Ecstasy of Love

Chapter 5: Sciamachy

Hero's POV

Another sleepless night, another couple of excruciating hours trying to let sleep get to me with no luck.

It's 5 a.m. and as I lay in my bed wide awake, I just know I'm not getting any sleep.

The past is some awful fucking haunting shit.

Once it sets its target on you, you're done. It carves deep into your skin, tearing its way through your body, only to finally pour its poison into your blood and taint your mind with pain. 

As time passes, you grow accustomed to dwell with pain. It stops being something you fear for its foreignness. Instead, you learn ways how to cope with it and make you stay sane.

I've long gone accepted there's nothing I can do to stop it from chasing me. Whether it is from my dreams, my thoughts, or even in my whole physical appearance. It never falters.

I've seen the changes in myself. They have been so noticeable through the years, I no longer have the guts to look at myself in the mirror without flinching. Truthfully, I can't remember the last time I did it, most probably it was months ago, maybe even a year. I have even forgotten what my eyes look like.

Still, the only thing I wish for is a way to fix it all. But especially the constantly tormenting thoughts, get rid of all of them like the garbage they are. To fill the emptiness that continuously tugs me down regardless of all the effort I've done in the last five years.

It was terrifying at first, realizing I was slowly losing control over my mind, my own emotions. Myself, drifting farther away from reality just so those thoughts couldn't get a grip on me until I got trapped in a dark hole surrounded by nothingness?

If I am so empty, how can I feel the way everything weights me down?

I often wonder if I'll ever get to feel excitement over simple things, such as a family reunion, a party with my mates?

And in the hypothetical case something like that happens, would I know now how to appreciate it this time?

Trust me when I say that I've tried getting these questions answered.

Nothing ever works.

And that's why I finally snapped when in yesterday's lecture Professor Elwin tried to degrade women as inferior to men. Get real, please.

That's just fucking bullshit.

My mum is the sole proof of that.

There's no more resilient person I know than her. There's just no stronger and thriving human being than her. She somehow made it work for her when, even after years have passed, I still can't.

I still can't cope with this suffering, can't cope with keeping breathing by dint of a broken soul.

Pain changed us from deep in our cores that I still carry a bag full of the shit wrong with me, but I'm completely certain I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for everything mum has done for our family.

Despite being left utterly crushed, her heart completely shattered with such pain she will never fully recover from, she was the first of us to rise, to become the light and hope our family needed to keep afloat whatever it took. And none of us could ever repay her for saving us.

The other reason, however...was that girl, Josephine.

She never shuts up is so infuriating. I don't even know why I listen to everything she argues. Yet, every single thing she says makes sense.

I don't know what came over me that made me snap in front of the whole class. Ever since our downfall happened, and yes, I refuse to call it an accident or incident, because how can such a life-changing event be reduced to a simple accident? That's just disrespectful.