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.