True Freedom

True freedom

R. Harini

I ran with all my might. My feet were heavy with blisters and my tears ran dry. I was experiencing it once more, that nightmare, living and breathing in that cruel, savage world I always dreaded. No matter what I did, no matter how loud my screams echoed, no matter how many times I shivered and trembled, twisted and groaned, begging for it to stop, it always ended the same way. I would be chased around, writhing in unending agony. I would struggle helplessly, yet inevitably knowing, that my worthless determination and futile hope would all be thrown into that pitiless abyss and torn to shreds, which I could never ever recover, no matter how hard I tried.

Yet I ran. I had to escape, I had to be free. But the truth lay so blatantly naked in front of me. I knew, no matter how I mumbled like a lost, disillusioned child, and steeled myself for the unthinkable, they would catch me, like they always did. My pleads would be ignored as I would fold my quivering, bruised hands and once more I would be chained, tossed into that unforgivable hell.

No matter how many times I ran free, or tried to, I knew and they knew very well, that I would always be within their life-drenching grasps. It was as if my agony was their luxury, and my shallow blood tainting the wilderness seemed all too normal. I had to move and survive according to their strangling strings. I couldn't take it at all, and it was there that I decided I won't anymore.

As I felt their monstrous, earth-shaking footsteps near me, I stopped. I didn't run anymore. I turned back, with hate burning my eyes a deep, terrifying blood-red tint. It was then that I realised that my frail, scarred body was not mine anymore. As my feet pounded through the crowd, I felt the distinct, bittersweet scent of fresh blood hit my nose. I could feel their shapeless forms crashing down, as heart wrenching death rattles echoed in unison. I realised I didn't have to run; I don't need to escape. I need to stay here and rule. Make others cower down in fear, stealthily disguised as admirable respect. I needed and did stop thinking of right and wrong, sin and deed. This hell where I reside, love and kindness, friendship and trust, are no more than forgotten memoirs, buried beneath selfishness and cruelty. I too, was but nae and foolish, not being able to see those vivid, deceiving colours, paint a catastrophe, beneath those welcoming hues. My body was not mine, it now belonged to revenge, his brother anger, his sister hate and their master, evil.

But now I knew what salvation actually meant, as I could feel the halo of evil slowly engulf me. I didn't fight as I embraced it back. I knew what power meant. I could still sense those muffled screams of my conscience beneath the overwhelming feeling of supremacy and greatness, fame and strength, but they just had to be ignored. I was one of the downtrodden, and now I am free of suffering, free of weakness, free of contemplation. Before I closed my eyes, I smirked silently at that pathetic image of my past, that reflected on the massive pools of blood and laughed within at those huge eyes widening in horror, and collapsed into a blissful sleep.