Between the sharpened edges of ridged teeth, slowly swallowed is my fortune’s fate. Immaculate and gleaming, hot reality sears against goose-bump ridden skin, drained is my destiny’s effectiveness, my will forfeited to limbo.

            Clammy warmth moves beneath me, my head left to loll between freedom and the persuasion of darkness, the lure of exhaustion’s invasion. Scattered light reflects against dilated pupils, sharp agony branching through trigger-happy nerves, the door linking my awareness to reality succumbing to the ravages of a fiery deliriousness.

            A scratch on the surface of the brain pulses, a muffled growl emanating from the ribbed red flesh, fetid and sour, toxic and suffocating. My eyes roll back, consciousness losing itself to a will being overtaken by inevitability.  My vision knocked blank against the white barrier, I awake at my thief’s jowls, cold, wet, conquered and cruelly cornered.

My bowels spill out onto the ground, bile spewing from my throat, eyes burning, teary. A sickly grin, deathly in a dark hue, further fading my perceptions. A nose, cold, pushing me over, laying me flat in my excrement, coating filth with filth, nipping on my legs, blood vibrant and smooth running down the curve of my ankle, bright life abandoning the care and comfort of its host for that of no other.

Reality flickers, a screen of sepia beyond hooded eyelids, a vintage picture seeping in to take the place of pain. Rising, peering up at the animal hovering so menacingly over me, the thoughts of my life’s purpose bubbling within its belly threatening to topple my reason from its unsteady stance.

            A pit swirls within the depths of milky black pearls, shoulder blades in a vicious dance, back and forth, back and forth, waves of wickedness descending to my eye’s level, malice blazing, icy cold, whispering of my demise.

            A soft, gentle rumble, a breeze on damp skin, masking so efficiently the intentions. Serenity melting through my heart’s terror, anger viscous, oozing from within the boundaries of self-preservation. I smile, looking up with a maddened glare, mirrored: the loss of my foundation, my soul’s capabilities reaching to each peak of nature’s spectrum.

            Eyes narrow within the beastly head, a look of one long since weary of my pathetic attempts in this game of perseverance.

            Bristled fur beneath shaky fingers, a glee blooming, spreading throughout my pervasive weakness. Shards cling crustily, poking out, thin red lines leaking down open palms.

           

She whispered hurriedly of my future, eyes widened in a fear unknown and unintentional. Trembling her hands, soft and cool, embraced my face, tears falling from her eyes, muttering empty hopes and false promises to cover her revelation. A mockery of my destiny played across her features, yet within the darkest depths of her irises did throb heartache, not for me, but for what my presence forced into her mind’s memory.

 

 

            Accusingly, I stared through the falsities, the inconsistencies of her manner and appearance. Within those lying eyes I saw my terror, but not its cause, my murder and not the executioner, but now filled is the vacant blackness, my fate truly standing before me, wincing helplessly in defeat, its expression contorted by the pangs of unrelenting pressure.

 

            Blood flows intermittently now over my fingers still gripping the putrefied, solidified clumps of dried nastiness, brittle hair, ripped mercilessly from the roots.

            The glimmer of pleasure dims in those pearly black swirls, the game coming to an end, my fate stooped again in shrouded mystery, my hand coated in thick discolored iron.

            “Thank you.” I cannot help but breathlessly mutter, falling back to gaze upon my killer, my savior, my fate, my past.

            Exhaustion breeches the line of my last defenses, eyelids blurring the world, stealing away the sunlight. Only for a minute I tell myself, the rich green of my surroundings returned. Only for a minute, and I will take my leave, head for the waters, cleanse myself of myself and my recollection, but redness shines too comfortingly from beyond my eyelids, the loss of adrenaline laying my motivations by the wayside to marinate in the ditches.

            If I do not know where to go, why am I going? Drowsiness clouding my lucid thoughts, and I do not move. No comforts of certainty lie by the banks. Excuses to stay remain present and unmoving. Oh yes, I will take them, run with them over these hills, but only after one moment of rest and one moment more.