The Pale Hell

“She’ll never live.”
“She has to live! She’s our daughter!”
“She’s a dead lady walking!”
That was my first memory. It was all sound, everything was in darkness. My first memory was of shadow and words. Empty words. Sad words. They were the only thing I had to cherish prior to the pale hell. I theorized over and over again that that conversation was from my parents, the people who labelled themselves as my parents. I would not consider them my parents. Or maybe I would. I would not know. What makes a parent a parent?
I know my mother birthed me, but that is all I know. Why did she birth me? I never understood that. Is that what mothers do? And if so, why do they do that? I have had so many questions and curiousness prance and waltz in my head. Though I would never get answers. Only demands.
“Shut up.” “Don’t talk back.” “Lay still.” “Don’t tell anyone.” “Tell me if it hurts.” The last one is a rarity. They normally went on and commenced like I had no feelings. I felt everything. And I still feel it whenever I close my eyes. I could feel it as if it was still occurring.
My most vivid memory, my first memory in this pale hell, my most painful memory was a strange one. Let me paint you a picture.
A room stained with grey, smeared with white, and chairs and tables all scattered about disorganized. The windows were wide open, and a storm with screaming lightning, rumbling thunder, gusty winds, needles of rain, and an ominous grey sky came rolling in.
A young girl, no more than six, stood in the middle of this room. Alone and afraid. The girl had lanky, auburn hair that was more akin to the hue of chestnuts than anything else, and oddly enough it was streaked with honey blonde. She had sheet white skin, and seed-like freckles dotted across her straight nose and her high cheekbones. She was a slender little thing; and she had scared little pale blue eyes. Very child-like. She was wrapped in a white gown clutching her mustard coloured teddy bear in hope it might protect her from the big bad monster. The monster. The monster was out to get her. The fear of every six-year-old child.
The little girl’s breathing was ragged and shaky. She tried to erase it. She burrowed her mouth into the back of her teddy bear. She breathed through the bear. It tasted musty, not the most pleasant taste, but the girl still held her mouth against the teddy bear; backing away to the far corner of the room. She squeezed her eyes shut and she prayed that the monster would not come and get her.
The thunder clapped abruptly, and a loud gust of freezing wind fell through the window along with a few needles of rain. This made the girl flinch with fear, almost yelping; but she managed to stay silent. She did not want the monster to come and get her.
The door across from the little girl swung open. The monster stood in the doorway. It was colossal and terrifying. The girl gasped, and her eyes widened in fear. She had nowhere to run; but the little girl still squeezed her eyes ever so tightly and she hoped that the monster would never find her.
The monster slowly tromped through the room. Inspecting it for the little girl. Its breathing was heavy like an anvil. The girl could feel its weight pressing down on her. The monster slowly grew closer to the little girl. As it grew closer, the little girl’s breathing became more fearful. More heavy. The stench of fear loosely hung from her breath.
The monster could smell her fear. It looked straight at her. She still squeezed her eyes shut, clutching her teddy bear hoping it would protect her from the monster. The monster just advanced towards the little girl and it gripped her gown. The girl let out a shrilling shriek. The monster had got her. Hope did not save her that day.
They stole away salvation and happiness. The teddy bear. It was the only form of communication I had. The only person to talk to. When I was young it used to talk to me. Speak to me. We had such fun conversations. They always filled me with the warmth of joy. An illusion of security. A facade of hope. A friend. Is that not what friends are?
Hope never saved me. Not once. Hope ever saves anyone. I do not know what saves people. Do people save people? Or do people harm people? I always fell towards the latter from my own past experiences. Although I would never call the people who scathed me people. I called them monsters. Most people associate monsters as large beings with ragged skin, and razor teeth, and dark eyes that were windows of a chaotic and destructive soul. I would never link the connection of the large beings to monsters.
Monsters to me are pale faceless creatures who wear long pale coats. They lack eyes, mouths, noses. Expression. Individuality. Emotion. Those are my monsters. Monsters who carry out hateful deeds and terrorful orders that cause me excruciating harm.
I remember one of the monsters visited me one night, when I was casted into a sticky shadow and a pale room painted, smeared, and stained with chunks and strokes of crisp and wet scarlet. The scarlet that pours from people. I have had so much scarlet pour from me. Especially whenever I write in silver on myself. I do not really write anything, merely just copied down scattered, incoherent thoughts that seem to prattle and rattle inside the glass prison that I label a mind. They were simply scarlet lines that held a much deeper meaning. They seethed with a fiery pain when I finished copying them down.
