I felt it dripping on the floor, trailing from skin and limb, crudely mixing with all the horrid bits I unknowingly took with me. It practically oozed out of my wounds, seeped through the clothing which gripped me in its callous hold, tightening with each and every breath as they took me closer to my last.

And yet, I just stood there.

The limb that was supposed to protect me, to put pressure on the wounds, abused and hanging, refusing to move. The other… clasped shut on a mask all but thoroughly destroyed, straining to keep the hopeless facade intact for just a little more.

Dying and alone, I didn’t dare to move, to scream—each expression of fear, of pain, threatening to tear me to pieces.

It didn’t hurt though—not like that, not ever like that… it was worse.

Much worse.

And I couldn’t bear the dreadful sight, the quavering hold on the little I had left. 

So once again, I turned to the bluish light, its presence providing a much-needed distraction to the growing horror trying to drown me.

Alas, my wounds too grievous, my knees too weak, my vision long since dimming… just feeling tired in general. Incapable, unwilling to keep standing, to resist the urge of simply closing my eyes like I had done so every other time. 

I didn’t know I fell until I knelt down on the ground. Didn’t know the mask was off until my hand grasped at nothing but blood.

It was that nauseating feeling, that growing emptiness inside me, it wore at my senses—gnawed at its edges with this insatiable hunger, this cold that made the dimming light flicker ever more often.  

And shaken by the mounting pressure, by that unbearable sensation, my trembling mess of an arm found itself unable to bear the growing tension. Soon it slipped, taking me with it. 

So there I was, dying and alone in a pool of blood once more.

Maybe I should have done so earlier, lay down and close my eyes, just go and ignore everything happening around me. When I woke up they’d be gone anyway, they always were. 

I was just feeling a little tired is all.

But I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t sleep… 

…Couldn’t die.

…They said so after all.

But I couldn't breathe, couldn't see…

Mustn’t sleep.

Shocked, I shot upright, shuddering and gasping for air, instinctively clutching at my chest as I tried to protect the little warmth I had left. 

Still coughing and wheezing, somehow still half-submerged in some sort of freezing liquid, my blurred gaze inadvertently wandered across the supposed walls and sterile-looking floor, across the o so familiar room.

Only to find an ocean of blood.

It was at a sight like that, a visage so unbelievable, so utterly wrong, that thought itself failed me.

So, I just sat there. 

Sat there, consumed by this all-powerful need to reject the presence of all those horrible lifelike sensations.

… But I couldn't.

It was hard to tell how much time passed, if time even passed. But eventually, I stood, my disbelieving eyes tracing over the endless horizon, over the crimson hell I found myself.

Because that's what it was, the only thing it could have been. And I tried to deny it, tried to refute the very facts before me, but no amount of lies would be able to shield me from so many of them.

I died, didn't I?

All my struggles, all my pain just to die again. It wasn't enough, wouldn't ever be enough. And, why did I even try? Death simply seemed preferable to the so-called life I ended up with. 

But it wasn't exactly a simple death, was it? There was no way that… hell was all a dream or hallucination. They aren't so vivid and clear—I would know after all. Science simply wasn’t capable of that… humans weren’t capable of that.

Was that it? I’ve passed away all along, stuck in some kind of afterlife, punished for all the mistakes I made—for all the people I hurt. 

Some karmic retribution for the pure and innocent life I took.

It was then that my gaze came crashing down, shackled to the unbearable weight of that newly resurfaced memory.

My reflection was there to greet me, its eyes judging… waiting. Waiting for me to say something, something to cast the burning memory back into the suppressive darkness it came from.

"It was an accident, I swear!" 

The reflection rippled, its eyes wide and blurry… it-it didn't believe me. 

Tears poured down my face, droplets of guilt, of regret—things I tried to repress.

The reflection soon faded, withered by that steady trickly of misery, replaced with the shattered facade it always was.

And then, just when I couldn't take it anymore—something rose from underneath the surface, something eerily familiar; a pale boney white with a clear-cut nose and hollow eyes, it was a skull… but it wasn't mine. 

If only it were.

If only it were I, who died that night.

The eternally frightful expression, the silent scream and screeching tires—it marred my soul, scorched forever in mind and memory. 

It was on the news the next day; an unforeseen tragedy, barely nine they added. No witness, no suspect… I never said it. 

I only ran. 

Ran the unending marathon of thought and torment, of wounds that bled and bled. 

Waves of blood sloshing at my legs, an overpowering undercurrent close to breaking them—a cold only ever leaching the little warmth I had left. 

Still, I ran.

Her parents didn't even- weren't ever… they just looked in pain—so much so it ate through all the personality the two might have contained. And even then, they said it could have been a simple mistake; it was dark and late, I wasn't all to blame. They only wished to know how someone could drive away like that.

