With All My Soul
Page 102
In hell, I am the sum of my flaws.
This lasts for eternity, though I have no idea how long eternity really is. There is no time here. A minute, a day, a century, they are all measured by how much agony can be stuffed into a single heartbeat.
I scream as my flesh burns and my organs shrivel. My skin blackens and peels, and flakes of it fall to the floor, like a rain of ashes. This must be hells version of snow. Im horrified by my own disintegration, but I never lose consciousness. He wont let me miss a moment of my own torture, and he leaves my throat intact, because my screams are the soundtrack of his triumph, and somehow in hell I never lose my voice.
What he wants most from me is screaming, and I have no choice but to deliver.
Then, when theres so little left of me that I cant recognize the charred, twisted remains of my own body, he puts me back together so he can start from scratch, and there is no end to his imagination or to the pain it inspires. I cannot think. I cannot breathe. I cannot sleep. I can do nothing but suffer and scream, and here it becomes clear that I deserve nothing more. He shows me that Ive ruined every life I ever touched, and I will spend eternity paying for every mistake Ive ever made. I will pay, and I will pay again, then I will pay some more, and forever will come and go while I am still paying for sins Ive long since forgotten I committed.
He wants to know every part of me. Every thought in my head and every cell in my body, and he seems to think that taking me apart one piece at a timeone leg, one finger, one memory, one thoughtwill show him how I feel things he cant possibly understand. Things like love and pity and compassion, few of which I can even remember, with my own screams carving canyons through my mind.
But dissecting me wont help. He will never understand any human emotion that doesnt feed his appetite for greed or for suffering. Hellions dont have that capacity. And when he figures that out, his anger swells like the ocean tide until Im afraid well both drown in it, and I know his fury should make me happy, for some reason I cant quite remember, but it doesnt, because in this place, his anger only means my pain. In fact, his pleasure means my pain, and his confusion means my pain, and his very presence means my pain.
And then, when my pain finally begins to bore him, hell changes, and I learn all new ways to suffer.
I remember me now. I remember who I was, when I was something other than this. Other than agony given battered shape and shrill voice.
I was a daughter. I was a cousin, a niece, a classmate, a friend, a girlfriend.
I am none of that here, and the pain is infinitelyworse now that I know what Ive lost.
He shows me what Ive missed as I tumble through eternity, banged and bruised and abraded by my own memories. He shows me my friends. My family. He shows me that my attempt to save them has brought them all to ruin.
Hazel eyes, twisting in pain.
Long, thin hair, streaked with blood.
Black eyes flashing in fury, in futility.
Tears trailing down pale cheeks.
Grief and anger lead to violence, and neglect, and relapse, and pain that has no end.
I havent freed themIve sentenced them to an existence of guilt and tribulations Ive caused but cannot fix from beyond the grave. And I am so far beyond the grave now that the thought of being buried in a dark, quiet hole in the ground feels like mercy.
He shows me that Emma is lost. She is drowning in the suffering around her, and it takes over her mind until she cant think. Cant form coherent sentences. This time when they lock her up, I am not there to set her free. She sits in the corner of an empty room and screams my name over and over. I am the only thought she can still express, and the pain in her voice rips through my very center, shattering me into bits too small for the kings horses and his men to ever find, much less put back together. And for no reason he will explain to me, Tod is not there. He does not help her.
Where is Tod?
My captor shows me that Nash has escaped Emmas fate. Hes escaped everything, except for a saccharine euphoria and the memories he lives in, convinced they are reality as his body wastes away because hes forgotten about food and rest and life. He pays for his high with bits of himself, and remembered bits of me, and when those are all gone, he pays with bits of Sabine, even as he pushes her away.
Months flow like water beneath the bridge of their lives, and when she cannot wakehimshakehimsavehim, Nash finally lets it all go, and I cannot see the reaper who comes for his soul, but I know Nash does not resist. He lets the last of his life fade away while he rides on a vaguely pleasant fog, unaware that it is dissolving beneath him until he crashes to the ground, to the floor of his own bedroom, never to rise again. And for no reason I can understand, Tod is not there. He does not help his brother.
Where is Tod?
Sabine does not go to Nashs funeral. She cannot look at him in his coffin, skin molded to the shape of his bones, cheeks hollow, eyes sunken in dark wells carved out of his skull. But I cannot look away.
I have done this, and I am not allowed to forget that. I have led my first love to his ruin, and with him, so many others fall.
