Mac: in the cell at the abbey
I am heat.
I am need.
I am pain.
I am more than pain. I am agony. I am the other side of death denied the mercy of it. I am life that should never have been.
Skin is all I am. Skin that is alive that hungers that aches that needs to be touched to endure. I roll and roll, but it is not enough. It makes the pain worse. My skin is on fire, flayed by a thousand red-hot blades.
I have been on the cold stone floor of this cell for as long as I can recall existing. I have never known anything but this cold stone floor. I am hollow. I am barren. I am empty. I do not know why I continue to be.
But wait! In my stasis is there something? Is this change?
I lift my head.
There is other-than-empty near!
I crawl to it, beg it to make my agony stop.
The other-than-empty tries to put things in my mouth and make me chew. I roll my head away. Resist. Not what I want. Touch me here. Touch me now!
It does not. It goes away. Sometimes it returns and tries again.
Time has no meaning.
I drift.
I am alone. Lost. I have always been alone. There has never been anything but cold and pain. I touch myself. I need. I need.
The other-than-empty comes and goes. Puts things in my mouth that smell and taste bad. I spit them out. Those are not what I need.
I drift in my stasis of pain.
Wait! What is this? Change again? Am I to know something besides agony?
Yes! I know this! He Who Made Me is here! My prince has come. I rejoice. An end to my suffering is at hand.
Wait—what is other-than-empty doing?
My prince is … no, no, no!
I scream. I hammer other-than-empty with my fists. The other-than-empty is hurting my master with a long shiny thing. He is ceasing to be! Take me with you, I beg! I cannot endure. I am pain! I am pain!
The other-than-empty kneels beside me. Touches my hair.
My prince is gone.
The other made him cease to be!
I collapse. I am grief. I am despair. I am desolation. I am the cliffs of black ice from whence my masters come.
Change again?
Another He Who Made Me has come? Am I to be saved after all? Granted mercy at my master‘s hands?
No, no, no! He is gone, too. Why am I being tortured?
I am agony. I have been forsaken. I am being punished and I do not know why. But wait …
Something looms over me. It is dark and powerful. It is electric. It is lust. It is not one of my princes, but my body arches and steams. Yes, yes, yes, you are what I need!
It touches me. I am on fire! I weep with relief. It holds me to its body, crushes me to its skin. We sizzle. It speaks, but I do not understand its language. I am in a place beyond words. There is only skin and flesh and need.
I am an animal. I hunger without conscience, without qualm.
And I have been given a gift to exceed all gifts—my masters must be pleased with me!
Its language is gibberish to my ears, but the flesh recognizes its own. The creature that holds me now will do more than end my pain. It will fill all that is empty. It is an animal, too.