The moon cast little light upon the grass, the dried flowers, and the cold tombstones glistening from the rain that graced through moments ago.  The scent of rain hovered.  Wind whispered to the trees along with words being murmured, by a young lady, her hands running up her face and through her drenched hair.

            “Here you lie, sin,” she said, “here you lie.”

            She averted her eyes from the little dark tombstone and glanced at her watch.  It was near dawn.  She looked up to the sky, hoping to see stars, hoping for…hope.  But she saw none.  The sky was black, except for the moon, which was but an opaque semi-circular line of yellow.  She fought back the impending urge to break.  She will not break.

            Insomnia.  The impossibility of sleep haunted her every night.  She could no longer call it that.  That word had no reality in her ordeal.  Blaming it all on that would be denial.  Denial provokes emotions.  Emotions hurt.  Hurt breaks.  She will not break.

            It may be paranoia.  It may even be insanity.  But she did not will for it to happen.  The sin she bore was not willed at all.  The night might have allowed it, the moon or the darkness.  Eyes widening in fear, pulse beating as blood raced through her veins…in fear.  Fear breaks.  Never again.

            “There is nothing to fear child, no fear.”

            Voices in her head.  The hoarse voices echoing in her mind penetrating to the very depths of her being.  It made her blood run thick.  Clenched fists and tightly closed eyes did nothing as chills swept over her skin, like a cold palm running down your body without touching it.  This voice made sleep but a dream.

            The horrid remembrance of it made her kneel on the grave she has been staring at even before the rain.  He was gone…That night was gone.  And yet they stayed.

            “I did not wish for it to happen.  I did not wish to break.  I was afraid,” she said, with each word gasping for air, fighting the spasms that racked her cold body.  “Curse them, sin.  I bore a curse.  Child! Life is but a curse and I bore it…out of sin.  I sired sin.”

            She shook her head violently in a silent scream, her hair sending spatters of water into the air.  “But it was not my sin.  I did not will it.  I did not.”

            She did not will to be raped of her soul, her being, of sleep or of dream.  No one would want to be.  She did not want to be.  She had said no, again and again.  He did not listen.  “It was not my sin.”

            Strengthening her resolve, she stood up and walked away, clutching her soiled floor-length coat closer to her.  She looked around her uneasily and sighed.  Paranoia.  Night was becoming all too familiar.  Confusion.  Voices were all around her, and worse, she felt them in her.  Feeling.  Feeling hurts.  Hurt breaks. 

            Her long skirt and her stiff coat toppled over a vase.  It crashed on the concrete stone embedded on the ground.  “I will not break,” she said, a fraction of a smile threatening the corners of her mouth as she realized the irony of it.

            A shaft of light shined through the round stained-glass window of the church beside the cemetery.    She glanced up and felt warm.  It won’t hurt, she thought, to maybe have some faith.  Faith might be good.

            She pushed open the towering brown doors and her eyes wandered around, scrutinizing, noticing…feeling eyes on her.  No one was there.  The walls had paintings, the pillars had statues lined beside them.  She felt them looking. 

            “Stop looking!” she whispered with panic, as she quickly averted her eyes to the tiled floor she was walking slowly on.

            She could feel weight around her.  An eerie feeling of companions.  The air grew thick around her.  She folded her arms across her chest in an attempt to block the sinister air.  “Don’t do that!”

            Whispering words.  She could never escape them.  She wondered, not even in the house of God?  There can never be escape.

            “Don’t fear, child.  My, my, my what a beautiful child.”

            The wretchedness of that night flew into her memory.  The sounds, the voice.  The voice of the one who brought tragedy…who brought sin.  She was hearing them again.  No escape!  He was gone, that night was gone…and yet they haunt.  They haunt from the very moment the sun surrenders to dusk.

            “Hush, child, hush.  No fear.”

            Her hands flew to cover her ears, even if she knew it would do nothing.  Her face contorted, as echoes rang in her head.  She pressed her hands to her head harder, nails digging into her scalp, fingers lost to tangles in her hair.  “Hush, hush.”

            Her knees buckled, her arms tensed as they sought support on a pew’s edge.  Standing up, she lost her balance again and fell on the cold tile now stained with mud from her boots and coat.  Her fall echoed.

            “I will not break,” she said through clenched teeth.  Regaining her stance, she made her way to the altar, staring up at the cross.  “God, give me strength.”

            A door creaked and slammed closed.  “Is anyone there?” a voice called.

            In surprise, she turned around and saw a priest running towards her in concern.

            “My child, are you alright?”

            She tried to smooth out what she was wearing.  Water dripped to the floor.  “Yes, father.”

            “It is not safe here.  What are you doing out of your home?  You must not be out at this hour.  Evil is roaming the streets,” he said, “You know you are safest here in the house of the Lord.  But outside…”

            The priest sighed and continued.  “You should know that this is not the safest place in our neighborhood.  Evil roams outside.”

            She looked down on the mud-stained tiles.  “Yes I know…” she trailed off, and murmured under her breath, “I sired evil.”

            “What did you say?”

            “Nothing.” 

            The priest opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by the shrill sound of screeching rubber, shortly followed by the echo of a gun fired.  Screams flooded the air.  She herself drowned in her own.  The panic sent the two into each other’s arms.

            The priest held her in hope to comfort her.  “Shush, my child.”

            Her breath stopped short.  This can’t be.  Those words folded over each other in excruciating anguish in her head.  Too much confusion, too many echoes.  Reality was bending to paranoia.  

            “There is nothing to fear.  God will bless such a beautiful child with strength.  He will not will for anything to break you.”

            Break?  She ached at the thought.  She struggled to grasp the little rationality she had.  Let no fear take over.  No weakness.  But distress was creeping in, and torment could not resist to do the same.

            “Such a beautiful child….Shush now, there is nothing to fear.  No fear.”

            Her eyes widened.  Her heart pounded on her chest like a hammer.  Nails were pricking her skin.  This can’t be.  No escape. 

            Blindly she jerked herself away like she had just touched heated metal. She pushed him away.  His fall echoed. 

            Mud has made the tiles slippery.  She could not help but fall.  She felt an overwhelming pain that traveled across her legs as her knees sickeningly hit the floor.  She cried.

            She had missed tears, just like sleep.  The way they poured from her eyes and streamed down her cheeks.  She cradled her face with a palm as she urged herself to stand.

            A voice called after her.  “You are safer in here, child!”

            “No fear…no fear…no fear,” she mumbled to herself under her breath.

            Aching her way towards the front entrance, she pushed open the doors and stepped out.  The doors behind her closed with a heavy thud.

            She winced.

            Chaos was still going on in the street.  Guns were being waved in the air.  She saw them all in a blur.  Evil.  Sin.

            “God.”

            She held the rail as she stepped down.

            “If it be willed…”

            The darkness was pulling away from the night.

            “For I will it…”

            Bending her knees, she crouched down like a child.

            “Break.”

            She felt a searing heat on her side, after she faintly heard the sound of a gun fired.  Her mouth opened in an attempt to scream.  Dream drowned the silence. 

            Her name was Sky.  In sleep she opened to meet the first rays of dawn.

Dezphaire

March 14, 2000

2:30 PM