The Void

 I am immersed in ink. Thick, bordering tar-like ink that seeps into every crevice of my body. The man standing in front of me laughs, and I hate him for laughing, because can’t he see that amidst my continued struggle to get clean I have fallen further and further into the forgotten abyss? That the language I used to speak doesn’t translate in this realm and, if I were to ask for help with a physical gesture, that I would only get a wide-eyed stare from the creatures who lack any amount of sympathy? I see them come awake at night, rising high above me, their skin rotten and covered in growing parasites. They look at each other with solid white eyes, enormous eyes that flicker and that seem to serve no other purpose but to highlight their gripping madness and empty souls. The recurring sound of screams, the depiction of agony that kept me awake in my stillness were the catalyst to my eventual paralyzation. The creatures needed me to feed on, I knew that, and accepted my demise like a lamb who had been captured by a lion and, after all of the torture of being ripped apart while just-enough alive, finally found comfort in the mastication- found peace for a glimmer of a moment before the lion sank his teeth into its neck to end the little lamb’s suffering. 

  

  I gaze at the man in front of me, helpless, anticipating the evil his hands will do before he vanishes me from this world forever. 

  

  The lion is always a he, you know.