The blood her heart beats throughout her limbs spills out into the fresh snow. It must feel strange. I watched her as she writhed in disarray. My eyes had no light and her body twisted and contorted and her shrieks pierced the air around me. It caused me to shiver more than the cold did. The blood that pooled in my mouth from the gash in my tongue spilled out through the corners of my mouth and dripped down my face. Nobody stopped to see what was happening. They all had their own lives to worry about and our affairs were of no concern to them. To see what is wrong would be nothing more than an inconvenience. It hurts. Oh god it hurts. My skin feels like it might shatter if it gets any colder. My skin feels like it melt if it gets any warmer. It feels familiar and her heavy gasps filled my being. She had stopped screaming and squirming but instead laid there almost deathlike. I continued to stand and watch her. There’s nothing I could do. There’s nothing I could do but watch and wait.

The snow melted as it made contact with her bare skin. Her breathing soon became shallow and she continued to lay unmoving. I wished I could join her. Perhaps our shared body heat will give us both the energy to leave this riversedge. My tears freeze as soon as they are formed and I can hear the fish beneath the ice. Their little hearts beat and all their organs move around as their bodies swish and sway through the current. They fight against that current all their life and they’re always cold and nothing is ever easy. I feel so tired and my eyelids are heavy like dark matter. My tongue continued to ooze gooey blood as the miasma surrounding us thickened. The light in her eyes faded quicker and quicker and I felt the life fleeing from my veins as well. The Earth shifted beneath us and we both fell into it. Everyone else in the world assumed we had died that day and newspaper articles noted our erratic behavior that had previously taken place. Both of us at once had become aloof as we realized the truth and that the melisma of life was tainted with a tar like substance.

Her long hair was covered in snow as she slowly lifted her head. I stirred as well and was confused how well I could see in this pitch darkness. Embers floated within my skin and my blood once again brought life to the rest of my body. I was no longer choking on the blood that dripped down my throat and she no longer writhed in tormented agony. It all felt the same as before. She began to cry at the same time as me. The cold was gone and the ice around my eye melted. How far underground were we? There was nothing we could do but wonder and to huddle together in the deafening blackness. The blight had been left back on the surface. The fatigue I feel is great, I think I’ve been dying for a while now.

The world swirled around us in an ambient disarray. The dust soon settled and we were once again in charge of our own actions. I clung to her as she shivered. Her skin was damp from the snow and nothing felt the same. With each moment that passed our hearts slowed in pace and we could see even more clearly in this darkness. My skin felt warm but in a stinging kind of way. It hurt so much but I stopped recognizing my own agony long ago. The world was now dead to us just as we were to the world and she curled up in my arms for a nap. Her eyelids flickered softly and I figured she must have been dreaming. By the way her fingertips twitched and she groaned in her slumber I could only hope her dreams were lovely ones.

In her wake she sat erect suddenly, eyes bloodshot and wide open. Her shrieks were a deafening sound in this small space. I saw sparks in my vision and rather than my ears; her piercing cries hurt my eyes. I writhed on the ground in agony. Tiny pins and needles pressed their way into my sclera and into my pupils and I could feel the blood welling in the corners of my eyes and spilling down my cheeks. As soon as she realized her nightmare was not reality she silenced herself and dragged her broken body to me. I could see her despite the pain and that was because it was synthetic. There were no needles nor was there any blood. This happened to me a lot even in the past. Even before I was like this. My brain has always been wired in a way others thought to be obscure. Nothing felt, sounded, tasted, smelled, or looked the same. Phantom pains were the ghosts that haunted me all my life.

No one could understand why this stupid child would cower as though someone was about to strike them at random occasion. This stupid child screamed and this stupid child cried and nothing was wrong. Nothing is wrong you’re just fine! That’s what they would say. It sure is easy to say something like that when you’re not the one who’s suffering. Clearly, there was something wrong. Clearly, I was not okay. But to them my issues were nothing but an inconvenience. They wanted me to lock away my peculiarities so they wouldn’t have to see them or acknowledge them because it made them uncomfortable for someone to be so different. My pain was irrelevant and vexatious. My tears were wasted and unjust. So I was to lock away my agony and become numb to it. This never eased my suffering, however. It only made it worse.

Had empathy towards me been present in my childhood perhaps the events leading up to this moment would have dissipated long ago. That’s peripheral now, however. The only relevance was what was in front of me and that was her. She eased me back into consciousness and placed a gentle hand over my forehead so as to calm my aching frontal lobe. There’s something botched there as my perceivance is irregular. The weight of her soft hand lulls me into a kind of serenity. She was the only one who ever did anything perplexing for my bizarre self. Perhaps because we are similar in our uncanny nature is why we can care for each other in ways that no one else could. And because we are so atypical is why we were pushed to the point we were at. Her damp skin, her broken body, her soft eyes filled with agony, trying to help me despite the torment she must feel. I too was somewhat broken in this state. After such a fall, who wouldn’t be?

I was not as broken as her though. A few abrasions and a few broken bones was nothing. My pain tolerance had always been high and I guess so had hers. I could tell it was all she could do to keep from crying now. Must hurt like a bitch. Her legs were both twisted and pools and streaks of blood decorated the ground. I had no doubt one or two of her ribs had shattered as well however I got off with a few broken ribs and a snapped wrist. It was my right hand which was non dominant so it didn’t matter. Upon observance I could find no materials to aid in our healing which will lead to botched recovery. It doesn’t matter how broken we are here though. There is no one else to decide our worth by how well built our minds and bodies are. We had never been very sound anyways although eventually it became the norm to disguise it.