The voices would plant seeds of those thoughts, ever since I was a young girl. Ever since I was released from the glass tank where I would be kept in water. Drowning yet breathing simultaneously. The water scorched me from the inside out. I prayed for a death; though praying never gets you anywhere. Only a wasteful wish and an empty heart.
Back to the monster who visited me in the midst of a night. I laid dead-like as I contemplated through an echoing shade of demise and the ashes of my heart. He came up behind me on the ground and he grabbed me. Painfully. He leaned forth into my ear, and snarled piggishly. His breath was hot and disgusting. His skin was a foul pale. His eyes were dark with hunger. He smiled a grim smile.
Within a flash I felt pain that came from behind me and the deep, disgusting moaning from him. It started slowly, then its tempo increased. So did the pain. The pain clawed and tore through me. I wanted to scream; but my voice was seared with a swelling pain from the monster. The pain seeped through in the formation of crystallized tears. They burned my pale eyes. My innocent youth. What little dignity I had left. My virginity was ripped from me. Horribly. I tried to numb myself by escaping into my mind. It did not succeed. I was trapped in the mortal realm of that dreaded pain. When it arrested and the monster left I could hear voices cackle in laughter. Pointing and gawking at me. I felt defeated. I felt like a husk. Hollow. Pointless. I dubbed life to be unfit and meaningless like a midsummer kiss that lasts for mere seconds. I never understood the notion of kissing. I never understood a lot of things. It seems rather sad. Though I do understand pain. I understand it deeply.
The physical pain last for what seemed like nights and days. The pain that etched my mind lasted an eternity. From then till now. I cry whenever I even venture back to the pain. It claws my heart like a silver dagger. Silver that I have written on myself.
I would see the monster constantly. Every waking second. Every sleepful moment. He appeared like a ghost that haunted the living realm for sport. Everything else seemed to be blurred in pale. Except him. He stood out like a lost child in search for their mother. Every second I saw him. Every waking moment. I saw him. And I saw a smile. A faint one. Distinguishable. There.
It was even branded through to my very dreams. I saw the smile and him whenever I closed my eyes, and ventured away to a paradise inside my head. It seemed that paradise was in ruin and in shambles. I attempted to run from him in paradise, but he would always be in distinctively visible. I would try to flee within it, as far as I could go to its corners, but, regardless, he followed me.
Then people began to follow him. Gray people. The Miserable, I called them. They hallowed and screamed in despair, and they carried on their backs great bags and sacks that caused them to hunch over painfully. They would look at me, only me, with great, pitiful eyes that asked me “why?” “Why did you let it happen?” “Why are you weak?” “Why?” They would then point with lanky fingers with long, rotting nails. Their expression would be hollow, and masses of black tar would spew from their gaping mouths and pollute my paradise into a further state of ruin and disgust. The tar seethed and foamed through, from corner to corner. I watched as it was all washed and burned away. I then tried to run from it. I tried to run from my own paradise. I could not. The ooze of The Miserable soon trapped me, scathing me. It began to fester and wound me. It tore the flesh from my bones and the wit from my mind. My paradise had fallen into disrepair and a terrifying horror that would scar any individual that dare to glimpse at it. I was trapped in a realm that disguised itself from the hell that it truly was.
The monster was always in sights and I had no way of running from him. I would see him so greatly that my eyes would swell in tears and my heart would snap in twain. I attempted my life on several occasions - with silver against my heart, with water in my lungs, with rope around my neck. A total attempt of three. I was solemnly arrested by the pale monsters from any attempts on my life, and the monster would always be there to see me and my failures.
After the third time, I was visited by a woman. Not a monster, but a woman. I was surprised by this woman; she was not a monster, and there was a strange familiar sense to her like a missing piece to a puzzle that was tucked away. She was tall, thin, and pale, but not pale like the monsters, but pale in a soothing sense. A friendly sense. Her hair was an ashen grey, streaked with silver white; her lips were a crimson red; and her eyes were a hungry silver. She stood unclad with head to toe overtly exposed; and she smirked a grimful smirk.
I was unsure why she was indeed here, let alone have the knowledge of whom she was. I wanted to ask her, but the words congealed in my mouth. I simply looked up at her like a stray mutt. She looked down at me as if I was a pointless child.
