Blue Light

I'm alive. Downward spirals end eventually. Mine ended sooner than later. Leaving guilt and shame in its track, at the realization that I allowed myself to get pulled in by the undercurrent. Again. Ah, but I'm fine. I realize that life faces you when you meet death. I had always wondered at that verse that said, "If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there." And now I know.
I'm alright, now. I'm coming out of it, or at least I pray so. The scary thing about having a good day is that you don't know if it's there to stay.
~~~~~~~~~


I sat perfectly still, hoping to still the chain. I closed my eyes and even stopped breathing for a moment. But shivers still wrecked my body, dancing quietly up my spine and rippling out like waves. And the chain rattled.
I cursed, and a sob of self pity and frustration welled up in my throat. I dug my back into the rock wall as hard as I could in an attempt to crush the shivers that controlled me; to still the rattling chain.
The cold chain.
The cold mettle noose sitting around my neck, weighing on my collar-bone, clammy and hard against my skin. It was an icy grip stretching around my neck, choking me. I couldn’t get away from it. Neither could I stop the jingling of the chain. It linked from the metal collar and fastened to the wall. The wall that I was pressing my back against; to stop the trembling.
The trembling that traveled down the mettle chain and rattled it.

But at least it was dark. The dark was soothing. Comforting. It let my aching eyes rest. It sank into the very core of my being and smothered me like the blessed numbness after pain.
The door across the chamber cracked open. The crack was so loud, in the silence, with only the jingling of chains, that it sounded like the world was cracking in half. And it was. My world was cracking in half, as that door cracked open.
Blue light slithered out from the crack in the door. It streaked across the rock floor and it fell on me, cutting me in half. One side of me was blue, the other side lost in numb darkness. I looked down at my body, the side covered in revealing blue light. Hues of blue on my muscles, streaks of smooth blue on sallow skin. I tried to get out of the revealing blue light, but when I moved the chain rattled. Loud. It was worse than the cracking of the door opening. I hated it. I cowered, cut in half with the blue and the darkness.

Something eclipsed the blue light. A shadow. The light was around the shadow, outlining him, standing against the blue. And the shadow followed the trail of light falling across the floor. He walked in its path. I looked at the light that he followed, and realized that it stopped on me. I was his destination. And fear filled me.
He walked slowly, one foot in front of the other, until he stood before me. Stood over me. I cowered in his shadow and looked up at his face. But it was black, and I could make nothing out.
He knelt in front of me. And this was even worse than standing over me, because he was now on my level. Cowering did not make me smaller, because he made himself smaller with me.

He reached his hand out towards me. I pressed my back into the wall, trying to get away from that hand, fearing that touch. But it didn't touch me. It gripped the chain up next to my metal collar and it forced my head down. He pulled my head into his lap and held it there by the chain. My face was pressed into the cloth on his lap. It was warm cloth-- suffocating warm.
He traced the fingers of his other hand along the nape of my neck. His fingers were cold and clammy, and they traced the smooth muscle on my neck, highlighted by blue hues. I shuddered at the touch, but the chain did not rattle because he was gripping it. I tried to pull away, but I could not stop from kneeling with my head in his lap. I could feel him leaning over me, with his face bent down over my head. He sighed. Warm breath momentarily washed over my neck, leaving my skin prickly and cold.

“I had hoped,” he whispered, “I had hoped that I would not find you in this position.” His voice was smooth and airy, and cold like the blue light.
My voice was muffled in fear and the cloth that my face was pressed in. “I had hoped that you would not find me at all.”
He laid his hand flat between my shoulder blades and bent over me until his hair blended with my own. “I always find you,” he said, his own voice nearly lost.