This lasts for eternity, though I have no idea how long eternity really is. There is no time here. A minute, a day, a century, they are all measured by how much agony can be stuffed into a single heartbeat.
I scream as my flesh burns and my organs shrivel. My skin blackens and peels, and flakes of it fall to the floor, like a rain of ashes. This must be hells version of snow. Im horrified by my own disintegration, but I never lose consciousness. He wont let me miss a moment of my own torture, and he leaves my throat intact, because my screams are the soundtrack of his triumph, and somehow in hell I never lose my voice.
What he wants most from me is screaming, and I have no choice but to deliver.
Then, when theres so little left of me that I cant recognize the charred, twisted remains of my own body, he puts me back together so he can start from scratch, and there is no end to his imagination or to the pain it inspires. I cannot think. I cannot breathe. I cannot sleep. I can do nothing but suffer and scream, and here it becomes clear that I deserve nothing more. He shows me that Ive ruined every life I ever touched, and I will spend eternity paying for every mistake Ive ever made. I will pay, and I will pay again, then I will pay some more, and forever will come and go while I am still paying for sins Ive long since forgotten I committed.
He wants to know every part of me. Every thought in my head and every cell in my body, and he seems to think that taking me apart one piece at a timeone leg, one finger, one memory, one thoughtwill show him how I feel things he cant possibly understand. Things like love and pity and compassion, few of which I can even remember, with my own screams carving canyons through my mind.
But dissecting me wont help. He will never understand any human emotion that doesnt feed his appetite for greed or for suffering. Hellions dont have that capacity. And when he figures that out, his anger swells like the ocean tide until Im afraid well both drown in it, and I know his fury should make me happy, for some reason I cant quite remember, but it doesnt, because in this place, his anger only means my pain. In fact, his pleasure means my pain, and his confusion means my pain, and his very presence means my pain.
And then, when my pain finally begins to bore him, hell changes, and I learn all new ways to suffer.
I remember me now. I remember who I was, when I was something other than this. Other than agony given battered shape and shrill voice.
I was a daughter. I was a cousin, a niece, a classmate, a friend, a girlfriend.
I am none of that here, and the pain is infinitelyworse now that I know what Ive lost.
He shows me what Ive missed as I tumble through eternity, banged and bruised and abraded by my own memories. He shows me my friends. My family. He shows me that my attempt to save them has brought them all to ruin.
Hazel eyes, twisting in pain.
Long, thin hair, streaked with blood.
Black eyes flashing in fury, in futility.
Tears trailing down pale cheeks.
Grief and anger lead to violence, and neglect, and relapse, and pain that has no end.
I havent freed themIve sentenced them to an existence of guilt and tribulations Ive caused but cannot fix from beyond the grave. And I am so far beyond the grave now that the thought of being buried in a dark, quiet hole in the ground feels like mercy.
He shows me that Emma is lost. She is drowning in the suffering around her, and it takes over her mind until she cant think. Cant form coherent sentences. This time when they lock her up, I am not there to set her free. She sits in the corner of an empty room and screams my name over and over. I am the only thought she can still express, and the pain in her voice rips through my very center, shattering me into bits too small for the kings horses and his men to ever find, much less put back together. And for no reason he will explain to me, Tod is not there. He does not help her.
Where is Tod?
My captor shows me that Nash has escaped Emmas fate. Hes escaped everything, except for a saccharine euphoria and the memories he lives in, convinced they are reality as his body wastes away because hes forgotten about food and rest and life. He pays for his high with bits of himself, and remembered bits of me, and when those are all gone, he pays with bits of Sabine, even as he pushes her away.
Months flow like water beneath the bridge of their lives, and when she cannot wakehimshakehimsavehim, Nash finally lets it all go, and I cannot see the reaper who comes for his soul, but I know Nash does not resist. He lets the last of his life fade away while he rides on a vaguely pleasant fog, unaware that it is dissolving beneath him until he crashes to the ground, to the floor of his own bedroom, never to rise again. And for no reason I can understand, Tod is not there. He does not help his brother.
Where is Tod?
Sabine does not go to Nashs funeral. She cannot look at him in his coffin, skin molded to the shape of his bones, cheeks hollow, eyes sunken in dark wells carved out of his skull. But I cannot look away.
I have done this, and I am not allowed to forget that. I have led my first love to his ruin, and with him, so many others fall.
