Blinding Insanity

May 10, 2016May 9, 2016 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 30 Comments

Slashed open in a fit of uncontrolled rage, my gouged and bleeding thigh is nothing but ravaged flesh; it is the thrill of his attention upon me that is beyond compare. As my blood races, he hears it pulse; as my body quivers, he feels it vibrate; as my mind screams, he hears it echo through his own damaged being. He is ever present – this beast, this creature, this untamed demon that stalks me. Believing me no match for the power his darkness wields, he has been gentle with me till now, wishing not to frighten me with what he truly believes himself to be.

Clawed arm raised to strike again, his breathing is heavy, as labored as my own; his from restraint, mine from fear and desperate longing. He pauses, his hard stare boring into that of my own, gauging if I go willingly or as that of a cowering fool who knows nothing of what she asks of this dark madness. In his eyes I see a confusion of longing coupled with the enamored glee of wanting, an unsure knowledge that he has finally found what he has been seeking; acceptance.

This shatters the final piece of me.

My choice made, I bare my soul with complete submission in the hope of receiving his mark and my eternal salvation; the death of one dim existence, the birth of yet another. I sense still the indecision with which he watches me, unsure if this is to be allowed, or yet another cruel joke in a life fraught with pain, agony, and harsh deception. Do I genuinely offer what I promise? His eyes beg to know. This most gentle of beasts that shall rend me to pieces in a glory of blinding insanity.

His choice yet to be made, my only option to nurture it. I see what lurks behind his mask, I shall not shy from it. I will forever choose to embrace it, though the beast believes it still hides itself behind his reflection.

For now, I shade the glistening pools that reflect all I see at the expense of my own damnation. I wish only to belong to this coupling; though my wish is of little consequence, he’ll take what he will and leave the rest to rot in its own undignified remains.

∼Nina D’Arcangela

Raw

December 8, 2015December 10, 2015 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 49 Comments

I pound my torn fists against the sides of this box, but the effort is useless – there is no escaping oneself. Scratching, clawing, chewing a splinter I manage to create in my mad scrambling does no good; I simply ravage myself further. Bloody and raw, I fill with a pressure that threatens to burst from my haggard being, further tainting this polluted soul.

There is no escape from the crushing weight of my prison. I beg to be saved from the anguish in which I languor; but there is no salvation, not for me; not for one so undeserving, uncherished, unloved. There is only the false glimmer of light, one my inner demon allows me to glimpse for his enjoyment and my unrelenting torture.

Scuffed, scrapped, tattered and torn, a thing not palatable to another, I slide to my knees; a pile of rent flesh brutalized by the walls surrounding me. I clutch at the only thing I have left, a scrap of sanity, but my fingers… they no longer close. A wail erupts from my stricken lungs; my raw throat bellows a croon no one will ever hear.

My demon laughs; he finds my anguish a great delight. I am a toy to be played with, a thing of distraction, a means to pass the eternity in which he will dwell within me. I cannot escape him, though I try – all the more to his amusement. He watches me struggle in futility, basks in the restriction of breath that bands my burning lungs. He hears my silent shriek of agony, licks the salty tears that streak my filth-ridden face. He is my tormentor, he is my keeper, he is my salvation – though he shall never grant it.

The walls of this box are by now a forest of splinters; it matters not where I lay for comfort, I find none – there is only jagged surface to be sought here. This prison so impenetrable, no other shall ever glimpse it, nor shall I ever be released from it. I have no false hope, only a fool would hope for mercy from such a thing. Though I am a fool, I am not that fool…

Awash in a pool of my own shattered dreams, I find no blame other than mine to own. My demon chuckles as he reminds me this box is of my own design, made impregnable by my own failings.

Yet still, I rub my ragged and blood caked palm along the shreds of wall hoping to find the smallest fissure, a mere crack, any sign that can offer even the falsest of hope that someday I will break free – but there is none. There never has been.

In this box, I see my deepest desires turn to dust; my most cherished dreams die; my fate sealed forever. I find my demon observing my anguish, relishing the unending torture of my most exquisite pain. Here, I am me – I am this quivering thing that lies upon the floor begging for a mercy that will never come; beseeching my demon for a small measure of what others are granted, but I shall never have. I am destined to scrape and scratch and gnaw at this unyielding pen that is minuscule in breadth, yet without end.

