Excrucior

Excrucior

The history won’t be erased

As long as I’m inside this place;

It’s finally time for me to face
The hole inside, that gaping space.

It aches for filling, screams for substance –

But substance is something that I have lost

Here in the frost of this forest

In which I am tortured.

The snow is melting now,

Though the rays of sun still refuse to show

And the drip-drop patters of lazy melt

Soak into my clothing – so I’ve been dealt.

Bruised and cracked and cast aside,

Content enough to keep awake

But hardly conscious of the constant

Whip-smacks so acclimated have I been made,

The humid heat of the dripping sunless night

Intrudes upon my realization,

My renewed sensation in hands, in feet, in face, in toes.

Smearing sweat across my brow,

I stand and stare into the sky,

See the stars run away to hide

From my self-righteous reawake’ning:

I assure you, I’m not faking!

I will leave the planet quaking!

And then, docile once again,

I just sit back and think to then,

Shaking in my sallow skin,

Afraid to wake, afraid to move.

-

She's gone. And I.. I didn't do anything. I just let her leave into the arms of that fucking thing and now she is gone. I killed her. I killed Ronnie. This last week or so has been one long roller coaster of ever-shifting emotion, now angry, now depressed, now scared. Angry at the abomination who stole Ronnie from me, angry at my own incompetence. Depressed, saddled with this emptiness, hopelessness. Scared of every shadow, every flap or flutter of darkness. My dreams are haunted by her face, dead and soulless, grey with the apathy of lifelessness. Her mouth opens, face still slack, body wrapped in the arms of that thief, and she forms the word "traitor" over and over until it becomes written across my vision in her crimson blood. A few times I thought I'd maybe crawled out of this delirium only to fall back into mindless haunting, consumed by paranoia, consumed by myself. I woke up today.

I'm not entirely sure where we are. I can't say that I mind that too much - the last place I want to be is back anywhere near that apartment... Kal is asleep on a bed not too far from me. The girl is lying on the other bed in the room. I guess a hotel room. From what Kal written, we've come far. I don't remember most of it. There are flashes of memory - Kal, angry at the absence of Damien; leaving Austin; the girl, Sara, staring into me with her vacant eyes - but the last thing I remember with any clarity is Ronnie, the moment she died. That image is carved into my eyelids. I cannot escape it.

But Sara is still with us, vegetative as she is. Sara is our symbol of defiance against this bastard thing, this monster and accident of horror. If we can keep her safe... If I can keep her safe... Then maybe I can be forgiven.

I think it's my turn to drive next.

-Michenab

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