should make it up to me, right pretty boy? Make me feel good again."

My insides feel icky like swords on a battlefield fighting to win their side. Eager or disgusted. 

The pressure gets hard, it hurts so fucking bad down low like the swords are now cutting their way out, "That's it, good boy, that's it. Make me feel good. Show me how you love me." And it hurts and it burns. I squirm, fighting against the pressure that is only getting heavier. 

The words burn on my scan, marking it in disgusting praise. I want to be happy they're calling me a good boy, a pretty boy, but the heavy pain is too much to give attention to other emotions. I want to be mad, I want to be happy, but now the emotions are drowning too and I can't feel anything.

"Wait-wait-" But my words are shoved right down my throat when a very familiar chuckle rings in the air. Who is it? I know that is embedded in my memories -my heart.

The sun stays the same except now it becomes so over baring that the air around him seems to suffocate slowly. Everything is becoming humid to the point that I can't tell if I'm sweating, crying, or being drowned in a pool. 

I am. Fuck I am. The pressure is so heavy there has to be sandbags tried to my limbs. I look down in the sun that is only getting brighter, tugging on the ropes that have appeared on my wrists. Nothing happens.

"Help! Help! Oh my god, please lord please save me I'm so sorry I would do it again. I promise I'll be good. I promise I'll appreciate what I have and listen to Jace and Mr. Locke and everyone!" My throat hurts but I can't stop screaming because something is feeling me up and I need to be saved, "I'm sorry I'm so bad! Please, Lord, save me-"

And then air overrides everything in my body, the choking of water is gone as I choke on air. The light is dimming. When I look up with tears in my eyes and burning in my throat, there are two figures that always there are there.

Wait, why do I know they're there? I try to stumble to my feet but one of the figures laughs and shoves me back so I land on my ass hard.

The one who shoves me laughs bitterly, "Silly boy, thought we would save you?"

The other ones adds on so smugly that I can almost imagine a smirk on its face, "Stupid boy, thought God would save you?"

 Both black figures suddenly do have smirks. The teeth are chipped creating disgusting fangs framed around blue lips.  

The shorter, first, figure peers down at my dripping cold body, "God doesn't want a disgusted little whore like you. God doesn't want a faggot that has been more used than his own name."

"God won't save a weak little boy who doesn't try to save himself. God won't save a sinner who doesn't want to repent." 

"Pathetic, weak little faggot that'll do whatever he's told."

"Bark once little doggy if you like it up the ass," They laugh so demonically that I can't understand what they're saying. It's all so confusing and deep like their lungs are slowly giving out. 

"I don't understand. I don't- help me!"

"Shut up!" I flinch back, my hand slipping from underneath me so I fall back on my head. The black figures are sudden over me, the sun blinding behind them so I see them perfectly, "No one will ever help you. Why would they when you didn't help us."

"You fucking left us to give a fun, happy life while we rotted in the gave. We were the only ones who should have lived! We're the only ones people want to be around-"

"-Unless it's to give out what he stole. Disgusted I shared a house, a name, fucking air with you. "

"I don't understand, I don't understand," Shared a house, a name? I don't have a home. I don't have a name. Who is this person? 

The sun is getting hotter like my back is sizzling against the ground. Frying under two angry figures who deserved to live.

"Listen hear, little whore, you're going to die. Whether it be under out hand, your hand, or with him stuck inside you forever."

This time they began to laugh, the laugh pulls up blood that begins to trickle and pool out of their mouths as they laugh. I scream, fighting as best as I can when they grab my limbs to lift me up. Their laughing doesn't stop, neither does their bleeding when suddenly they and the sun is gone and I'm back in the water. 

Bloody water. I keep kicking, sucking in more air but I can't stop. I have to live. They can't be right. 

The pressure is heavy again, this time joined by hands that trail themselves up and down my sides the first voice back as it whispers right into my ear, "Shhh. Don't cry little boy. I won't let you die. I won't let you go. You won't leave me, you'll never read me, right?"

"Yes! Yes!" But my voice is suffocated in the blood.

"My pretty little boy. Let me make you feel good."

The man gasps for air when all the pressure is gone and his lungs can suck in vital oxygen. His eyes fly open too, greeted by a much dimmer light of his bedside lamp that he always leaves on at night. He doesn't like to wake up to the dark. 

He pants, aware of how disgustingly sweaty he is. Even in just boxers and no covers. His eyes dart around the room to resecure where he is while he slowly relaxes back into his pillow. 

He lays there for a few moments, trying to remember who was in his dream and why they said what they said. But all he can ever remember is how it felt. The pressure, the words, the color. He doesn't like to feel. It hurts so much. 

He carefully sits up in his bed, regaining the strength to stand before he goes into the empty house and takes a shower long past the brutal impact of cold water.