My second chance, another life, reborn beneath a sky forlorn. But Lady Luck's legs were much like the bubonic plague; both were known for spreading and being associated with a high body count. As luck would have it, things went terribly, terribly wrong, really, really fast.

The gift of life, it gave to me the sight of a ceiling, decrepit and ebon. Else did it gift, this vessel of mine, purest pain, one which shall never know an equal.

It hurts.

In life’s grand design, with plans premade, did vision oh-so quickly fade. Clarity became a mirror of fog and haze, blurry and effaced─there it was, my sole friend, the bleak dark.

I was hurting.

It embraced, attention it devoured. The image of before, now long forgotten, no one thing to recognize… barely able, still not capable. Hard to discern, what was I, amidst this sensation.

Pain.

A murmur, voices distant and foreign, blitzed through an all-too-young spine. Akin to a cannonball in times of war, prisoners were there nevermore...

Palpable was the panic, yet too little the space to entertain.

Like there was a choice. Pain had its own voice.

The low thrum of a heart beating, throbbing through the mind, leaving nowhere peace to find.

STOP. Stop…it didn’t. Lucid, and hurt. Hurt caused by think, hurt caused by being. Death, apparent─a privilege

…revoked.

Never did it lessen; every breath prolonged it, kept me-clinging to this cage of flesh. Another wave of horror, another other something to bear.

To endure the every other again.

There is more, there is more. More, more more.

Behind the simile? There is just a feeble man, who never learned how to smile.

Ha-ha-ha; THINGS…were not okay.

Things…were…not…okay.

Things were not okay.

The voices -now- were just noise. These sounds, endless, buzzing, sounds. Focus; I can’t, I can’ t hear myself think. I do not under-stand any of this.

What was h-happening to me?

Why? Why was I like this?

No sight,

no light,

simply dark.

I n t h i s p e r f e c t d a r k n e s s, w e a l l a r e l o n e l y. S u c h i s t h e f a t e o f t h e l i v i n g, b r e a t h i n g, b u r i e d. L o n e l y, b u t n o t a l o n e. A c c o m p a n i e d b y o u r s e l v e s, a l o n e.

I cope, I hope, I tolerate…but what for?

Tick-Tock went the clock. Tick-Tick-Tick did it click. Pain was here, pain was there, pain was everywhere. Tock-Tock-Tock around the clock.

Time, it lied. As I lay, my wounds unhealed. In continuum, repeating myself: I am fine; I was lying. Whispering ”I am okay, I promise”; I lie anew. Nothing changed, voices remain noises, choices none. The silence harbored violence, no sense…of self merely torment, more agonizing.

And then, there it was─the promised nothing. A fitting embrace of the nocturnal tragedy, embroiled deeply upon my closed lids. Deus ex machina, gifter of sweet relief, bringer of sweetest death. Or so, it might have seemed. Numb was the mind, nonexistent the body, freed, at last, was the spirit.

But deep inside the realisation grew, sweet nothings happened to turn sour all too quickly. Bitter experience taught enough to question the apparent perfect.

In ‘death’ came life’s revival, in all its glory and with all its terror.

A relapse. The same old returned under thunderous applause from morbid ideation.

.

.

.

Months, many months reduced to mere moments. Morphing my mind, manifesting nothing…of…value. Days and hours long had atrophied into something secondary. There was no meaning─to a life like this.

The biological clock spun on, uncontrollable. Seasons continuously changed in the blink of an unmoving eye.

Father Time flashed those pearly whites of his.

This body of mine, no, the body I inhabited felt…different. In bed with bedlam, coma and fleeting clarity did this corporeal form continue to change. In the beginning, the casing seeming to mirror the guise of a newborn, invoked an uncanny congruence. An arm for each leg, 2 of those present, as it ought to be─human, that it should be.

Yet any sensation, any feeling felt distinctively different. Unlike anything a Homo Sapiens specimen could ever harbour.

