TAIM AM - 'possessive skin'

4.

Chapter One: Atmospheric Demise

Amelia – Present

_

Hands.

That is all I can recall, the subtle nature of them as they guide my hips to comply to their want. As they trace the lines of my body, feeding their desire for more. The touch is what haunts me, ails me, and drags me to the depth of agony with their virile demur. It is all I can do not to let the ground pull me and mingle my depleting form with the soil of decay.

And upon the cliffs edge is where I find myself, as I contemplate exactly that...

The wind on the precipice, has become a state of solace for me, for it allows even the most harrowing of caws to be carried to the ears of those who ignore the pleads of action, the demand for aid. The whispers of air bring with them the sobs of those who have been wronged and I have found myself amongst the few who partake in crying into the skies breath. The pastime in in itself, is impractical for the wind cannot answer, but it does in fact listen, without judgement which is why I am now transfixed to its rutted palms as I stare vacantly into the void of nothingness beyond the shores that harbour, a life untold.

That is when I hear them; the residual hum of a collected word uttered by more than one. It is nothing more than a breath, and most would not question it over the sombre tones of the wind, but I do... for I know. They call to me to remember, to recall the time that I was not of this life, but of another.

But I do not dare, for fear of the unknown... the trepidation.

It is as if once I allow it to be more than a figment, more than the speculation of the wind. That it becomes harrowing. All too real in the face of life itself.

They do not deter, however, even when I begin to sob into the hands of the bitter morning air. They insist that I listen, that I comply to their pleas for understanding, for remembrance. Yet, their faces are not what comes to the forefront; it is him.

His hands as they coil around my unforgiving form, his scent as it becomes one with the pores that shake in the mist of it all, his eyes as they bore into my own pools of misery.

Him.

It is what sends me into the catatonic movements that find me fleeing from the edge that held the answers I knew would diminish the hold he has over my skin. Yet, now I run.

My legs carry me through the scenery that moments ago quenched my aching heart, calmed my mind to a quiet lull of blissful content. However, the ground beneath my feet seem, to call me to be one with them, to share their torture. As it is how I find myself, cold and alone, seeping my salted wounds as I console myself into a state of submission.

That, is how they find me. The voices... they come to me like a layer of possessive skin, as their words formulate deep within my subconscious and nestle quietly, "You are not us, you are more than we ever were, more than we could be."

The words do not register meaning, just bring with them the onslaught of images that bombard my vision; the girl as she tries to escape the oncoming force, the other as inked crimson clots her face.

It is them I see now, the women who stood in the face of adversity. Not him, not his furrowed hands, or his taste as it licks my oozing heart. They are the dominant force, the ones who were left a decapitated version of themselves. They surround me, soothe me, and warm their words within my soul... "You are not us."

Residual. Consuming. Agonising.

I let them in, their calm breaths... they mingle with my form and consume what little fight I have left against their immobilising taste; the sweet aroma as it paralyses me into the whims. Their palms of compliance.

That's when it happens. The darkness.

The encompassing wave, like a gauze upon decaying flesh, which all too quickly becomes a blanket of protection against the oncoming storm; the layers of memories. The translucent visons of who they ought to have been, the lives they must have lived.

Them.

All roads lead back to them. The woman upon the cliffs edge, holding me back from the clutches of the milked water below, the formatted rocks that bellowed my name with the airs bitter pleads that lap at my depleted body.

It was their lives I was now being shown. As each recollection brings with it the undoubted wave of nausea, as I had lived this before, seen first-hand the trauma, the hands that gripped the life they once held dear. Now however, I was grappling once again for the oxygen that would feed the present, feed my desire to rid these thoughts. These lives once lived.

But I couldn't. They keep coming and the more I berate them the harder they pushed to be at the fore of everything that was me. And as the hand that strikes her settles upon my serrated skin, that is when I allow for them to overpower the iota of resistance I have left.

Their lives devour me.