Pain.
Warmth.
Pleasure.
Darkness.
An endless cycle that leaves me craving, dying, aching, flying.
I hear sobs and moans drifting through the air in the cold cellar. Someone is here again. From my place in the corner of this dark and dank cell, I see light flood in from the door at the top of the stairs. It blocks their face, and I’m not sure if it’s a tormentor or an angel.
Sometimes Blade visits me. Is he here now? I blink as I hear a dark cackle just before something grips me tightly, and I’m pulled across the mossy cobblestone, away from the corner I’m curled up in.
Pain.
It’s not Blade. It can’t be him. He’s brutal but would never hurt me like this. I struggle to tear my arms from theirs as they cover me with their weight.
“Princess…”
I whimper as Jasper’s voice taunts me.
My head screams at me to push the weight off of my body, but my muscles are working against me. They’re limp. My fight doesn’t last long before my entire body relaxes into the stones beneath me.
Warmth.
Like I’m bathing in the sunshine on a hot day at the beach.
Sunshine.
You are my sunshine.
Pleasure.
Once again, the euphoric feeling I’ve longed for emanates through me, and for a moment, I’m flying. Everything else stays behind, trapped by the weight of gravity, but I’m rising higher and higher. Too quickly, it begins to fade away. I fall, getting sucked into the deepest, darkest pits of the earth.
Darkness.
For too long, or maybe for just a second, I ache. I mourn in the black void, all alone. I beg God to save me. I beg him to kill me.
Pain.
I cry for being weak as I lay still and wait for the warmth. The warmth leads to pleasure, and that’s what I crave most of all. I hear his voice, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. It’s followed by a taunting laugh just before the pain begins again. As long as I can endure it, I will be rewarded.
To appease my suffering, I think of him.
His stiff scowl and strong hands.
His square shoulders and severe stare.
His face is the last thing I see as my despair begins to melt away.
This is it.
Warmth.
I let it surround me in a cocoon, holding me tight until I can emerge as a beautiful butterfly. Weaving through the calming rays of the sun.
Sunshine.
You are my sunshine.
Pleasure.
I flutter from flower to flower, each one smelling better than the next, as the sweet taste of nectar coats my tongue. Flying higher, I’m distracted by a field full of vivid purple Aster and wild blue Delphinium.
Darkness.
I land on a soft petal just as a cold, obsidian rain pours down from the heavens, blanketing the earth in a moonless night.
The last thing I see is his cool, steel gaze.
The only light in the endless dark.
Blade.