Why will it not swallow me and put to rest this pathetic shadow of my former self? Consume me, I beg of it, but it will not. What use am I to the box if it has no grief from which to feed; no pain left to color its darkened walls; no feather to pluck while my remnants jerk in concert?

My demon wants me locked in this box for an eternity, perhaps because it seeks the same as I do – a measure of level tolerance. It lives a lone existence, my demon, though I believe it was meant to, whereas I am meant for more. I am meant to be free from this punji-ridden hell of despair…

Another false hope I harbor; another path to mental decay I shall have to avoid for as long as I can. One more shattered reality in a world filled with tightly sealed boxes. Yet without these boxes, would I not be only an empty shell? Another harsh reality to be born on the back of so many others I wish were not mine. But the lie told that all is just, is just that – a lie. With each whispered falsehood the box containing my soul shrinks further, the desperate pitch of my moaning crescendos grander, the laughter of my demon grows stronger; a promise that one day, I will succumb to this crippling madness.

~ Nina D’Arcangela

Utterly Shattered

September 22, 2015September 22, 2015 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 24 Comments

Why must I feel so utterly shattered when smashed upon your jagged edge? Why can you not let me fall into the beautifully delicious pain that exists inside you – pain that has been waiting for me to find it for so very long? You hide such an exquisitely luring anguish from me, thinking I cannot see it – but I see it with my very essence – my entire being; I see it in the blink of your depthless eyes even when not at your side; I feel it in every breath you draw whether that breath be taken roughly in my ear or drawn in a spat of anger at all the world has made of you. I long so desperately to be near you, to revel in your darkest pangs, your deepest wounds, your most hidden crevasses where your shadows stretch the longest.

My soul is no longer in my own keeping as it has already been fully engulfed by you – it is given with utter bliss and unhindered submission, bowing to your every whim and fancy. My pain is yours to have, my pleasure yours to give or withhold. I beg of you to open your shadowed darkness and let me submerge myself, gulping it in as though it were my own life’s breath; for it is, as I cannot be without you any longer.

Give to me all that I would allow you to take from one so undeserving as I. I offer you a glimpse of the salvation you have sought at only the cost of my own damnation. Why must you hide in a darkness you feel is precious only to you? My darkness is equal to that of yours and calls out in pain to touch, to merge, to become one with that mournful depth which dwells within you.

Ahhh, tears burn my eyes to think of the ecstasy that awaits the lost such as we. Am I never to attain such glorious freedom while you exist in your own self-imposed exile? Be all to me that your inner demon demands I be to you, suffocate me with your needs; for I need not the air I breathe so much as I need the nearness of the beast that rages within you. Your touch, your embrace, your longing – your anger, your angst, and your pain; these things are my gleaming gems, my most sacred desires – the currency of an aching soul unearthed from the roughest of stone I did not know existed before you.

Drag me into an eternity of damnation where I will languish in your exquisite tenderness… a tenderness that rends my heart to pieces and releases the overwhelming restraint I have kept in check for what seems all of time. Strip away my mask and bare my most inner desires that I am not able to unleash with any other than you. Take me farther into the reaches of madness that will consume what is left of my sanity for I need not think when you are near, I must only be.

This is my treasured wish; this is my undisguised want; this is what you have made of me. Be for me, as I am only for you…

~ Nina D’Arcangela

Burning Soil

July 7, 2015May 7, 2020 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 17 Comments

The ground below your delicately formed feet begins to shift, sending you tumbling to within a breath’s width of the insanity you know awaits should you ever truly fall. You struggle to maintain your grip – a hold that for eons has treated you so kindly, so reverently, so graciously. You suckle and gasp for that earlier delight that still echoes through your now destroyed body. This gaping new view of the emptiness you see leaves you wondering which part of this horror-scape is to be accepted as a revulsion of your own making, and which part is far too heinous to be allowed to exist. How does one go about choosing their individual nightmare without having a grasp of their own tenuous reality? A reality stroked so gently, consumed so fully; torn to pieces in such an eloquent display of cruelty. Naive, silly girl, you never did pay attention to anything other than your own wants. Why did you not heed the danger when you still had the chance?

Existence in this newly scorched realm is – other. You breathe in the foul air, retch vile fluids from your own rotting organs while desperately clutching for handfuls of once moist, rich soil. You weep for a blanket to shroud you from the view of your newly exposed self.