But they don't understand.

Like always I didn't stop when I noticed I drank, didn't kick in the breaks when I realized I still had to drive home that day 

I only ever once saw that unforgettable face… but by then it was already too late.

My lungs burned entirely black, all my muscles torn to shreds. Everything hurt and I deserved nothing less.

Serving my sentence in the sterile-looking chambers, forever tortured in this crimson landscape. An act of fate bringing me to justice at last.

Still, I ran.

And it hurt, hurt so much my tireless screams weren’t enough, that my boundless tears simply dried out—the idea that I deserved worse.

I just ran until my lungs outright gave up. 

My vision was dark and blurry, my thoughts wandering and distracted even as I felt this dreadful thing pierce my chest. It already hurt so much, yet burned and twisted into something even worse.

But somehow I failed to see it. 

Blinded by this pair of eyes locked to that of mine, this vacant hollow stare. An empty reflection, judging… waiting. Waiting for me to finally notice the thing it held. 

My hands instinctively clutched at my chest trying to protect that which hurt so bad, to block the steady trickle of the little warmth I had left.

But the thing that hurt… it cut, it burned, severed flesh and bone—easily pierced through the sole remaining protection I had.

My gaze fell, torn by all those horrible things I felt. 

A blade was there to greet me, this cruel serrated thing; red and cold, despite still burning hot. I pulled it, pushed it… turned it. But it didn’t move, I only ever made things hurt that much more. 

And I tried to resist it, tried to scream, but blood is all that left me. 

So I just stared, the pair of eyes unchanged, judging… waiting—yet my vision darker than it ever was. I didn’t have to wait for long though, because it actually spoke for once.

“Sacrifices must be made.” 

At those words, it shifted, the once hanging shoulders energetic, moving the thing I couldn’t… ripping it out altogether. Blood trailed after its passing—the once beating thing out there, presented as some prized embellishment.

Again, I could only stare, unable, unwilling to even bother understanding what those words truly meant. 

So, I just closed my eyes one more time…

…If only they stayed like that.

…If only I died like I should have.

I woke up shuddering and gasping for air, instinctively curling into myself as I tried to protect the unmistakable warmth I once again had. 

I… I'm back.

Tears filled my eyes as the realization came to mind, as the weight of the memory easily tore through the few still standing age-old barriers. That even after all this time of trying to drown it, trying to choke it—it still came back to haunt me.

Because why wouldn’t it. 

I snickered at that, the naivety required to even think it would ever leave—the fact that I once felt I should have been pitied. It was disgusting… I was disgusting. So indeed why wouldn’t it, I deserved it. 

And after such a dark and downtrodden trail of thought, a beep pierced through the suffocating darkness swallowing me. 

I tried to stand, my eyes resting upon its ominous light, on that familial apathetic thing. Its radiant lines too blurred to read, a distance all too great, but I was used to it. 

I had grown up with it.

So I squinted through my dying tears, my burning slivers of pain, this monumental weakness—just like they taught me to. Because what else was there I could do?

Initiation complete

Again there was way too little to actually go off, way too little to give any answers, but I knew enough. 

I was here to suffer even more.

This apathetic thing wouldn’t care though—they wouldn’t care… they never truly had. I was an asset to be used, abused, and when I’d grown to be a liability, they had cut me off entirely. Because why wouldn’t they, death didn’t want me…

I didn’t even want me.

They would take one look with their judging gaze and turn right back from the pathetic sight in their eyes. That’s just how they were.

If only I were strong enough. 

In the end, I turned around once more, greeted by the same reflection I saw every other time. It was only then I remembered all the things I lost, the things just laying there—behind that hazy figure.

“How?” 

My voice cracked, and my hand—as if remembering the pain I felt—reached to my face once again. It shouldn’t be there, it was gone, stolen. But there it was, in between my fingers this outlier of a crimson colour, it wasn’t mine… couldn’t be mine.

It didn’t make any sense, but then again nothing here had.  

I shouldn’t have won that time, I wasn’t prepared to live through it, let alone fight it. It was ludicrous to think I could take its life when I couldn’t even take mine.

But somehow the still bleeding wounds that should be there, the horror my face had been turned into; all but phantom memories of the things out there—the things I left. In their place, a tattoo. 

Lines of void-like ink, curling and curving, weaved together without thought, without vision. They just bloomed from that crimson thing, spawned from a horror beyond all understanding. But they, they simply curled and weaved, without thought, without intent—without meaning.

Or maybe I just couldn’t see it.

My gown evidently untouched, my body ostensibly without wounds or scars. It was wrong—but then again, everything here was.

