Page 1 of Fragile Facade
1
BLINK
GHOST
He ripsmy hair when he pulls it, yanking my face from the tepid pond water. My eyes have been open the whole time, but I keep my lungs closed, refusing to suck in a breath until I absolutely can’t help it. Until my body does it without my permission. Until death is so close that it’s almost desirable.
“Breathe.”
I don’t.
“Breathe!”
Fuck death. Fuck it for trying. Fuck it for wanting me. Fuck it for failing.
I grin into the dark woods through the murky water, refusing to breathe, watching the shadows, hellions, and demons shroud the area around me. Creeping in from all directions to take me to the underworld and hold me captive for eternity, they’ll laugh in my face if I fail. If I’m cursed and death is knocking, it can knock fucking harder. Try harder! Cut deeper! Fucking come for me, Death! Fucking try it!
“Breathe, Ghost!”
Despair is so cynical. Almost hypocritical. It’s hopelessness mixed with misery, and pathetic because of its power. I feel it just to fight it. I experience it just to believe it. Because it’s real, but I’m not its fucking prey.
Death is a promise, but life isn’t a guarantee. I’ll die, but life won’t make me. Living won’t force me into a grave before I’m goddamn good and ready to fall into one, kicking and screaming—laughing harshly.
Desire is taboo. Almost forbidden. To want and to take is the goal, but to yearn and be denied is the reality. I chase it to taunt it, but it chases me back to goad me into the grave I refuse to settle in.
Desire. Death. Despair. Round and round we go.
It’s here. It’s gone. It comes. It goes. I desire the chase to death and despair as the end result. Masking and hunting and thrill-seeking and sobering. It’s all an unharmonious circle. An addictive chase that leads me nowhere and a pause in time that creates confusion.
Who am I and where am I going? What am I and what is the point of anything?
Where does it start and how does it end? If I die here, right now, what would have been the point of existing? If I live through this and delay death, what is the purpose of surviving?
Murder. Suicide. Here. Gone.
“Breathe!” His mouth lands on mine and his fingers pinch my nose. He exhales his air into my closed lungs, forcing them open until I accept his breath, choking on it because I don’t goddamn want it! I wasn’t close enough. Death was there, but she wasn’t touching me.
The shadows all dissipate, and he’s ruined it. He’s ruined my dance with impermanence. He’s fucked up my desirable hunt for death and filled me with despair because I wasalmostthere. Almost looking into her eyes and telling her to fuck right off and try harder next time.
Desire. Death. Despair. Oh, this tango we do…
“You fucking prick.” He breathes into my mouth again, and this time, I cough it back out. I expel his breath and the water in my lungs, the pond in my stomach. I hack it all up and turn onto my hands and knees in the shallow pond while he whacks my back and hates me.
I love the way he hates me. Desire and despair, mingled into something that thrives in a chase to death.
My face reflects at me, the rippling water morphing me into the version of myself I see inside my head. Warped and twisted, broken but glued together to near perfection. No one sees my cracks but me. My jagged parts are so artistically put back together that I’ve made myself a masterpiece. I’m tainted perfection and insane power, and nothing, not even the desire of death, has been strong enough to crack me into the undone puzzle I truly am. It’s a grand illusion, and I am the magician who showcases the mirage ofme.
Riot yanks on the back of my shirt, flipping me until my back slams onto the weedy shore of the small pond, his dark waves falling over his forehead. My lungs wheeze and gurgle, but my vision is just fine. His tumultuous grey eyes glare down at me with such a heady mix of emotions that all I can do is laugh. At him. At the sky. At the pond. At death. Because fuck him! He drugged me and took me from The Ambient Raven just to prove a point. That he’s stronger than me. That he can push me to Death’s doorstep and pull me right back.
But it’s not him who pulled me back. It’sme. Because I’m a Sauder man, blessed with a beautiful suicide curse, and I’ve been chasing it all my life. I’m not like my brothers. I’m not scared. I’m not afraid of dying and tempting fate. I’m eager for it! Come at me! Try and fucking take me!
Because I’m stronger than it—more powerful than a curse. I’m the illusion, right? So when I’m there, right on the precipice of desire and despair, a wish and a whisper away from the curse that’s taken my father and my brothers, I’ll laugh in its fucking face and trick it.Haha!Joke’s on you, Death! I’m already dead inside, broken and glued together with something so much worse than the finite end you promise.And when she’s confused by me, wondering why I won’t cross over and join her in the afterlife, I will turn my back on her and make her chase me again. Harder.
Because I’m Soren Sauder, and nothing or no one will kill me until I’ve finally tempted the wrong devil.
I laugh even harder, my stomach cramping with the force of it. The stars all watch, and the moon spotlights my insanity. Riot sees it all, and instead of worrying about me, he laughs right back.
Because I’m chasing death.