She then, with her slender hand, grabbed by face and lifted me forth off the ground. She then casted me towards the ground. She then leaned forth toward my ear and gave a harsh whisper, like the folly of swords driving through the feeble. “Perish,” was the only word she whispered; and it echoed through my torn mind. She then threw me to the ground, and everything began to darken. I felt a thick ooze formulating from my mouth that smelled like a decaying corpse, wasting away in the crimson sun. My last vision was of her simply walking away. Away from me. Then I felt cold. No more.

The Lost Soul

I stood there in the ancient, rusted hallway, staring at the darkness that laid before me like an ominous sheet fog where no sailer dared to trek. A dim-lit light dangled from the ceiling like a hanging corpse swaying back and forth, back and forth. How I had got there was beyond mysterious in my eyes. I thought about my next course of action very carefully. My mind scattered, uneased. Agitated by a sharp fear that stuck to the roof of my mouth and burrowed deeply in my heart. A frozen chill ran down my spine like a small, diseased rat. I could faintly sense an evil presence that lurked within shadow, though I did not know its placement in contrast to me. I was aware that there was no escape if I turned back because of the absence of a door or any means of leaving. If I had turned back a wall would be set before myself.
I composed a list of opinions that I could achieve: the first was either wait until the sands of time had laid me to waste, starving would of course cause my finale; the second was to traverse through the darkness in search of an exit, but I would most likely be encountered by the unknown presence; the third, which was probably the most foolish, was to cause as much noise as possible to attract whatever lurked in the dark to tempt luck and fate. I gravitated towards the second option. The third seemed too stupid and the first seemed like I was giving up. I was neither a fool nor a deserter, despite wishing to countless number of times before; but do we not all wish from time to time to lay down and die? It is a part of time, and it occurs more often with some people than others but it does indeed happen. I mustered up as much courage as I could entrap, then I began on my trek down the corridor, slowly, but surely, still with fear niggling on my shoulder.
I soon left the illusion of safety of the light and I began to venture into the darkness of the unknown. My each passing step echoed through the hallway, and soon it was the only sense I had that I was still alive. Blind by shadows, the faint glow of the light transpired from my sight and darkness was my only company. My breathing soon became ragged and the fear grew on my shoulder, soon encumbering the whole of my back. It seeped in through my skin and it grasped at my heart. Still, I tried to remain strong for the chance of survival, to at least escape from the mystery of the rusted hallway. With each passing step I grew more and more anxious. The anxiety and fear started to crawl up my throat in an unpleasant fashion, though when it reached my mouth it did not come up. It simply swelled like a gaseous balloon.
I could still faintly sense the presense with each echoing step, though it neither grew nor contracted as if it stayed in one place. Nevertheless, I was often wrong in the placement of presences. For example, if someone was rooms away from myself I felt as if they were beside me, or vice versa in the extremely odd case. Sometimes there would not even be someone when I sensed a being. I thought that I had gone mad, perhaps I already had? It would indeed be fitting because of my infamous title “The Madwoman.” A clever title that I wore with pride like a priest bear his cross. I was always different in comparison to most, not because of my sixth sense, that I managed to keep a secret to most - save the one I trusted the most - but because of my persona. I was quiet and thoughtful, and I looked at the universe through a different keyhole than most. Some things I dubbed to be tedious, pointless, and others I view them as right, sensible. My views had caused me to lose more friends than I had gained through them. I learned how to blend in akin to a chameleon. I played pretend like a child just to beseech company, although I always felt outcasted among them. I was fine with this fact. I prefered the company of myself, but the company of others aided me to understand what it meant to be human. What happiness in a collective hive meant instead of searching it by yourself. Still, I had a preference to venture on the quest by myself, much like the fearful trek into the unknown which had been laid before myself.
I strided through in darkness for a countless measurement of time. It felt like hours, but it could be the larger or the minor of it. Time is indeed a strange concept without a device to record it. The hallway seemed vast, and I soon found myself to be hopeless. Regardless, I trekked on. The fear began to mellow out, though it was still present in the form of my stomach. I pondered about my soft bed, my books bountiful with life and wonderment, my comforting housecoat, and the dear safety of my apartment. Those thoughts were the light that I kept aglow in my heart, that kept the darkness abay from my mind to seed a paralytic fear. Then I heard the sudden deep groan of scraping metal. My heart lept from my chest and I grew pale with fear. I stood petrified in darkness, trying to distinguish anything out of the darkness. I waited for minutes, and I did not hear another groan.