Can you no longer feel the gentle caress of the sun’s offered warmth? Have you, like the insignificant creatures that feed from your lush womb, begun to shrivel under his now harsh and ever seeking glare? No, not you; for you will offer yourself to this beast who brings searing pain only to weep at its feet while its brilliance burns you from within; laying to waste the wretched thing you are. You will seek to undo this cruel fortune that has been bestowed upon you, but in that seeking, you will yourself be undone. You are a creature of will, one foolish enough to forgo turning your face from the ever increasing blindness the searing light brings, you are a creature that believes yourself to be the worst of all things… worthy in his eyes.

This all consuming brightness, this overwhelming luminescence, this addictive, abusive wave that pounds its putrid nourishment into you – how you will suffer for it – begging for mercy, a mercy that he does not pretend to offer, but you will beg for nonetheless. And in doing so, you will try to rise up, to grow closer to the light believing yourself to be his equal – this giver of all things; this taker of pure souls. But your soul isn’t pure, is it? Your soul is tainted by the ecstasy of being. You, who have fed off the offal that has been lain down upon the altar before you. You, who have sipped from the chalice with the proffered blood of those baring no shame, the untainted; the yet to be ripened. You, who have ripped the meat from the bones of small bleating sheep with your bare teeth and ragged claws as they lay staring up at you with trusting, unknowing eyes. All the while, glorious creature that you are, you felt nothing; not an ounce of remorse for each gluttonous act of satisfaction, feasting on the dying embers of the slowly dwindling soul before you.

She who tainted the sweet nectar – the devourer of forbidden fruit – the selfish wretch who cannot exist without consuming the flesh of the gentle, the deserving; you are these things and more. You are the speaker of lies – muttering those sacred and meaningless words while they are being whispered every so seductively into your own arrogant and self-indulgent ear. You are the reason the soil shall burn; you are the reason the soil is burning.

You are a thing not worthy of worship, though you have had much of it, but now the beast has come to set you to rights; your penance shall be to worship him with the blind devotion you once commanded for yourself.

~ Nina D’Arcangela

Silly Bunny

April 21, 2015April 17, 2015 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 21 Comments

Oh, what a lovely selection this year! Such cute little bunnies. Each with a cherubic face: round rosy cheeks, tiny pink lips, glistening wide eyes. I don’t know where to begin… I suppose I’ll just pluck one at random – what fun this will be.

They seem to grow uncomfortable when I try to coax the first one toward me. I don’t want to frighten them; don’t they know how I love my precious bunnies? I suppose the fidgeting and jostling should be expected as my impatience drives me to grab the first boy and drag him forward. Calming myself, I reach back in time and recall my grandmother’s instructions from when I myself was a youth.

“Everyone knows you start with the eyes. Nibbling them off the face is the first step. Then the ears. Yes, the ears. You begin on the right, taking small bites until you reach the crown – but don’t crack it! Breaching the skull at this point would be unforgivable!” She would say with mock exaggeration. Giggling, we would begin peeling back the foil wrapper together. “Next, it’s the legs. Nibble, nibble, nibble! Once you reach the torso, it’s time for a final sugary treat – the bow tie. When I was a girl, I ate all the parts off my bunnies first, and then I would line up their leftover bodies to be devoured later!” She would always tickle me when she reached this part of the story.

The din of screaming children is a faint echo compared to the bliss of such a treasured memory. As my eyes open, I see the other bunnies gathered in the corner, scrambling and clawing at one another to climb out of their pen. Silly bunnies! You can’t get out… the wall is much too high, I chortle to myself. Then I notice the change – tears streak their once placid faces; their formerly rosy cheeks are now blotchy and rouged an ugly red. Both saddened and angered, I turn my attention back to the one I’m holding. I realize he’s squirming and shoving against my hand to be set free. My previous jubilant mood is beginning to sour. Why are they ruining this for me? Selfish little bunnies!

In my anger, I must have shaken him too hard – the little bunny is no longer struggling; blood is trickling from his open mouth; his body dangles slack in my grip. Another special day ruined. How I miss my gram and the delicious bunnies she would bring me; now I’m forced to collect my own. Glancing toward the corner, I see a few have given up and are sitting on the floor sobbing. The cacophony of terrified wails from the others has grown in volume and pitch. I wonder if gram was wrong. I wonder if I should set these bunnies free; they really are adorable, after all. Then I look down at the one dangling from my hand. A small smile begins to creep its way across my face. I’m a good boy; I deserve these bunnies.

