Self-Deprivation

Self-Deprivation

It was cold, damp, and dark. I couldn’t see a damn thing in any direction, until the humming of moving electricity shot through the darkness and ignited the emergency light leading down the hall. With flickering visibility, I toiled my way through. With each footstep, a splash of dust erupts from under my foot and into the air, making it stuffy and thick. In a desperate attempt to clear my lungs, I begin to hack and cough, violently rattling my rib cage and chest. My throat began to feel hoarse and raw, as if sandpaper had been lodged in my mouth and was traveling through my innards. My eyes began to water and my coughs grew in intensity, quickly attracting the dust like moths to a flame. As the debris entered my eyes, all vision left me as I scrambled to clean them. 

Dropping to my knees, I let out a pathetic moan of pain and urgently raised my hands to my eyes to wipe them. Pushing in with dirt covered fingertips, I quickly saw the error in my actions. Scraping the insides of my eyes with the unknown sharp pieces of crud all over me, my eyes began to bleed. How did this happen to me? Where was I? What is this stuff filling the air and why does it burn so badly? The thoughts and questions continued to race through my mind as I was quickly losing hope and growing in confusion. Unable to keep balance enough to stand, I began crawling in the direction I had started down. Maybe there was someone who would find me.... someone that could help.

Some time had passed and I had dried blood forming tear lines down my face. The pain no longer bothered me, instead feeling more like a distant annoyance. My vision didn’t return and the scratches the debris had made felt like bee stings under my eyelids. Every time my eyes shifted under the dark hood they were trapped in; it reopened the wounds and fresh liquid would seep out as the pain returned. Soon I would feel a rythmatic thumbing vibrating the ground under my palms, growing ever closer. I scream for help in a desperate attempt to escape the torment my body was currently being put through. 

No response was given, but the thumping continued to grow closer and closer. I called out once more, my ravaged throat unable to make a noise louder than a whimper. The footsteps stopped right before me and I heard what seemed like a deep and gravelly growl coming from above. I strained to open the seemingly locked lids of my eyes to see something ghastly standing before me. It was humanoid in shape, or at least I think it was. Its body was a dark black, but it was not fleshy skin that I saw but rather dripping black tar. It had three clawed toes on either foot, two in the front sinking deep into the ground in front of me, and one in the back. The monsters toned muscles could be seen, defined even through the tar like dripping skin. Like a chewed and gnarled bird, it had wings that twisted and seemed unable of flight. 

By the time I got to its face my vision had once again left me. I felt a hand placed against my back, palm first with a heat that resonated from it like a fire. As it scolded and seared my skin, three sharp serrated claws tore through the flesh on my back and scrapped the bones underneath. Attempting to howl in pain, my mouth opened wide and air escaped my lungs but my dry cracked throat couldn’t manage a noise this time; instead, I drifted out of consciousness. 

When I woke there were bandages wrapped around my face and torso, reaching over to cover my back. I could feel pus oozing from my wounds and something felt as though it were crawling under the unclean linen that cover my body. At first, it was mere movements, but then there were teeth that burrowed into the skin and ripped deep into the muscles and organs. Clawing at the bandages, I attempt to throw them off and scratch at the parasites underneath. Laughing exploded around me as lights sprang on and focused on me. I could feel the cold air give way to the bright beams washing over me. This was.....entertainment for someone.... for a crowed?

As the laughter died down and my confusion and concern quickly became limitless, muffled voices could be heard nearby speaking a tongue that wasn’t familiar. In what seemed like an instant, blades shot up from the floor underneath and cut cleanly through the flesh of my feet. Dropping to the ground with the realization that I had just lost half of each foot, I looked at the wounds to see the blooding puddling on the ground. The crimson liquid soon formed a small pond near me and showed no signs of slowing. I reached my hands out to attempt to apply pressure to the wound when they caught aflame. 

The fire cracked and spit as it toasted the flesh of my hands and took my breath away with the pain. Slamming my hands into the ground around me in a desperate attempt to extinguish the fire, I found myself surrounded by shards of rusted pieces of metal that imbed themselves into me. My hands instinctively balled into fists and push the shards ever deeper into my hands. As I watch the blood continue to spurt out of my feet, I begin to think "I’m going to die here." Whatever was under the bandages has now burrowed deeper into my organs, I could feel them wrenching under my skin. 

Blood mixed tears began to fall from my destroyed eyes, falling fast onto my chest and stinging the open wounds as they crash down. Who would do this to someone? I looked around to see if I could find the person responsible. As my eyes went from monster to monster through the room, each one of them indescribably hideous and terrifying, my gaze ended on one being. It was a woman; one I was familiar with. I hold a deep love for this woman in my heart and I feel my soul leave me as I recognize her. This was the person that was meant to be my soul mate, now beaming a pearly smile down at me as I suffered. 

She walks over to me, each stride like a dagger ripping through my mind. When she is next to me, a sense of hope flickers and cracks as memories flood my mind of all the good times we've had together. A foot interrupts those thoughts as it slams into one of the open wounds on my chest. “I love you” I manage to murmur, too weak to say anything with a normal tone. She pushed me the rest of the way onto my back with her foot, and I feel the rusted shards enter my flesh as I slam to the floor. 

Laughing, she twists her foot while still applying pressure to make the pain in my chest worse. My heart sank and betrayal filled me. “This was nothing to me. YOU are nothing to me. Did you truly think someone like you would ever be good enough? I didn’t have to fool you, you fooled yourself from day one thinking you ever had a chance. You’re nothing, and will never be anything.” she hissed as she continued to kick and slice me. “End it, he’s pathetic and I no longer wish to play with him.” she said as she turned to one of the monsters... it was the tar one from before. 

He grabbed something and walked slowly over to me. My mind flooded with questions that would get no answers. My heart felt heavy and ready to give in. My body was weak and drained as the blood continued to leave me. My mind was exhausted, unable to process how we were still alive after all of this torment. I felt something cold press up against my bare stomach and my eyes drooped to find what it was. My gaze rest on what appeared to be a metal rod sticking out of a glass box.

Too tired to move, I simply stared as the tar creature twisted the handle of the rod forcing it into my guts. As the rod entered, I felt it separate and turn into a type of claw; the metal arms pushing and twisting my intestines. I couldn’t feel anymore at this point... it was like I was watching a movie of myself and I didn’t really care what had happened anymore. I looked up to the tar creatures face to see if I recognized it when my eyes opened wide in horror. The creature was me, and we were staring at each other with the same pain and exhaustion in our eyes. He began twisting the handle the opposite direction and I felt the rod exiting my gut now, taking with it my intestines. Slowly, I watched as the monstrous version of myself extracted my organs like noodles out of a bowl. 

I woke up at my desk, my computer on and multiple icons and notifications flashing. The pain of all my superficial wounds were still there and my mind hadn’t made up its mind as to whether the following events had actually transpired or not yet. My self-doubts told me at least part of it happened, and clouds began to form in my mind. I knew I shouldn’t doubt things. I knew she loved me. But the thought of myself as that monster... why would anyone love me? Why would anyone choose me? Tears start to stream down my face as I continue to allow my mind to flood me with negative thoughts. I am weak, and so disappointing. Why do I allow these things to continue to happen?