No Surrender | Eddie Munson

Chapter Four: Friends

CHAPTER FOUR: FRIENDS

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN — LED ZEPPELIN

There's a feeling I get when I look to the west
And my spirit is crying for leaving
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees
And the voices of those who stand looking

TW// Blood, drowning (skip the italics until the cut)

——————

I am alone.

Darkness closes in, holding me in place, floating in nothingness. I try to speak but nothing comes.

"Did you ever know of anybody whose hair was red when she was young, but got to be another colour when she grew up?"

The speaker remains unseen. No matter how much I try to move, to find the voice, I can't. I'm stuck. But I know that voice so well, I'm certain of it.

They speak again, this time much harsher, "No, I don't know as I ever did, and I shouldn't think it likely to happen in your case either."

I try a few more times to free myself from the invisible hold on me. My feet land on solid ground. Cold pools around my ankles. My reflection stares up at me from below. She has my face, my bright blue eyes. Her hair is blonde and buzzed, however, and the dress I had worn earlier is now replaced by a tattered hospital gown. Everything else is still pitch black.

"Well, that is another hope gone. 'My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes'. That's a sentence I read in a book once, and I say it over to comfort myself whenever I'm disappointed in anything."

"I don't see where the comforting comes in myself."

The conversation continues, all the same person. My lips part in an attempt to call out but, still, I can't make a sound. Even my footsteps are silent as I wade through the icy liquid. It's higher now, already at my knees.

A soft dripping reaches my ears. Frowning, I look back down to see something fall into the water. The trembling hand I bring to my nose comes away completely red, strings of blood trailing from my fingertips. I try to wipe it away but more and more comes pouring out until the ripples through my reflection thicken.

Scarlet stains creep up the fabric of my gown as the water continues to rise. I have to lift my arms to keep them dry.

Another scream falls short of my own ears.

"—and as you're evidently bent on talking, you might as well talk to some purpose by telling me what you know about yourself."

The voice is so close now. It's right above me. I look up, seeing a pinprick of light twinkling far away like the North Star. It's a man's voice, I know that much. He seems to be reciting the words, picking up a little too quickly in some places, sometimes mumbling and sometimes speaking so clearly that I wonder if he is standing right beside me. "Oh, what I know about myself isn't really worth telling. If you'll only let me tell you what I imagine about myself, you'll think it ever so much more interesting."

I try to jump up but my feet are fused to the floor. The water passes my waist, its moisture travelling up my chest in blotches of red as the blood continues to stream from my nostrils.

The beeping starts up again. Each one pierces my skull like a needle, growing faster and faster.

Grasping for the light, I catch a glimpse of the black numbers that mark the skin of my wrist, skin that had once been scarred by an unknown heat. I can't recognise them. They shift and blur.