A feeling of general numbness permeated these veins. Each limb appeared alien, as if it did not belong. The attached meat seldomly tingled and prickled, pins and needles as the common folk ascribed it to be.

Neuronal pathways told of what was there, and nerve signals informed of flimsy foreign material. The attempted moving of digits became delayed, their response a sensory distortion.

A finical connection, which neither denied nor confirmed that an action had been taken.

Merely a capricious corpus distilled emotions of illness throughout. Leaving behind empty assumptions of what was awry. Neither capable of sight or planned movement; it laid there, as if it had been laid there to rest...

However, this motor paralysis was not something one would call a singular avenue. Incapable of ever acting onto anything, it returned everything, every experience to be done unto it…with cruel precision and realism.

The effort spent and exerted to preserve this vessel, to stop its intended demise, was quite deliberate…

… the desire to artificially halt the inevitable engine of rot marked the unfortunate side-effect of helpful intention.

Necrosis never took hold; thus, all met rot. Aside from the one thing that should have done so.

Left to its own device, this carcass was due to wither away in time duly.

Yet, those on the outside brought the timer of the promised end to a halt, and it started anew. With every reset, all the bodily needs, all its produced waste, all were forcefully taken care of─every single thing was experienced─by me─ countless times over.

For reasons unknown, this skeletal prison, it got tethered in place. Rope dug into the epidermis as it bound the ephemeral to-be-cadaver to a wooden surface. Keeping it straight, keeping it unmoving, keeping me drowning in an endless tide of burning pain

One could only hope there was a meaning to it; that this method served a purpose.

Realisation crept up. There was nothing to be done.

Quickly you would come to cry out loudly, to try and communicate with the peculiar set of voices one could never understand.

Out merely came a scream, a hoarse, animalistic chain of wails. Closer to beast than it was to man, which caused but one question: Was that truly “me”?

Could a newborn truly produce such noise?

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

The sign of life, the cry for help to be ignored anyhow. The acts resumed, and the countdown was celebrated, another reset. Time passed; whether you liked it or not…

There had to be a reason to this, a cause to explain all of this.

The truth was out there, somewhere─on the ‘outside’, where things were blur within the blur. Yet, that was of no concern to me. I had stopped caring a long while back.

Tick

Tock

Tick

Tock

Day: whatever. Things still the same: pain’s there, crying, screaming voices too. No clue what they are saying. Language sounds foreign, unlike anything on Earth. Resembling someone suffocating on blood─occasionally.

Body kept alive by forceful insertion of food and water. Food, mostly stale bread. Taste, not noteworthy. Same for water; neither toxic nor contaminated ergo sufficient.

Day after day. Same pain parade. Crying, screaming voices. Praying? No clue what they say. Language foreign. Nothing like Earth. Resembles suffocating on blood─again.

Cycle continues. Pain’s having fun. Many new voices came; they sound sad. Praying, mumbling to a god, or whatever. Results the same: Body aint dead, mind dying.

Resignation to routine. Survival.

Conscious to unconscious. Unconscious to questionable clarity of mind. Followed, the fade back to black. Survival? Questionable!

Made to not see another day. To feel the usual. Existence preserved, without consent, without say. Time passed on as such. Experiences never deviated.

Nothing changed, ritualistic, it continued. Until it did, and did again, differently. Life went on. As it did, the change was called norm. No surprises, no. New, so long─and goodbye!

The meaning implied, an idea stuck in times past, poisonous ideals of others…or? Or, or, or.

Outcome, reason, motivation irrelevant, conclusion the same anyhow.

Voices grew sparse, reason not known. Those that stayed, also changed. Hope gone, sadness took its place.

Then there was only silence.

Metaphorically speaking: dead inside became dead outside.

The realist shook the pessimist's hand. At this moment the glass was neither half-full nor half-empty. Instead, it found usage in glassing any potential optimist. Optimism did not live long here.

The voices still talked, presumably. Sad, their tone─most likely. They will be missed.

