Page 4 of Monstrous Grave

The wind’s breeze grabs my hair, messing it up in tangles, but I remain uncaring. There’s not much I care about these days; instead, burning hatred tinged with sorrows takes place, transforming into a poisonous concoction within me.

Hatred—an all too known emotion, potent enough to release toxins throughout you, and with each passing day, the decay intensifies only to spread like a disease until nothing remains.

There was once upon a time when things were good. Better than good—I was happy. Until that happiness shattered like a delicate yet fragile rose amidst sharp thorns, all because of one person who left me.

My attention is captured by the ceaseless assault of waves hurling themselves against the cliffside, resonating with a thunderous roar throughout the caverns below. Tendrils of water climb the rugged walls, eventually spraying over me. I welcome the ocean’s embrace, submitting myself to nature’s will while wishing the water could sweep me away.

I can’t leave yet. Not until I’ve completed the sole mission I have dedicated my life to for the past five years.

The paper in my hands becomes all the more crinkled as I grip it with such force, it’s a wonder it hasn’t yet been shredded to pieces. My nails dig into the material, tearing it apart, but it remains readable.

A cold wind steals the warmth from my fingers, removing their flexibility and numbing the tips until I can’t feel anything at all.

An unidentifiable droplet falls onto the paper, smudging the inked words. I look up at the darkened sky rumbling with gray clouds, not one ounce of sunlight among them. This time of the year is always bleak, with nothing but rain or overcast, despite it being summer. There’s no rain in sight, only the languid clouds hanging motionless in the sky like shadows.

Bringing my hand up to my cheek, something wet touches my skin, and I realize I’m crying. Stupid, pathetic tears over someone who doesn’t deserve it or my time. A man whose soul has lived within me for five years since he passed, each day becoming a battlefield in itself made of the unspeakable. A fight I’m incapable of winning.

I grind my teeth until the muscles in my jaw strain, wincing at the tension before allowing my gaze to drift over the cliffs, to the ocean below. It’s morbidly beautiful here, with the wind-swept grass standing as sentinels.

Memories of all the times I’ve been here shift through my mind, and I can only imagine how the ocean floor must be covered with the soaked, torn paper from all my anguished words. It’s a wonder the ocean hasn’t turned white yet from the thousands of letters I must have thrown over this very cliff, allowing them to gracefully fall before plummeting against the surface below.

Five years ago, you gave me a wordless and bittersweet farewell, leaving me alone in a puddle of tears and my heart’s shattered pieces that no one would ever be able to glue or stitch together. You steered me away from an impending crash against these cliffs and the temptation to plummet over the edge, precisely like these letters to you do.

You left me to fend for myself in a game much bigger than I would ever be able to comprehend. No regard whatsoever for the first kiss, orgasm, and pleasure you stole from me before you ripped my heart to pieces.

Did you know? Did you fucking know the pain and tumult you would cause me?

Of course, you knew. Otherwise, you’d have never done what you did.

I miss you so much, but most of all, I fucking hate you for what you did and how you allowed me to fall into a pit of despair after bringing me back alive.

Crumbling the paper in my hands, I shred it into multiple satisfying pieces. With all the arm strength I can gather, I throw them over the edge, observing as the wind takes a hold of them and slowly, gently, brings them down below.

Oh, how I wish the papers could fall as hard and steadily as I fell down a dark pit the moment he left, leaving my heart buried inside a monstrous grave that no one could ever unravel. If only the pieces could feel what I’ve felt, trying to stay afloat and survive when the only person who ever meant something left me.

Grief and rage are unpredictable, and there’s no telling when it will truly strike, leaving you plummeting without any way of climbing up.

Casting one last glance up at the sky, a flash illuminates the heavens for a brief second, like an omen. The silence that ensues is hair-raising, the seconds after the flash but before the thunder, and then it strikes, rolling over my surroundings. The first glistening droplets fall from above, instantly chilling me.

At that moment, an anguished scream tears its way free from my lips, my throat burning and soaring with the rawness of the sound as it echoes between the cliff walls, resonating back and forth until it eventually fades before beginning again.

I scream until there’s nothing left inside of me, the excruciating pain gradually subsiding and leaving a scar right across my soul. The roar of sorrow persists until I’m on the verge of breathlessness, the anguish diminishing for now, until the moment I have to drive to the cliffs once more and repeat the same process.

This is the only refuge that silences the tumultuous voices in my head, muting the darkness that might otherwise lead me to kill anyone who dares come close.

He ruined me in the worst ways any human could ruin someone, destroying me from the inside out when he left me. When he died, the only living piece remaining inside me was killed with his essence. Now? I’m just an empty shell of a person trying to navigate through an underground world of horrors and crimes that I shouldn’t even be a part of.

I turn my back to the sea, silently longing for a phantom push to nudge me off balance, sending me slipping over the edge into the peace my soul has yearned for. Instead, I head toward my motorbike parked by the dirt road, straightening my spine to regain some composure.

It’s never enough, but that doesn’t matter because vengeance is close. Anticipation thrums through my veins like a buzzing current as I think back to it all.

Justice will be served to all those who wronged me. If only I could resurrect him, just to make him witness the hatred etched deep into my soul the moment before I’d wrench his neck free from his body.

If only.

Chapter 2

Arcane

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