I continued, shaken, on my voyage once more, into the abyss of the unknown. My footsteps echoed, and my breath was ragged. My mind was fragmented, but it slowly pieced itself back together once more. I still tried to remember those that comforted me; but each time my mind would ease me the metallic cry would erupt once more, abruptly scattering my mind like frightened mice. I still managed to walk forth, though with each moan of metal the claws of insanity would tear down the walls of which I held what little sanity I had left.
Then, as I walked, it all suddenly came to a frightening halt, and silence soon took its dreaded place. Though this silence was not soothing in contrast to the moans of metal that would echo. Instead, it was a silence that I dubbed to be unsettling and fearful, as if there was something lurking behind myself, following my every step. I could not tell whether or not this paranoia was a utility or a handicap; but no scent nor sound came from behind or ahead of myself.
Soon, I came across a white light, faint but indeed a slimmer of hope for salvation. I quickened my pacing and I soon saw a figure cast near the light that had its back to me. I began to slowly approach this figure, occasionally saying hello in a polite attempt to not dismay it by my presence. An awareness that I was there. Regardless, the figure did not move, as if I was not there. I gradually stepped round the figure to entrap a better glance of whom the identity of the person might be. My eyes glued to it as I circled, and the horror that circumferenced it would be indeed clawed through madness onto my mind.
I carried the face of a little girl that was both plump and round; but its skin was an abhorrent pale that seemed rather sickly, and at the fringes of it there were visible stitch marks like that made into a ragged doll. It persed a terrible smile that held a set of yellow-stained teeth that had flecks of brown carelessly dotted across; she held a rotting tongue of black in her decaying mouth and her gums were a diseased red, and I swear that maggots and worms burrow and slithered within them. I painfully cringed at the viewing. Its breath both foul and hot like that of a summer’s day spent with an uncle whose hygiene was lacking.
Stepping back from the abomination and casting my hand forth for defense, I soon felt small hands fondle and brush my thigh and ankle like a lover on a devilish night. I screamed, jumping back from the caressing and I tried to run forth like that of a fearful cat; but I tripped over my feet and I landed on the floor, which strangely did not feel brittle and hard, like that I felt underneath my feet, instead it was the soft, slimy, squishy material akin to an organ of any lively person. I had barely any footing on ground and I tried my best to flee; but my attempts were in vain and little figures began to laugh and dance round me. They came towards me and they began to touch me, brushing up to me venereally. They defiled me like sinners up top a temple, and every moment I dreaded. I felt as if I was being ripped in twain and being stitched back together simultaneously.
Then, though misery and agony, I saw the figure with cringe worthy features unhinge its stitches, snapping them off with ease. It held the facade of a diseased little girl in hand, and beneath I saw a face that I could not believe: it was the face of my own dear love, who perished in fiery flames of a man’s lust for destruction.
Thunder abruptly roared and I woke up, not in the hallway of rust, but instead in the shadowy domain of my apartment. I laid on the rough ground instead of a muscle-like terrain that was indeed foreign and I held a blade in my hand. My wrists and arms were slain with many streaks of crimson up and down, from just below the hand to the elbow pit, both apparent on the left and right. In my other hand, I was looking at the final picture I would have ever possessed of my deceased dear before the tragedy of the fire. I could feel the ashamed presence of her ghost looming down at me, asking me why. Why would I do such a thing? I could also sense the little soul of my late sister who would have been in spectral tears to see her elder sister in such a pathetic state. I am sorry, Frost, my sister, and I am sorry, Amelia, my only love. I am deeply and truly sorry.

The Ritual

Deep under hollow wind
Where our lilies grow.
Help me, my darling,
No one shall know.
Under the willow tree,
Where evil shall not sleep.
Come with me, my love,
Deep into my home.
Don't mind my mother,
Her eyes are ever closed.
Up to my bedroom,
Where they cannot see,
Give me your warmth,
And I shall not bleed.
Hold me, my everything,
The demons do not sleep.
Help me, my darling,
No one shall ever know.
Pass me the silver,
So I can write in red.
Where are you going?
I wish to not be dead.
Come with me, my darling
I shall take your head.
Goodnight, my everything.
Thank you for your warmth.