Chapter 9
Iwake up shivering and shaking on the floor. The soft orange glow of the late afternoon filling my room tells me I must have slept for hours.
I groan with the effort to stand up. My muscles ache as if I climbed to the highest peak.
Sticky moisture coats my skin. My head pounds, and my limbs refuse to obey me.
I stay half-kneeling on the floor until I regain some of my faculties.
Hoping that cold water might revive me, I stagger to the bathroom.
I see nothing but a floating collar and a soiled robe in the mirror. The only difference now is the streaks of coagulated blood coating the space where my face once was.
At the sight, a strange new sensation grows within me. Was it anger? It was like nothing I had ever felt before. A sort of winding, growing thing, an energy urging for release.
A growl blooms in my chest. My hands demand action.
I’m pounding the mirror, again and again. The silver glass cracks. Shards stab my knuckles. Red streaks flash through the air.
But the mirror is not enough.
I swipe my hand over the washbasin. Creams and powders clatter to the floor, shattering as easily as fish bones.
I rip towels from the walls, try to pull the pipes from the ribcage shower.
I hear hissing and sizzling. Another growl.
Shards of glass crunch beneath my feet as I stumble half-crazed into the laboratory.
A knock. “Sir, I—”
“Get the fuck out, Vivian,” I shout, before Godfrey can continue. I ignore the running footsteps outside my door and stagger to my desk.
When I grab the book, a laugh escapes me. It’s a hoarse, rusted thing.
I must be mad. Yes, mad.
Mad was better than nothing at all.
I let the book choose for me.
If I stay like this, I might as well be dead. What was there left to lose?
I don’t hesitate with the preparation, but my hands shake uncontrollably. It must be a remnant from the agony I suffered. Like this, it’s difficult to mix the potion. Nevertheless, I persist. The result is a brackish liquid that I ingest in one swallow.
Minutes pass.
I’m relieved when no agonies befall me.
Then my vision starts to cloud.
My once perfectly clear room wavers in front of me as if it were seen through an old window. My eyes water, and tears stream down my face as the furniture dances before me.
“No,” I groan, rubbing my eyelids with shaking fingers, to no avail.
I vomit the potion into my rubbish bin. Black bile spills into the bucket, too thick to be natural. I drop to my knees, forcing myself to expel every drop.
Yet my vision remains unchanged. Faint shapes of browns and blacks blur in front of me. Nothing is fixed; nothing is concrete.
On my hands and knees, I pull myself toward the bed. The cuts on my body scream with each movement, but I feel no more pain.
My skin is too tight. My clothes scrape my limbs. Everything is wrong. Too loud. Too bright. Too much.
There is no more hope. There is only the call of loss and despair.
I breathe.
I look.
I lie.
When I close my eyes, darkness does not surround me. Even my lids have given up their purpose.
I am but wasted noise. Nothing but a bale. Am I even a man? Or merely a pile of linen forgotten on this bed?