No one likes a petty freak. Unfortunately one does not get to decide for themselves what they are or aren’t. Our realities are perceived for us by others and we have no choice but to abide by them unless we can carve our own out from the scraps. So that’s exactly what we did. Look where that brought us. I felt my consciousness flicker and it was then that I realized how thoroughly enervated I was. I slipped from wake at once and had a dream about a grassy field with a tall oak tree. The branches swayed precariously in the wind and looked as though they might fall. The wind whipped about me and the stars were hidden by the clouds. It was cold but I refused to shake. I tore into the Earth beneath me, grass and dirt clotted under my fingernails. They were ripped back as they got caught on small stones and rocks and a pool of my blood began forming. It soon soaked into the soil only to be immediately uprooted once more by my feverish harrowing.

I woke in a cold sweat to find weight on me. It was her. Her long hair was splayed out across my torso and her head on my stomach rose and fell with my breath. She looked like an angel. She noticed my wake and explained to me we had been down here for a while and that it was strange to her but she did not feel hungry or anything despite being sure it’s been days. Her legs were in working condition and all the pain I felt was gone. Just how long had I been aslumber? It should have been nothing short of a coma however I could feel no muscle deterioration.

Where is your past? Where is your future? Is it hiding behind these cavern walls? The only fate we will know reverberates from the rough stones and sends shivers down my spine. A rhythm I have never before heard echoed in my mind and I accepted it at once. I had no time to pity you nor did I myself. Her fingers combed through my hair and I thought she would rip it out. The air was a vibrating so much it hurt and I thought the blood would expel itself from my flesh. I guess this shows once the suffering begins, it will never end. I thought about how long I was asleep. Could it really have been a coma? What is a coma anyways? A long nap? She said I had been asleep for ages and thought I would never wake. But I did and now it was like I was never asleep at all. All that time of waiting was insignificant because it is over now. It didn’t matter.

Her eyes seemed to glow softly in the dark. It was then I realized I had no idea what colour they were. After all the time I’ve spent gazing into them it was only now that I had come to the realization that this colour did not really exist. Did she herself really exist? And what about me? Did I exist? How do I know I didn’t just imagine everything that has happened in my life? Or her? Or myself? Or anyone I’ve ever met before. Nothing could be proven nor could it be disproven. The theory of reality was created as a comfort so existentialism could be ignored. Was it successful? Is it a lie? Reality varies from one person to the next. How can we be so sure it is real in the first place?

Is there really blood beating through my veins? How would I possibly know what I should and shouldn’t feel had I not been told since birth? Rainy days elicit sadness and sunny ones are happy. I always found myself wondering about this. I found the rain serene and the sun to be depriving. I hated the sun but the rain cooled my senses and allowed me to be one with myself in silence. I’ve never found myself sad at a funeral and so I did not cry. While others wept they judged me with contempt for being what they consider to be cold. I saw nothing wrong with how I was because my reality is, was, and always will be influenced by myself and only myself. I don’t care for what it is I am supposed to be because that kind of thing doesn’t matter to me. Other people can decide their perception of me to be vile yet righteous and I can’t bring myself to give a fuck.

I’ll let the rain find me in my best moments and sleep the sunny days away. I’ll gave into her faux coloured eyes and refuse to believe in anything I’ve ever been told. We’ve been deprived of basic necessities for who knows how long now and there’s no one here to tell us we must be dead. There is still life dancing through our veins and breath in our lungs. It doesn’t matter how much time passes us by because time is not anything but a concept to those it brings comfort to. I always found time unnerving. Every second ticked away too fast or too slow and it seemed to warp depending on my own perception of reality and I hated it. The time that past felt unreal and the time that didn’t pass HURT.

Blood could begin to ooze out of my pores and my heart could stop beating at any second. Life requires every function to work adequately. If something goes wrong you begin to suffer and you will suffer and suffer until death finds you. Time is agonizingly slow during this suffrage. I could tell you, she could tell you. After my own mind started festering from the inside out I could no longer function to the expected standards and I was hated. I was loathed for many reasons however my sick brain must have been the root of it. I couldn’t imagine what my life would have been like otherwise? Perhaps happiness would have engulfed me had I the ability to conform. I felt her shiver and press against me. It was cold. I wrapped my arms around her and we stayed this way for a while. What else was there to do in this chasm but just be?

I exist. I am doing that now. I exist right now only to myself and to her. She only exists to herself and to me. To everyone else in the world we are gone. Our bodies were never found and it’s like we were never there in the first place. Neither of us did much in our lives that would linger enough to allow ourselves to be missed. Upon the news of our feigned deaths I imagine they signed with relief. Thank goodness they’re finally gone. Thank fucking God!!!!!!!!!!!

But we’re still here, they just don’t know it. We don’t exist in their reality because of how much we were willed out of it. That is how we ended up in this place and it is here we will stay until the breath leaves our frames. I am not this body. I’m just the stuff inside the skull. The concept of me is all in here. It’s me!! I placed my hand over her forehead and I could feel her inside of there too. How could one truly die so long as the body is not really us in the first place? It is but a tool to use while we linger in this existence. When we’re done with it, that’s that. Her skin was warm like ice.