Everyone knows you start with the eyes…

~ Nina D’Arcangela

A Foul Day

February 3, 2015May 25, 2016 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 26 Comments

It moved! I swear on my mother’s grave I saw it move! Glancing up, I scan the faces surrounding the table trying to determine if anyone else saw the jerking motion. No one seems to have noticed; they’re all laughing and drinking, chattering away happily while waiting to be fed.

I blink a few times to clear my eyes. I’ve been working too hard lately, putting in too many hours, that’s all. I raise the carving knife and fork once more, preparing to plunge them into the bird trussed before me. It fucking moves again! This time with an accompanying slopping sound. A bead of sweat breaks out on my upper lip; my wife is staring at me hesitantly. With both hands now resting on either side of the beast, I take a few slow, deep breaths to calm my overwrought nerves. A slight nudge comes from my right. It’s my wife, a strained smile on her face; she nods toward the foul creature. I nod back.

Bringing the arm with the fork up, I dab at the dew above my lip and make an off-hand comment about it being roasting in here. Everyone laughs. A small shake of my head, I exhale and raise the knife once again to begin slicing the meat. As the gleaming instruments near the platter, I hear a voice in my head. ‘Go on ya piss-ant piece of shit – cut me open. Show everyone what a big man you are and gut me. Gut me like you gutted your wife when the doctor told her there was no physical reason you couldn’t get it up. Ya don’t have the balls to stick it to her, and you don’t have the balls to stick it to me either!’

What the fuck? My knees nearly buckle and my wife reaches out to steady me. I jerk my arm away. The room grows quiet, the tension nearly palpable. I toss out another remark meant as a joke; the responding chortle is terse, fraught with unease. My wife is no longer smiling; she looks worried. I try to reassure her with a smile of my own, but a bare shake of her head lets me know she’s not buying it. ‘Ya know, she doesn’t have any faith in you anymore, right? She was expecting to marry a man, and look what she got – you! She knows about Terry, too.’ I almost utter a response but choke on my own spittle instead. ‘Yeah, that’s right. She knows you’re sticking it to that bitch from work. She knows you been doin’ it for the past month when all you’re bringin’ home is that limp fish in your pants, she just doesn’t wanna ruin this family get-together-thing. Your ass is outta here as soon as they’re gone, buddy!’

Sure that I’m pale as a ghost, I lean on the table for support once more. My head hanging, limbs trembling; the nervous tick of the fork tapping against a glass the only sound in the nearly silent room. My wife reaches over again and lays a hand on my forearm. I lash out to shove her away, forgetting that I’m holding the carving knife. We stare at one another in shock for a heartbeat before her body crashes forward into the china, her throat sliced ever so neatly from side to side. As the crimson of her blood mixes with the pumpkin colored hue of her favorite tablecloth, a slight gurgling is all that resounds. I look on in horrified disbelief, then one of the children lets out an ear-piercing screech. The demon starts again, ‘Ha! Look what you…’

I begin stabbing it with the fork, maniacally ripping it to bits while screaming incoherently. Everyone in the room is staring at me like I’ve gone insane. I try to explain about the turkey… about not realizing I was still holding the knife… about the pressure I’ve been under… but there isn’t a sympathetic eye to be found. ‘You know what you have to do, don’t ya? If you don’t, they’ll lock you up in the loony bin again.’ An icy cold sheet of acceptance washes over me as I move to the doorway, blocking my teenage brother-in-law from escaping.

I was really hoping this family would be different, not like the last…

~ Nina D’Arcangela

Inside

September 2, 2014November 17, 2014 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 37 Comments

Day 1

I can hear them scratching – almost ticking, always clicking, as they move around inside my head. It’s maddening. Their tiny feet always touching, testing, feeling their way about. Each hair-coated limb sliding between the soft tissue and bone – scuttling through the crevasse in between. Feeding off the fluid…growing.

