She grinned in victory.
“We’re in hell,” I said.
And her grin melted at the corners a little.
“Shut your whore mouth.”
“We’re in hell,” I said again.
“No.” She shook her head and wagged her finger. “No no no—”
“We are in hell.”
“Fuck you.”
“You and me.”
“Fuck you!”
“We’re in hell.”
“I will devour you!”
“And you’ll still be here. Only now you’ll be alone…”
“I will wear your fucking skin!”
“Alone in my hell.”
She stared at me in fury, eyes that horrible bloodshot red, throat wrung blue. Her shoulders heaving under a weight I knew only too well.
She was me, alright. Me and all of the hell that lay inside me.
If I was my own shadow, then all this darkness belonged to me. As did the truth that came with it.
“You’re right,” I said. “I hate this. I spend every day trying to be someone else. Each morning, I wake up hoping I’ll be different. I hate being like this. Almost as much you do.”
“You’re so fucking miserable,” she spat. “I wish you’d just die!”
I laughed. “Join the fucking club!”
My laughter enraged her. Her face wrung itself red and the skin around her—my—lips split as she became all teeth and nails and horns. Her skin paled and cracked. Her shoulders rounded and her limbs lengthened and her eyes glowed with that awful light.
She lunged at me.
I lunged back.
I caught her hands, mirroring her in mid-air, palm to palm, claws to broken nails.
She reached her right arm back to swipe at me and I did the same.
We struck the same spot in the space between us.
Where she moved, I followed, a perfect reflection as she was to me.
I felt my rage coming out of her, my all-consuming anger crashing back over me, all the ugliness of it. And then the waves of disgust, the shame, the fear, the loneliness, the soul-crushing sadness and the emptiness. All of it I felt as she felt it as I had felt it, reflected back and forth and on and on and on.
I thought of the dilapidated house above us, the years and years of it lying empty. I thought of the nights I’d fallen asleep holding myself.