So I tried to go and sit, to reclude in the darkness of the room and rest before another monster came to get me.

But as I took a step back my feet landed on this cold serrated thing—its touch almost insensibly soft, yet somehow sharp enough to still draw blood. So flat I’d have mistaken it for the sterile-looking floor, so flat I wouldn’t have fallen if it weren’t for the razor edge digging into the sole of my foot.

Alas, the sudden shock skewed my fragile balance a little off.

It clattered on the ground as I fell, the sound scraping over the walls, cutting through the comforting silence as if crying out.

And I, I just sat there; rightfully confused, a little hurt and just slightly perturbed. My eyes soon running across the thing that tripped me up.

A blade was there to greet me, this cold cruel thing that just laid there, basking in the bluish light. Its familiar reddish sheen glinting through the room, a sense of pride as if it knew it had escaped hell itself—the darkest corners of my nightmares. 

I just stared, not even bothering to question its presence, the meaning behind its sudden appearance. Not that I had to, because just then another beep sounded from the apathetic monitor.

Round: 2

Again it was too little, too vague, but it was enough.

So I stood, my eyes locked on that cruel serrated thing, my thoughts directed at the upcoming struggle, the upcoming torture. 

Because what else was it supposed to be but that.

I couldn’t run, there was nowhere to hide—I couldn’t leave, there was no escaping this hell. No way to die regardless of how far I fell, no way to die despite the literal ocean of blood already out there…

…They wouldn’t let me after all.

…They tightened chains after last time.

…I once thought I had so much, a bright future, a successful career; once I thought I lost absolutely everything by an unfortunate sequence of mistakes. But long since I have realized that it can always get worse… it always does.

So what else should I have done? Lay down and close my eyes, just go and ignore everything happening around me. When I woke up the wounds would be gone anyway—drowned in an ocean of blood; They all had, and yet they all continue to hurt—to haunt me when I least expect them to.

Because why wouldn't they, death denied me solace after all. There truly was no out, no escape, no route to anything other than pain… not anymore. 

…They made sure of that.

And it terrified me.

Terrified me to the point it numbed, froze body and thought. So cold that the already unnatural shivers went out of control. 

And I tried to run, tried to run from this soul-devouring thing. But the once hidden cracks were quite prominent when everything else turned transparent—when there were no lies to hide behind, no age-old walls to bar the pain from coming any closer.

Though it seemed I wasn’t the only one utterly terrified.

Or rather it sounded like I wasn’t the only one, as yet another dreadful scream echoed from beyond the walls—a voice of protest, denial of what was coming to get her… But alas, it was just that, a sound. 

There was no other path.

Echoing through the massive chamber, that stage of horrors—the familiar gut-wrenching despair was soon followed by their uproar, by that hellish screech that quickly shut them all up. 

But something was different this time. 

Something in those trembling hands, a tool to make the torture a little more bearable, a chance at being barred entrance in whatever place the cleansed went…a means of resistance where we had so little of. A weapon.

But for those like me, with a life of sin, denied their deaths, judged and tormented all eternity… for those like me, there was no escape, no out, no mercy. And they were like me, why else would they be here?

So once again I turned to the blade—ignoring the screams and screeches—feeling hesitant if only for a moment. 

It could be a test, I thought.

A test of what then, strength, character… restraint? What more of an excuse did they need to torment me? Did they just want to extend our nightmare, our suffering? They gave us a weapon, showed support for our struggle… gave them a flicker of hope.

Was that it? A sign that we were on the right track, that struggle was indeed the path they intended, a path they rewarded… 

No. I knew better than that; because for all intents and purposes, it still was hell.

They’d shown us that there was light at the end of the tunnel, the slightest chance of redemption. But these people were desperate. Denied their merciful death, thrown into a place of utter darkness and despair—no matter how faint the light… these people will follow.

And what better way to describe hell than a place that kills all hope.

The light will be snuffed out sooner than later—the one thing you held onto, extinguished when you need it the most. It’d hurt, hurt so much that you wouldn’t even know; your mind would have been broken long before.

But I knew.

Knew I had no choice. 

I feared a fate worse than death if I rejected my upcoming pain and torment. If I stopped playing their games and just let myself fade in the colourless rain. What would happen to those already dead—those damned for eternal punishment, were they to die again?  

So I turned to that red serrated blade once more, that cold cruel thing that’ll only make everything hurt for that much longer. Because like them, no matter how faint the light, how small of chance it truly was, I’d follow. 

It wasn’t even a choice, not with the blinding amount of questions, not with the painfully little information at hand. Because either I reach for the light or fade into the suffocating darkness around me… just like all the others. 

But looking back, I should have slit my throat right there and then.