Diruktober Day 19: Rinkaku

    Diruktober is a DIR EN GREY themed inktober challenge by re_be_ka_f. I chose to use them as writing prompts to join in on the fun. 

I wonder how much of it is normal. How frequently do you spend all day in bed wanting to push your fingers into the warmth of your chest and tear yourself apart? How often do you imagine yourself as nothing more than grease stew to be washed down the drain when your body is finally found by your unfortunate landlord? How much do you fantasize about death? 

I wondered while standing under the shower in apathy after a particularly nasty episode of being so uncomfortable to exist that I had scratched my skin raw and bloody to try and escape it. My wounds burned in the steam of the stall. 

I asked coworkers how to cope, who all sounded sympathetic in feigning their understanding. It’s not that they didn’t think their pains were profound, but the visible discomfort that struck them when I mentioned putting a gun to my head told me that perhaps it wasn’t normal. 

It didn’t help, though, and I would have been reported for it if not for the abundance of work. It sounds like a joke, but it’s true. The same people would claim they never saw it coming at my funeral. 

I then suffered silently in isolation, as they avoided me after that. 

I began to feel less and less, spending every moment I could in bed and every hour at work waiting to return to my atrophying. 

Written in the accumulating dust on my floor was the signature of a demon in my footsteps. It danced with glee in only the trail between my door and my bed. 

Should I’ve had the energy I’d hunt him down. I’d only have had to reach up above my headboard to catch him. He was so confident in his spell that he sat within arms reach. 

Some days were worse than others. 

On particularly bad days, I wouldn't go to work nor call, but on a particularly good day, I found the strength to perform the mighty task of raising a thousand-pound arm. 

The demon reeled back, pinned between me and the wall. 

As I finally grasped it, the source of all my suffering in a society not built for either of us, I felt that I wanted to eat it. 

Gripping tightly, I brought the demon to my lips. 

I drank it, the soul that so gleefully danced in my misery, leaving it an empty shell of shadow. 

I carefully placed the husk on the bed in place of myself and crawled up to the headboard to find relief.