The clock.
The clock. That very one. The one that moves in the direction it was pointed. Yes, it ticks. Or makes noise. Or just irritates someone trying not to hear it. I don't know. I only know that it's damp here. Empty. And, goddamn it, lonely.
I don't want to be alone.
The cold. It's everywhere. In the walls, in the air, in my breath. I never thought about it before. Why? Probably because there was no time. Although, wait a second... does one even need time for that? Does a body need time to understand it's freezing? Or does it?
A strange question.
Stranger still is the answer.
I'm in pain.
Not from the cold. Although... maybe from that, too. I only know that the pain is searing, hellish, turning everything inside out. Cold shouldn't be hot. So it's not that.
Yes. It's them, the blades hanging behind her back like a flock of predatory birds ready to swoop from a branch.
Ah, if only they'd miss. Aimed at me, but hit her pride instead. That damn, icy, impenetrable pride.
But no. Thoughts don't come true. And wishes even less so. Mine seem to be defective.
One of the blades twitched, as if held back by an invisible hand whose fingers had finally unclenched.
But before it could be unleashed, her lips, yes, those very lips that love to pronounce others' sentences, decided to play with me a little more.
"I heard your story more than well. Even too well. And even the parts that had no relation to my question. So," she smiled, as if one could drown in that smile. "I want to hear your verdict."
Verdict?
What is she even talking about?
Are the performers in this circus even allowed to speak, and not the audience? Or does she just want to cut me down, not physically, no, but morally. For her collection.
"Don't be foolish. I have no such intentions," she said, waving her hand theatrically. "Though, truth be told, it would be amusing to watch you writhe in mental pain once more!"
"I don't recall the defendant having the right to take the jury's seat," I was forced out, with pain in my body but sarcasm on my face.
"Not at all," she squinted. "And I won't lie, you are right. But, you know, you're forgetting yourself, my dear storyteller."
She tilted her head like an actress awaiting applause.
"Look around. And tell me, where do you think we are? In your damn story."
Her voice is poison, spreading through my veins. Overpowering. Corrosive.
A memory is a part of you. A part of your world. A world where you are the storyteller. Where you lead the reader by the hand, showing them where to look. But if the key to your own door has been taken away, are you still the storyteller? Or just a lost ghost between the pages?
Back then, I was still alive.
Back then, I had a 'yesterday.'
Now there is only 'now.'
And this'now' is a trial.
Yes, my trial.
"So," Mariana's voice cut through the space like a scalpel. "What is your verdict? Who was the cause of the misfortune?"
The cause... The cause of the pain, the misunderstandings, all this decay. The cause for which everything collapsed.
"Avaley Le Fay."
Again.
"Avaley Le Fay."
And again.
"Avaley Le Fay!"
A name that became a sentence. A name that, by repeating, I seemed to be pulling out of myself, along with the last remnants of air, of will, of meaning.
"Hgh-hgh... Agh-ha-gha-ha-ha-gh-kha -hah..."
Laughter.
That laugh again. It sounds regardless of meaning, of whether you were right or wrong. It sounds because it can.
"Even after death, you carry this pathetic nonsense within you," Mariana hissed, not hiding her pleasure.
And... one of the blades, tired of waiting, broke loose.
With unimaginable speed, it pierced my right leg.
Ah!
Damn! I-I-iT dOeSn'T hUrT!It HuU!uRrRtSsS!!! AAAA!!aAaaAA!!aAAAAAA!aaAAAAAAaAaaaaaAAAAAA!aaAAAAAA!AaAAAAAA!!aaAAA!AAAa!aaaAaAAA!aaAAAAAaaaAAAAAaaAaaAAAa!!! MmAaAmmA!MmAoOoMm! MaaOoOoaMa!
"Kh... what a pitiful spectacle."
The witch uttered it mentally. Or maybe I just imagined it.
What did I do wrong?
Where did I make a mistake?
Someone... tell me. What should I have done for everything to be different?
I don't know. I know nothing. And I probably will never know anymore.
Enough.
Please.
I'm in pain.
I can't take it anymore.
A quiet, unrestrained weeping. As if trying to drown out myself.
Please...
no more...
can't endure it...