Hurt

“TAKE IT!” I scream at them. “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?”

The screams echo louder across the Wastelands, climbing higher and higher in intensity and ferocity. Gesturing at the empire I’ve built behind me, the massive towers made of sand, I scream louder, “TAKE IT! I don’t want it anymore!”

They howl louder, and behind me, the structure begins to crash, dirt streaming from the cracks in the walls. The towers creak and begin to stream down, the entire empire turning to dust in the face of the Enemy’s atrocity.

Wordless, every shout is. Ferocities I can not hope to keep up with, words that seep into my skin and tear me down from the inside. They used to hear my voice, they used to heed my cry, but those days have ended now.

“YOU LISTEN TO ME!” I shout, but they don’t. I cry out, knees buckling and slamming me face-first into the streaming piles of dirt.

This is it, I think. This is where I get buried alive by the weight of my universe. I’ve never wanted to be buried. All I’ve ever wanted is to die by flame— why is that?

Why is that, why is that, why is that? The voices echo.

It’s not your fault, I tell myself.

It’s always your fault. You’re accountable for your own actions.

But what if someone forced you to make those actions?

They’re still my actions. My decision. My movement. I chose this. I chose this. I chose this.

I wanted this.

The voices all meld together again, creating an even louder cacophony.

Sand has reached me, wrapping over my knees, ankles, legs, and I choose to stand, to stagger away, shirt pulled over my face to create some kind of mask between the desert dirt and my lungs. Behind me, my empire of dirt has crumbled completely, and only I am left in its wake.

When the last tower crumbles, nothing left for Rahab, no red rope to save the day, the voices silence. Their howls have proved victorious. The walls are down. Nothing stands between me and the rest of the desert, the mountains and their massive caves. The cavernous openings from which creep all manner of ill-intended creatures, come to snatch me away with them.

No. They can not defeat me.

I don’t know how I know this, but I do. The voice is quieter this time, my own.

I have something they don’t know about.

And in the wake of the desolation, I reach into my jacket pocket and retrieve my last semblance of beauty— a lighter given to me by a friend. A friend who can’t make it to this place anymore.

I flick it on, and the darkness shrinks away. In all directions, I see nothing but sand. Nothing but a million ways and places to die, but I have survived here for centuries, and I will continue to do so for decades longer yet.

They can not defeat me.

Clinging to the thought, I forge deeper into the desert, flame aloft.