Page 109 of Mortala
"Don't!Do not talk to my wife.My family is off limits.We're going to find my daughter, and if she's hurt, you'll be dead before daylight."
His anger’s justified, I don't blame him.If I were in his shoes, I'd have rigged the phone to explode next to my head and save me the chore of clean up and decomp.
"What happened?Why did she go off the deep end?I need to know everything before I show up and cut your fucking throat."
Safer territory—I'm sure there’s irony somewhere in there.My boot pushes the brake pedal as I punch the truck’s start button.For an inanimate object, I feel deader than it feels alive.Slamming the truck into drive, I let it all out as we hunt for my woman.
Chapter thirty-eight
Sunshine
Ifeelnothingandeverything at once.
Aches shoot lightening up my calves from galivanting through the city without shoes on.Rocks, glass shards, and other foreign objects have found themselves embedded into the tender soles of my feet.Then there are my lungs, ballooned beyond capacity with oxygen I'm not worthy enough to breathe, and tears so dry they've left black paths scoring my face.
The demons, they...they can have everything as long as I don't have to hurt anymore.I'll trade their freedom for an eternity of hiding in the afterlife instead of feeling another bite of pain.At least there, the mind isn't connected to the body.Even my thoughts are more theirs than my own.I'll have nothing to worry about; no fear, no hunger, nor pills to dull my sharpness into a blunt edge—I would be alone.
How do people live like this?Exist with a hole the size of Russia in the center of their chest and run from things they can see but know aren't real?How do they move on after they've damaged what small pieces have kept them alive?Is it stubbornness?When is it okay to give up once we're completely washed out, and no longer the person we were before?Will we ever be normal?
Light blinds me in a burst, its thunderous clap sends my shaking palms and hands to the pavement.For a brief moment I thought it was my saving grace, the universe finally taking pity on me by sending a star to rescue me from this nightmare.Then reality comes back with more remorse tacked on the end—angels will never let me through the gates.
On my hands and knees, small rocks sting the longer I kneel.They're sharp as they stab into my knees and shins, dulling the burn warming my palms.Torn skin turns blister-red as blood migrates to the surface and seeps through the open-ended capillaries.Its deep-red glares accusingly at me between haunting flashes of light, and high-beams that whip by without stopping to see if something's wrong with the girl on the ground.
There's so much I can't take back.Pain I've caused.Nightmares people must live through when they think of me.The stress that comes along with loving—no, no they don't love me.Who could?Why would they?I'm so far beyond broken nothing can put the pieces back together, and even if they tried the parts would reject each other, become necrotic, and fall away.
Like everything else, it reminds me I'm still here.I'm still alive.And even if I'm exhausted and can't decipher what's real versus something trying to rip me apart, I haven't given up.
Things keep getting worse and they always will, it's inevitable.I'm so tired of being the ball and chain of my family, their disappointment, that my heart can’t take much more.
I want to disappear.To feel nothing.For the weight on my chest to stop its crushing descent.Whatever I have to do to make it stop, I’ll do it, but...please, please let it stop.
What if I just stay here and wait for someone to find me?No one will.They're not coming.I'm alone, the voices made sure of that.Everything's on me now.
Pushing away from the pavement, my last shred of determination brings me back to my feet with an unsteady sway.My clothes are soaked through with both blood and rain, yet somehow, they still don't weigh as heavily as the mountain-sized personalities clawing inside of my skull.
We are too many.
Insurmountable thoughts twist me into knots.Then, from the mouth of monsters, words fall and tear me from the tips of my filthy toes and their chipped polish, to the brittle ends of my butchered hair.
Run, abomination.
A ghastly cackle booms near my left ear, causing me to twist to the side as a car horn blares past me with headlights so bright they burn my eyes.I can't see.Everything's happening at once.Lightheaded, another passes and sends water sloshing violently out of landlocked puddles to engulf me.
I hate how the grimy water drips and crawls down my skin—slow, viscous-like, and wrong.I shake my limbs to fling off the awful caress when a guttural keen squeezes free from my itchy throat.
Worthless girl,one of them chides.I can't tell whose voice is whose anymore.They sound the same when they yowl over one another and when their ghost-like hands arc around my forearm?There’s no refusing as they yank me to them.
Blood vessels burst under invisible fingers, staining the tissue with a red halo at the edges of enraged impressions.Their sheer force lugs me out of the road, not yet finished with how they love to toy with me.Of course I fight, jerk my arm, dig my heels into concrete that scores the flesh, and wail amongst the shrill of life pressing on.I can't let them, even when I feel like throwing in the towel, I'll allow someone else to take me as long astheydon't.
A small fire sparks low in my belly when an insane idea hit—at least, I think it's insane, what do I know?
Another tug pulls me forward, instead of my feet obeying, I snatch my arm away and run.If they want me, then come get me.They'll have to work themselves to the bone before enough of me is beaten into submission.Then....then they can have what's left.
"Sadie!"one bellows.Behind comes Kate's heavy scurry and her vicious snapping jaws.
I can't believe I broke free.I'm outrunning them.My arms pump and bare feet slap but I don't feel it anymore.I'm so close.
"Dammit, Sadie!Stop!"
