Disclaimer: Only the prologue is written in the first person perspective. I encountered various problems and had to switch to 3rd person in the following chapters.
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In the beginning there was pain; unending and unbelievable pain. One of my first memories also consists of wicked laughter - and pain. It hurts! I'm glad that I'm not alone with this unbearable pain. The wicked laughter of my best friend lightens the stress on my mind and I feel relieved, because I’m not alone in this pain.
He always wears dark black robes and a wicked mark with a demonic smile covers his whole face. Two fitting evil dark brown, nearly black, eyes glint at me through two small holes in the mask. I don’t know much else about his appearance because he always, for all those long years, hides himself behind the wicked mask and long dark robes. But sometimes some of his black hair slips out between his hood and mask and I noticed that it’s a bit curly at the end. My hair on the other hand is straight blond without any curls. I wonder why?
What is pain? By now I know almost everything about pain. Pain comes in all kind of different forms, but it always hurts. How do I know pain? Mainly through my never-ending experience and by now I am pretty sure that I know pain from all its sides. For example if I get hit, prodded and stabbed it leaves red swelling marks on my body and it hurts, like right now. I can bear it, as long as he is happy and keeps on laughing.
When I make him very happy, he sometimes even draws me pictures with beautiful red colour on the opposite walls. Where does this colour come from? Well, after stabbing and prodding me, my body seems to produce this colour on its own, I think it's beautiful, he told me it's beautiful. A small moan escapes my mouth because of this unbearable pain. But he doesn't always draw me pictures, only when he is overjoyed with my performance like today. I keep singing for him to make him happy, each time he stabs me I start to sing again and again. I'm pretty sure he will start drawing a picture for me pretty soon; we both give it our best.
How long did this go on for? I don't know, longer than I can remember. Sometimes the never ending pain seems to lessen, the same way my consciousness sometimes slowly escapes my grip on my mind and drifts away into a well-known darkness. But one day he was very kind and told me why my pain sometimes seems to disappear and fixed it soon afterwards. It seems that there are many different nerves throughout my whole body and if you experience pain through the same nerve over an extended period of time the pain seems to lessen. By switching to another nerve in my body we were able to subdue my body to a whole new level of pain again, which made him very happy. I'm happy. It hurts!
How do I know what a nerve is? When he told me about the different nerves and my nervous system, I didn't seem to understand right away and he had to luckily spend much time with me that day and seemed to be pleased with me afterwards; he was very kind. He picked various large and sharp objects, turned me around, and hacked right into my back. There it was again, this unbearable pain! I started to sing with renewed vigour. Sometimes funny transparent liquid seems to roll down my face, if we both give it all, it even turns a slightly red colour. I don't like it very much, because the red one from my body is more colourful; he likes it tough, so I don't complain. He cut out a part of a very long bone right in the middle of my back area, cleaned it and taught me all about nerves.
I was very excited, because he doesn't often spend so much time with me and i had to suppress my happiness to keep my attention on the lecture. I like the lectures, because i can learn all about my body, he knows very much and keeps on teaching me. He also taught me much about the world, a world I have never seen before. He often makes various parts of my body disappear and cleans them, then the lectures start. Even though it hurts, I really like to learn new things about my body. Once he taught me all about these wiggly things called intestines from inside my belly, they looked pretty weird, but the pain was at least bearable.
My song gets softer and softer by now, even though we both give it still our best. It hurts! The transparent liquid seems to flow again down from my right eye and today it has this slightly red colour again. We never managed to make it flow from both my eyes; even he doesn’t know why my left eye won’t make it flow. He told me these little mysteries are worth living and so we work really hard to discover why it is only produced from my right eye. He gives me a frown and seems to be disappointed with my stamina. I can’t go on anymore. His frown deepens and he turns around and starts to connect multiple thick tubes, with weird looking liquid inside, with my body. I know now, that he won’t paint a pretty picture for me today.
This is the worst part, because I know he will leave me soon afterwards. I try to establish eye contact and beg him to stay. My voice doesn’t seem to work; maybe it has something to do with the prodding in my throat area this morning, how curious. Funny sounds escape my mouth and my mood lightens. He finally looks at my face, frowns again and gags my mouth. The sounds stopped coming and my mood falls again. I know if he connects the last tubes to my body, the endless pain will start again and he will leave me alone in the dark. I don’t want him to leave me, though I hope he will connect all the tubes this time. Sometimes he seems to forget to connect everything and then my belly starts to hurt. It feels like something is eating me from the inside, I don’t like it because there is nothing to see and it still hurts. By now he managed to connect all the tubes to different parts of my body and then he looks me in the eyes, smirks, turns around and leaves the room.
