Page 1 of Martyr
PART 1
LYSSA
My life isa series of flashes.
Memories. Sounds. Emotions.
The memories sting. Years of being rubbed on sandpaper should’ve smoothed my edges. It should’ve made things easier to swallow. But the memories force me to relive the moments I’d most like to forget.
The boy in the woods who did unspeakable things to me.
The monsters in the dark who paid for my flesh.
The blue-eyed savior who took away my pain.
When my thoughts turn to him, I ache all the worse. Someone may as well drive a knife into my stomach and twist the blade. I might fare better that way.
For all the darkness I loathe, the one I live in is warm and soft. It’s not scary.
Yet, it has become its own prison. One I regularly try to beat against, to break the bars down around my mind.
The emotions follow the memories. Heartbreak and fear and sadness. They knot and roll inside me. I’m scared the emotions will swallow me whole, drag me deeper. And then who would I be?
Who am I now?
The sounds hurt the least. It’s the rush of the ocean, or distant crying. A shushing noise, over and over. A steady beeping. A breath.
The memories and emotions are my constant. They play on repeat. But the sounds ground me.
They’re ever-changing, reminding me that I am alive.
I think I’m alive.
If this is Hell, I don’t know what I did to deserve this place. I don’t know what this eternal darkness has in store for me.
Is it a penance I pay?
A debt owed?
My thoughts wander until the noises finally shift. Until it’s just a single voice cutting through the black, through the pain, through my growing fear.
A woman. She weaves me the most wondrous, hideous tale of love and heartache.
I want to take her hand and tell her that everything can be okay. But who am I to be optimistic when I’m trapped in Hell?
She might as well be right alongside me.
So I listen. And I remember.
And I hope.
In the end, that’s all I have left.
1ARTEMIS
Saint is infuriating.
I knew this about him, but I had forgotten. I mean, the guy knows how to pull at my heartstrings with the best of them. But in the blink of an eye, he’s gone back to the self-absorbed, grief-strickenassholewho first moved into my condo.