Taste had disappeared as well. Since when… of no consequential matter.

Touch was out of touch. Went out like it was trying to buy some milk.

Smell said smell you later, alligator.

Eyes didn’t see a problem. Cool if they saw something in the first place.

But, who was this? This shining example of euthanasia’s necessity would certainly let this level of negativity ruin things, right? Exactly, it’s me, was me? Had been me?? Eh, the gist of things was rather simple…Enjoying staring into the darkness had, all of a sudden, turned into a hobby of mine.

Ain’t that too precious; certainly it was quite cool.

Don’t you feel it too─between you and me, body, that sensation of feeling absolutely nothing? Don’t you too suddenly feel inspired to formulate your own eulogy?

Here lay now the ‘I’s body buried, breathing, living. At the mercy of a heart, beating, thumping, and for some inexplicable reason NOT dying. Sounds like a jolly good time, indeed.

Were we, you and I, not having the time of our lives, dearest bosom buddy, body?

Why is it that you do not answer me? Body, what was wrong? Body, please respond.

Perchance were the 3152 daily breads not to your liking? Were the 12521 pitiful attempts at chewing mayhaps too much for you to handle, little bud, bod?

Dot. Dot. Dot.

Imaginative crickets began to chirp, tumbleweeds crossed the prairie, the wind whistled, the voices in my head collectively gasped, a pin dropped to the ground.

Staying silent is not helping our relationship. I just want the best, for both of us.

Buddy, we can’t go on like this. We gotta talk about our separation issues. I know, I know. Right now you would want to be with literally anybody else. But, we both know that you are not any body to me. You are my body.

But the body did not talk, namely because they usually are not supposed to.

Before our romantic reunion came to fruition I noticed a pesky situation flaring up. Annoyingly my senses began to come somehow alive again.

Of course, it felt like I was cooked alive during the process. Though at this point that was Casual Tuesday.

Just one of those whims and woes, which just so happen to happen.

Instead of us running towards one another in the flowing fields of dancing wheat painted in the soft orange light of a sinking sun, we were kinda like a rectal suppository in the anals of history.

But before the deep, intricate meaning of this comparison could slip in, a jolt of electricity surged through and rekindled the enthusiasm, with whom my flesh was “treated” with.

The first friendly fire came by the lovely odour of pus, bedsores and abscess, which softly caressed my nostrils.

My ears, they brought to me the tune of sombre knell; my breathing, both labored and arduous, resounded within.

Touch gave feel, the ability to attempt to move muscle again…hurray!

Someone found the on/off switch for my tastebuds─just in time to appreciate the boiling liquid─soup if one took enough creative liberties to refer to this bland abomination with small pieces of unidentifiable edible objects as such.

And last but not least, did the gift of life give to me the sight of a ceiling, decrepit and ever-so ebon.

Sure enough, the light of day disappeared as quickly as it appeared. This time, however, it was a small, feeble arm that spared me the sight of the same ceiling. It wrapped around my frail neck and began to tremble as my head was gradually bent forward.

The meaning behind it was not long in coming. A wooden spoon shot through the air and threatened to smash into my mouth at any moment.

There was a lot of routine in this movement, perfectly rehearsed, as if it had done nothing differently for years.

But when the golden eyes saw my grace-seeking gaze, which asked for nothing more than to please not pour liquid magma down my throat, this spoon promptly fell victim to gravity.

Soon before the impact could produce a sound, this object was stopped in its tracks, together with its entire chunky content.

And that in the middle of the fall, just still and motionless in the air.

"You'll surely forgive me for not making a big spectacle now, won't you?" a voice all too familiar to me made itself heard.

"Welcome back from the dead..." spoke the disembodied voice with a snideful undertone.

But this voice was not without body this time. No, in the farthest corner of my eye, sat a human-like figure in a tuxedo.

In its face, there were no eyes, no nose, no eyebrows, just a laughing mouth full of flowing, tufted, thick saliva.

“Did you miss me?”