Within those immaculate walls, her body lay limp on the mattress; her mouth open yet stretched into a delirious smile. Dark stains of blood had spotted the walls and floor, marring the white with coarse stains. The room had morphed into a chaotic blend of pandemonium.

The threads of the bedsheet beneath her had been stained red, the smell was unbearable, a putrid stench that clung to the air. A ragged pattern inscribed on the velvety skin of her neck - a craggy set of lines, each one longer than the one above it. Blood crusted around the wound, but the expression on her face was oppugnant compared to the blues around.

The unconfined hair masked the dark, congealed blood under her head. It spread out in haphazard directions, still damp and slick. Raelle seemed unreservedly at ease. Yet, she'd been nothing but a hollow body of meat on bones.

Beside her lifeless form lay Jude, his legs sprawled out as he whispered, “This… This shouldn't. N-No.” His hand rested in hers, hot tears flowing down his cheeks. Refusing to look at her vacant eyes.

He nudged the bloodied shard of glass away from her body, busily trying to clean the lacerations on her fingers. “Raelle… You were fine,” he muttered to himself, recalling how enthusiastic she'd been just about the notion of death. He was trying to nurse her out of it, and she had made some progress… Only for her to relapse and go back all those steps she'd taken forward.

In that moment of dread, he realized how bleak it all must have been for her. But the tears never ceased. His digits skimmed along the facile slash along her right wrist, the small cross beside it drowned in blood. The tattoo signifying her love for God had been defiled - a change that Jude interpreted as a sign of her abandoning her faith.

“Judith, I've lost you… Yet again,” he whispered, his voice breaking, as he felt himself being pulled away. People gathered around him, hesitant whether to console him or not.

“Jude, you must calm down,” he heard. Tears bled into his shirt as if his sorrow had seeped right in; but he had no intention of even acknowledging such comments. All he focused on was that he'd lost another link to his sister.

He watched the white shroud being pulled over Raelle, as an angry swirl of emotions began to take roots within him. He was numb, unsure of how to react. Most of all, he felt lost, unable to fathom what to do with himself in the wake of such profound loss.

With trembling hands, he watched as they took her away. “Rest in peace, Raelle,” he spoke through a voice quivering with grief, unable to swallow the lump in his throat.

In a matter of minutes, the room was a silent save for his echoing sobs. The stark emptiness of the room seemed to intensify his woe, as he slowly walked towards the bed. Each breath felt hotter and heavier, as he approached the void before him.

He looked around the room, eyes falling on the scattered items that had once belonged to Raelle - each one a testament to her bitter absence. Jude’s eyes fell upon the wrinkled sheet of paper awkwardly wedged between the mattress and the bed frame. It dawned upon him that it could possibly be the final, silent message left behind.

The words danced about, blurred by the tears pooled in his eyes. Still, he forced himself to read aloud, his voice trembling as he struggled to keep it steady.

“In the stillness of a twilight dream, where shadows and darkness intertwine; I trace your name in the softest air. Ready to be yours.”

The room around him seemed to distort as Jude read each syllable aloud. The blue ink seemed to smear into a void, a dark and ominous streak. Each word amplified Raelle’s absence. The room had begun to swirl, like he'd just downed eight shots of pure absinthe, his eyes betraying his line of sight and ears ringing.

“Your aura, a distant light, something I can never behold. I reach with my hands through the mist, dying to be in the warmth I've so dearly missed.”

Jude gripped the paper tighter, his knuckles turning white and nails leaving a crescent on his palms. As his voice rose higher with each stanza, so did his sense for an escape. His tone had turned into a sinister chant, monotonous yet gruesome. The familiar space warped into nothingness. He fought to steady himself, but Jude had already been in the shackles of the words he read aloud.

“In every silent plea is your name etched, where I find solace unbound. Your hand is what I need, your worship is what I'll do, lord.”

Jude's voice was barely a whisper now and his digits had gone up in his hair, pulling at each individual strand - some of them even pulled off their roots. His eyes were vacant, his mouth moving only as he read Raelle's poem aloud. He felt himself unraveling with each line, the edges of reality fraying into a blur. His breath came in harsh rasps, each inhalation like an icy needle to the lung.

“And so I confess, in the quiet. My love for you is undying, yet too far off. With every last breath, I will whisper your name, till I'm yours forever.”

He choked the last word out, before his lips parted in a silent scream. His legs gave way, as he crumpled to the floor; the poem ripped to shreds by the end. The room seemed to collapse upon him and the walls grew closer, until he'd been confined in just a square inch of space. The poem still remained, a blurred portrayal of anguish.

The lines of the poem looped around in his head, as he started reiterating the entire poem once again. “Make me yours, Lord,” he chanted, like it had been something that kept him alive.

Amidst his sundered vision and the haze of his chanting, he saw her. In all her glory. Her hair flowed like a river of molten gold, each strand avowedly reflecting the sun’s rays. Her eyes, as angelic as they looked, held a bit of rue. And Jude knew that if he didn't call her then, he'd never get to see her again.

“Judith!” He called out to her, expecting her to turn around.

But she didn't. Instead, she graced his ears with a chillingly calm voice, “Yes, brother?”

Jude felt his breath hitch in his throat. His sobs, however, had died down as he took brisk steps towards her. Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, he hoped her presence would be an anchor for him. A cold dread draped over him, despite the lack of lucidity…

“Ready to come with me, brother?” She asked, with a predatory tone. Her back still remained turned, her now-damp hair sending chills down Jude’s back. “You'll be happy with me.”

“Is it really you, Jud-”

Before he could finish however, her hands had twisted back. With damp fingers, she ran her touch slowly across his neck, as if caressing him with an eerie familiarity. Her touch was unnervingly boreal.

Jude's heart pounded faster. He hoped for a desperate embrace, hoping that the warmth of her presence would dispel the growing dread.

But as he clung to her, the tenderness he expected never came. There was no warmth in her touch, no solace. Just a hollow body and an embrace. His breath quickened as he pulled back slightly.

Her touch, now seemed vacant and cold, betraying a sense of dark purpose. Before he could react, her grip tightened. Jude’s eyes widened as her hands closed around his throat, the pressure building with a relentless force.

“Come with me brother,” she uttered, her lips stretched into an ecstatic smile. With that his vision blurred and darkened, the once comforting embrace now becoming a vise that cut off his air.

Katopark | September 2024