Prologue:

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtaxed – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Insanity: a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world – R. D. Lang

The children of evil are surely insane. – Judith Moriae

All she knew was pain.

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

Agony above agonies blazed through her body. She knew not what was going on, and didn’t have the desire to understand. She was afraid to open her eyes, she was afraid to keep them closed: the only thing she could find the strength to do was scream.

And scream.

She clawed at her restraints, both those physical bonds and the mental antagonists; her subconscious mocked her, poked her, taunted her.

You’re crazy, she hissed at herself, confirming her very worst fear. You’re crazy.

You’re crazy.

She saw images – beyond the blocky room, beyond the drop ceiling and beyond the sky. She saw blood and pain embodied. She saw her own face cracking before her eyes; flesh splintered like wood, shattered into thousands of pieces like hardened clay.

And there was a sliver in her mind, digging into her brain like a burrowing worm – deeper, deeper, deeper.

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

– eyes, ever watching –

She felt death’s touch, whispering like a cool breeze over her flesh; she felt the fires of hell, threatening to consume her eternally damned soul; she knew icy despair, stranded on the frozen tundra of absolute terror.

Heat, cold, thirst, hunger, fear, anger, hate, joy, orgasm, jealousy, lust, misanthrope –

She screamed because she could not bear it.

She could not bear it because she did not understand.

She could not understand because she refused to try.

She withdrew her hand from the flame, afraid to identify its source, afraid to push the barrier and break the glass, to see what was on the other side. It was an unknown source, an entity of unknown origin, and it scared her to the core.

– something she cannot understand filling her mind: a serpent uncoiling in her belly, slithering through her guts, spitting poison, hissing unintelligible words, hurling lies and malice, destroying her from the inside out –

For deceit is under his tongue; the poison of asps is in his lips –

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, ultraviolet –

She screamed because she could: it was her last available option.

She could not smear away the haze smothering her vision, and yet she could not blot out the apparitions of her horror.

She screamed because it released the demons of anxiety in her, because it felt good to do something, simply because it let her know she was still alive and had not as yet passed into the shadow of death.

Infinity.

– down the valley, therein lies death; a man with broken teeth smiles warmly as he comes to meet her, a book of teachings under his arm, hand extended in greeting –

– accompanied by a woman in red, her head adorned with jewels and pearls, glittering in gold and silver, riding on the back of a scarlet, seven-headed beast with a blasphemous name; she laughs a riddle and drinks blood from the golden goblet she holds –

– rage, desire, strife, heartache, grief, longing, loneliness –

She felt a cool liquid blanket fall over her, cooling the fever from her body, cleansing her from her sins –

– and is immediately washed in fire, naked, bathing in a sea of flames –

She screamed, desperately desiring to know what was wrong, wanting her agony to end, wanting to see the world through eyes that did not see the unseen, nor reveal the unknown. She saw the ultraviolet spectrum, the waves of color and heat and energy pulsating before her, within her grasp –

– and then is whisked away, tumbling and rolling, feeling her disorientation more acutely, and she gets to her feet on a bed of nails, oblivious to the pain that erupts in the soles of her feet, for it pales in comparison to the liquid agony pouring in a raging torrent through her veins.

– but as she bleeds from mouth, nose, ears, eyes, she can still taste, hear, smell, see; her legs and arms are broken, yet they function perfectly; she is naked in a room full of ice but is warmed by the clothing her fear provides her; she is confused and yet perfectly aware of everything going on.

Her life is an eternity that lasts but a short while. She wanders and stumbles, lost in a place she knows like the back of her hand. She dies a thousand cowardly deaths, each more horrific than the last, but is resurrected each time to live again. She does not remember who she is, but she knows herself completely.

And one thing but remains:

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

And she screams.