maria ostensen }} eleven }} fin

I now know the taste of fear. Innocence seeping through open wounds, curdling upon my tongue and death was an abyss to which we danced upon the edge. Toes out of line, teetering upon an unknown threshold and I remember smiling. There was a peculiar euphoria within the pain, anxiety turning my lips to the sky and I don't remember anything else but the way that the skin cracked, blood dribbling down my chin and for a moment I felt so good. I felt so good and then the pain returned, screams piercing the eerie peace that had settled over us.

It was always my voice, shrill and bouncing off of prison walls. There was no way that I could feign strength as all my dignity was drained. Dripping off of painted fingertips and my hope was found only in the body next to me. A soul split in two, making its home within suits made of human meat that were always different, yet just the same. My brother loves me just as I love him, with the whole of my heart and the knowledge that if we were to die it would be together.

The monsters in our closet freed us only when death was law. Perhaps my screams became too grating, bursting sensitive eardrums and there is nothing I am more certain of than their weakness. How quickly they would shatter had the roles been reversed. Alas, there was no time to test the validity of such a theory, as they took to dumping us upon sand which thirsted for our blood, climbing into open wounds with an ocean's tongue that licked raw flesh. And it hurt, it really fucking hurt, but at least it was nothing in comparison to my monster's tools.

I was ready to die. I had given up. There was a weight upon my chest, hands around my throat and every exhale was laced with the stench of decay. And I never wanted to die but living was not worth the pain. The afterlife is filled with nothing, absolute serenity and while my heart was still beating, I was not touching the earth. I could not feel Eli dragging a broken body from its grave. Inch by inch, mile by mile, he taught me something that day.

Our existence is an anomaly. The stars aligned, we were born with gravestones rested upon our shoulders, death dates stapled to our birth certificates and the moment we quit raging against this machine our lives are forfeit. I am living off of borrowed time, having sunken beneath the earths core- descended into nothing and I have my brother to thank for everything I am.

I would say that I owe him everything, but there is nothing that I wouldn't have given him before. Before we were taken, blinded by veils of absolute evil I loved my brother just the same. And that is how it should be, blood is ever thicker than the water that ate away at us, ocean's currents frothing at the mouth and desperate for our bones.

It haunts me. Its angry roaring, its violent churning. I cannot near the shore without a panic attack, heart beating out of my chest as it climbs up my throat and suddenly I can taste my blood again. The wounds that have faded into angry red scars, those that I cannot take my eyes off of when I stand in front of a mirror clouded by shower's fog, burst open. Fresh and new once more. Its not water that I fear, but the predator that she represents.

Because they're dead. Shock saved me from the brunt of the devastation, the realization that every bit of suffering we were subjected to was suddenly all in absolute vain. Because they're dead. And we should be. I wonder if they celebrated. Poured champagne in absolute ecstasy over the bodies of a family that had done nothing to them. I wonder if the thought of our complete obliteration excited them, I wonder if they're proud of the work they think they've done.

I can't help but be angry. With a fuse shorter and shorter as the days drag on. As nightmares continue to hang on heady lids, clinging to my eyelashes as I hold out until I simply cannot. I hate sleeping. I hate the terrors that peaceful rest once brought and I think I hate just about everything but him. How could I not? The world has fucked us over time and time again, quite literally left us for dead and never again will I be the one from which everything is taken.

Because I'm hungry, I'm scared and I'm done laying upon the shore and waiting for death to come. There's no point asking for what I need, no point in being polite. To lay with dogs is to beg for fleas.

And fleas are exactly what I need.