Serves him right, switching my doses and breaking what dominion I had.Now he gets to deal with the haggard version of me.The one that stares into oblivion, lost in the mirage of churning colors and phantom sounds.
Whatever he gave me was not strong enough—hell, nothing is anymore.I could swallow bottle after bottle of pills and the insanity would still tickle the edges of my mind.They don’t do any good, not when the entities are much older, much stronger than I'll ever be.Doesn’t matter what Mr.Kensington, or any other therapist thinks, they’re real—everything’s real.I’ll never escape the parasites; might as well give them what they want instead of fighting.What harm would it do?They’ll eat me alive either way.
When you’re hiding from yourself for days on end, you have time to think of every possibility—of every choice that will either make or break you.My family and I have been going around and around with this for years and fail, especially after introducing medication.The chemicals have got to be the catalyst—pissing off the demons instead of subduing them.
Maybe we have to experiment with the doses.
I don’t know anymore.
We can dabble with different blends to find the perfect mix strong enough to regain control without killing what’s left—because if my demons don’t, the drugs will.
Ding.
Even if it's temporary, they make me feel soooo good.They make it easy to shut Kate away in a cage, drape a mental blanket over the bars, and just breathe.She can’t sit on my chest and wrap her rotten fleshed fingers around my throat to demand obedience.Liz gets thrown into a coffin where she belongs—I wish the medication would go so far as to drown her, snuff out her life in the same way she did to her servant girls forever ago.Naamah, though, she’s eternal.I can beg and plead, grovel for release, damage my mind, body, and soul, and she will linger.She’s the shadow’s stapled to the bottom of my feet refusing to release, even in the darkest of night where shadows shouldn’t exist.
Ding.
Hang on—that’s all I can do.Move with the gut ripping punches.Take everything the demons run me through: scorching coals, vats of acid, pools of piranha that shred me into a cloud of blood and white meat.
Ding.
What the fuck is that?
Ding.
Knock-knock-knock.
“Sadie?”
Oh no, no no no.Where—where am I?
Open your eyes, girl.
“They are open!”
I jerk at the sound of the voices.One I know, the other’s gravely, raw, unused.
Ding.
“Sadie, open the door!”
“No!”
This is a trap.If I move, the spiked collar coiled around my neck will pierce me—drain me of my blood and spew all over the floor.Or worse, I’ll be shoved in the maiden, or contorted to fit a Scavenger’s Daughter.
“Sadie, if you don’t open this door, I’ll call your dad and he’ll break it down!”
What?M…mom?Oh God, not her.Not now.There’s no way she found me in the—did she come to save me again?
Open your eyes, child!
"They’re not closed!”I scream.
Shhhh, you’re doing so well.I’m proud of you, sweet girl.Try to breathe for me, okay?In through your nose, out through your mouth.I promise it will get easier with time.
“Sadie?”Her voice moves closer.
Fire burns through the rough cotton of my shirt—beginning at my shoulder, a blaze slides into my chest then through my arms.Abrasive hairs of pain cut to the bone as it gathers around my wrist and clenches.Silently I weep through the hurt.When that’s not enough, the flames pull my arms, jerking them up above my head.
