Pain's Price.
Tara sat at her desk, looking at her reflection in the mirror. Her deep brown hair shone in the light of the white covered lamp on the table behind her. The room was otherwise dark, and the dark wall covering further devoured light and sound. Outside the thunder roared, and spears of lightning shattered the darkness. Rain pounded the window, and sounded its warning.
Then the lamp flickered and went out, plunging the room into inky blackness. Tara cursed and fumbled in her drawer for a match. There were several candles, in case she felt the need for light. But the dark was so comforting. She sat, holding the matches, considering. Light a candle or love the darkness?
"Light the match." came a soft feminine voice from somewhere in the room.
Tara shrieked softly, and lit the match quickly, looking around. But the room was empty. She lit a candle. Its dim flickering cast shadows on the wall that danced to some pagan beat she couldn't hear. And the room was empty.
"Turn around."
Tara turned quickly, but there was only her reflection in the mirrored glass. Nothing else. But it was enough. The Tara in the mirror was not the Tara who stared, wide eyed and horrified.
The Tara of the mirror was covered in scars, bloody rents that oozed blood. Her dark hair was stained with blood, and her eyes were filled with ancient pain. Her clothes were torn, old, blood soaked rags that barely covered her emaciated and injured body.
But she was smiling. A grim, dark smile, full of dark wisdom shone on her battered face. She reached forward with one hand. The glass rippled like water, and her bloody hand passed through the glass, and latched onto Tara's wrist. With unearthly strength, the apparition yanked Tara through the glass, and into darkness.
Tara found herself on the ground, staring into the blood soaked earth. The air was smoky and hot, and filled with screams of pain and mad haunted laughter. Sticky gore matted the earth, and stained her hands and legs as she struggled to her feet. The hideous wounded mirror Tara stood watching, her smile wider.
"Come, Tara, there is much to be done, and little time to do it. I am the Darkness within, and it is time. Time for the cleansing. Come."
And frightened, yet oddly excited, Tara followed her dark doppelganger through a twisted wasteland of blood and smoke, of corpses and distant screams. All was darkness, save for the occasional campfire, around which gaunt human forms shivered.
"Look around you. These are the Fallen ones, the Broken, the shattered, and the mangled by life. This is the In Between Place, the dark haven for the Lost. This is your place, Broken Angel, Shattered Seraphim. Their blood flows in your veins. But you are special. Your pain is clearer, purer, more passionate. You wonder perhaps how I know?"
She turns to look at Tara with a smile equal parts pity and madness.
"I am your Pain. Come and be made pure in pain."
Ahead is the cross. It is no wooden structure, but rather a jagged metal frame formed of razor blades and rusted iron. Blood stains its every surface, old brown gore splashed on the ground before it. It reeks of coppery death and fear and pain. It is a place of cleansing, a terrible altar of pain.
Pain steps forward, turning to you, extending a bloody hand.
"Come to me."
Tara steps forward, eyes locked on the terrible cross, the bloody frame a symphony of fear and pain. She walks into Pain's arms, and with incredible strength, Pain lifts her and slams her hard against the frame. Jagged blades pierce her skin, tearing her back, flaying her skin. Pain gestures and a jagged snake of barbed wire leaps from the shadows to lash around Tara's right wrist, then another her left. They wrap tightly, gouging deeply into delicate flesh, tearing, drawing blood, drinking in her pain.
The Pain steps back, and the white hot pain turns red and wet as Tara slides against the rusty blades, a scream torn from her lips. The barbed wire digs mercilessly into her flesh. Her head pounds with the force of the exquisite agony.
Then other serpents of jagged wire emerge from the darkness, wrapping around her legs, tightly, constricting, then around her waist and breasts, digging deep, drinking in her sweet blood. A serpent wraps around her forehead, gashing it, dripping blood into Tara's eyes, down into her mouth, giving her a final drink of sweet life. Pain is the eternal now, so hot, so cold, a sensual lover that knows every inch of her.
A probe of hot wire slides slowly up Tara's vagina, barbed wire tearing into her inner walls, lacerating her clit as it rapes her, in and out, bloody and exquisite, the pain now beyond understanding, becoming a warm wash of madness. Her body responds, flushing even as it bleeds, fluids dripping from her mangled slit to mix with the crimson flow dripping to the ground.
The Pain unravels a whip made of cord and shattered glass. She smiles and nods to Tara. Then she brings her arm forward, lashing the hellish whip against her body, shredding flesh, tearing away a gouge of flesh from her belly. A second stroke across her legs lays them open, blood flowing like water as Tara feel herself slipping away. The pain as she lashes her again and again, tearing her breasts, her throat, her face...
Then into the icy depths she falls, into the unknown, into Death.
Upon the cross, Tara's head slumps forward as she dies. The Pain steps up to the cross, and gently kisses Tara's torn lips.
Copyright by Moira Lynn.