Prologue
She let out a sharp, disdainful breath, followed by a venomous whisper: ‘Hypocrites.’ The figure was a shadow in the room, her presence a tap, tap, tap on the wooden floor. The TV, tuned to a dead channel couldn’t catch more than her vague silhouette cased like a shadow within a shadow. She sat in a small wooden chair, right in front of me- leg crossed with an implied smile in her featureless face. The metallic tang of my blood intertwined with her perfume, creating a complex fragrance. It was as if hellfire had distilled an aroma, designed to bewitch and intoxicate. As I breath it in, a perverse calm washes over me. Her voice, rich with malevolent sweetness, trilled ‘It seems your soul is broken, my little butterfly.’
The voice came from the air itself like it was a puppeteer’s trick and the room was the puppet. Her voice moved in the same frequency of the television. Two scratching lullabies of a loud whisper having a conversation with a corpse. “Let me mend the beautiful wings that butcher ripped from you." She commanded, "I will turn your pain into strength and all your sorrows into glory. All you have to do, is to give me time and, well..." a pause, " your soul.” I can't control the stream slithering down my nose carefully climbing the curvature of my lips in the way to its blissful death. My eyes are wide open, and I can’t move, I can’t focus, existing is the only thing I can do. The static noise became my entire life. The pain; almost existential sipping in the shadows of my brain and twisting what's inside. My eyes, the only part I have autonomy over, are completely clouded by tears “Take it,” I rasped, my voice barely audible. “Just... take it.” The words escaped like a final, broken plea. She rose from the chair like an exclamation, and the shadows seemed to devour the room. In that encroaching darkness I finally understood peace.
"You are a masterpiece." She whispered into my ear.
I feel my body being lifted in the air with ease. A warm limb touches my hot skin calming the burning pain with the care of a mother, making my body go limp like a kitten. Her embrace is pure, comforting and finite. It coats my heart and numbs my mind. She sings to me, until I let go.