Now I’m alone again in the dark with my unending pain. Long time ago, when we started to use these weird looking tubes, we managed to make me feel pain for an unlimited amount of time, even when he is not with me. He once told me that in some tubes is some kind of liquid which attacks different nerves by circulating with my blood flow throughout my entire body. This way we prevented the continuous attack on just one nerve and the pain never seems to stop, which made him unbelievable happy, so I resolved myself to endure the pain.
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Sometimes he doesn’t visit me for a long time and I slowly start to feel lonely. When I start to feel lonely over an extended period of time my body experiences funny emotions. If I’m not gagged, small giggles and wicked laughter escape my mouth. I think it’s because I’m feeling too excited, when I think about that he will visit me soon again. At the same time this red tinged, transparent liquid starts to flow from my right eye again and my whole body starts to shake uncontrollably. Then even after a longer time of loneliness, my body seems to cool down and all I can do is to stare in the direction he left me. I just keep on staring and experience the pain with my full attention, because there is nothing else to keep me occupied. This loneliness is also some kind of pain, which I don’t fully grasp yet. I know tough the longer I’m alone, the more it seems to hurt. I once told him about it and he was so happy we spend a very long time together and I was singing for hours. In the end he even drew me a pretty picture of a so called girl with various sized stakes through her body, including one directly through her head. I liked it very much, such a pretty picture. He told me that the picture depicts me on the very day we first met.
A long amount of time has passed after he left me alone in the dark with my unending pain. By now I have experienced all the different stages of loneliness. Even I feel like I’ve never felt so alone my entire life. I wonder if he’ll ever come back. Some of the tubes even dried up and my belly hurts again. This happened never before so I’m also excited. Because I’m too excited my body starts to shake, red tinged liquid flows down my face and funny noises escape my gag again.
By now nearly every tube dried up and I don’t even feel the pain in my belly anymore. At least I still feel the everlasting pain so he won’t be too mad with me when he comes back. I can’t bear it anymore. Why won’t he come visit me again? Did I do something wrong? What about discovering all the small mysteries in life together? I start to sob uncontrollably. I can’t imagine what I’ve done wrong. I wipe away the tears in my eyes, when a loud creaking noise and an ear deafening shatter reaches my ears and I experience new pain again.
After some time I don’t feel anything anymore. This is the first time since I can remember I don’t feel any pain. I’m scarred witless, will he be mad if he comes back and sees this mess and knows I don’t feel any pain anymore? I don’t seem to be able to control my thoughts and body. I shiver all over and try to hide in a corner and start to produce wailing noises. After some time I notice that my room looks quite different. It’s smaller overall and part of the wall and ceiling lies around on the floor. Everywhere is dust and it’s hard to breath. By now I can only hope he won’t be really mad when he comes visit me again. I notice that I can move my left arm, so I start to feel around in my surroundings. The chain connected to my right arm seems to be connected to the wall, but it seems to loose. I pull a bit on the chain and there is this deafening shatter again. My room got smaller again and more dirt lies on the floor. I also feel pain again, because some part on the ceiling landed on my shoulder. I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. I have to get out of here before he comes back and sees all the mess I made. But at the same time I hope that the noise was able to catch his attention so he will visit me again. I still feel lonely.
After more time passed and I calmed down, I decided to go look for him. I can’t bear this loneliness anymore, even though I tried really hard to endure it. I took the chain from my neck in both my hands and started to pull again. This time the chain was connected to the floor and it just produced some creaking noises without the deafening shatter. I take that as a good sign and my mood starts to lighten up again. Only the chains on my legs are remaining. I take them in both my hands and with a quick pull I’m able to move my legs. This is the first time I don’t feel any pain and I’m able to move at the same time. I’m so excited. I’m afraid. What will happen when he comes back? I start sobbing again and a wicked laughter escapes my mouth in between the funny noises. Seems like the gag in my mouth got lost at some point in time. I really need to find him, because he needs to fix my room and make everything go back to normal again. I’m so afraid right now and I can’t seem to calm down.
Light starts to shine in between the cracks in my ceiling and I’m so captivated by this sight I can’t seem to move. This is even more beautiful than the pretty pictures! Where does this light come from? Did he make the light? Is he back? I’m so thrilled with the experience and I jump up and run in small circles with a big smile on my face. This reminds me that I really have to find him so everything can go back to normal and we can go back to discovering the small mysteries in life. It took quite some time to gather my will to just walk in the direction of the only door in my room. I took one last glance back into my room and all I can see is the dirt, part of the ceiling, and the tubes. The part of the floor where I used to lie has all kinds of red shades and it looks really beautiful. Then I see the light again through the cracks in the ceiling and I get motivated to go look for him. I turn back around to face the door, gather all my courage, put my hand on the handle and push. After a creaking noise I have the whole door on my hand and I don’t really know what to do with it. I’ve never opened a door before, so I decide to lay it down on the floor in my room. I finally turn back around and take the first step in my entire life out of my room, my small world.