Sometimes, when I’m looking in the mirror, in the worst moments, the moments where I have to hold onto the basin to support myself and can barely catch a full breath, I swear I see a shadow scuttle behind my eye. The quick darting of a grotesque form moving swiftly past before I can focus on it. My own visage in the mirror is a horror in itself; long hair a greasy tangled mess, cheeks sunken and hollow, skin a sickly yellow hue from their rancid poison. Sinking to the floor, scratching at my face to be rid of them, I gouge my eye sockets with filthy, ragged nails. Will they find their way through the opening if I offer one? Covered in the blood oozing from destroyed tissue around my eyes, forehead slashed bare, with flesh caked beneath my fingernails, I crawl on hands and knees to the bed where I cower beneath the covers seeking refuge, hoping to hide. But there is no refuge, nowhere to hide; they are always with me – inside me, there is no escape from what is inside…

Day 2

I would have thought knowing they were inside me would be the worst part, but it’s not – the mind adapts to such things; it’s feeling their movements, their scurrying back and forth beneath my skin that is the most repulsive part. I don’t know how they were able to gestate inside me; they seem maddened at not being able to get out. Their constant frenzy keeps me up at night – I’m getting no sleep; it keeps me sick throughout the day – nourishment something I’ve not known in weeks; a prisoner in my own home – I’m terrified to go into the light, I look the part of a monster – a filth ridden hag.

I wonder: will they roast in the sunlight if I let myself burn in its glorious blaze? The sun beating down upon me, turning my skin the blistering red of cracked paint on canvas. Perhaps I should wander to the basement and embrace the furnace with its searing hot metal, cooking myself like meat thrown upon a hot skillet. Or simply douse myself with open flame; does it matter at this point? Tempted to try such things, my mind wanders to the possibilities: what if they panic from the heat and start to run, cascading in a black surging mass from my ears and shrieking maw? Nowhere for me to go, no way to escape them – more still coming, an endless flow continuing their frantic evacuation. What if they are no longer only in me, but all over me? The thought alone drives me beyond the limits of this tenuous sanity I now grasp.

God, the cacophony of their humped bodies sliding between the soft tissue of my brain and the hardness of my skull is deafening. I have to find a way to get them out! Nails gouge once more; I rip chunks of skin from my body sending fresh streams of puss and blood down my face, past my eyes – my mind shuts down and I feel no more.

Day 3

Oh God, I think I threw one up during the night. It’s lying on my pillow, but it doesn’t look like I expected it would. It’s far too elongated, thin and withered as am I, almost a milky grey color. Covered in mucus, mine or its own, I cannot say.

It twitched! I know I saw it twitch, I didn’t imagine it. Frozen in fear, I stare wide eyed at the collapsed carcass of the thing on my pillow, hoping it was my imagination. It twitches again; not my imagination.

I leap up, tangled in my own covers, screaming wildly. It still lies there making a feeble attempt to move; I think it’s dying. There is a sloshing in my head – I moved too fast, screamed too loud, they are scuttling insanely about inside my skull. I retch, and retch again. Vomiting up more, I realize they are no longer only in my head but have found a way to travel into my throat! The thought makes me retch yet again. They are agitated by my convulsions; I can feel their vibrating urgency to quell their host. Oh God, please get them out of me!

The pounding in my head is beyond bearable, the heaving of my starved body uncontrollable; afraid to breath yet terrified I won’t, panic begins to set in as my body spasms of its own volition.

Blackness.

Day 4

They are larger now, no longer simply sliding through the minute fissures of my skull. I feel a piercing pain with each stab of their clawed legs as they dig in and drag themselves forward. I can barely inhale for the number of them clinging to the walls of my throat. Coughing blood and eight legged bodies, I feel them holding on with their barbed legs so as not to be ejected with each contraction.

Swallow or vomit my only choices, I grab a bottle of water from my nightstand and begin to gulp the warm water. I can feel it sluicing over their swollen bodies like lesions grown from my esophagus, not just the intruders that they are. I vomit more, pulling one or two free that refuse to be expelled. The others grasp tighter, puncturing the delicate pink tissue of my already mutilated gullet. These, the ones spewed onto the bed, seem different, more frantic as they dance about. Their color more dense, darker – their bodies harder in form. Clearly blind, they dart in sporadic circles, slowly growing more sluggish, more translucent; collapsing like the first one I saw.

It seems they die quickly, they don’t survive long outside my body.

Day 5

Scratching my ear, I feel something long and thin move away from my finger. Something covered in fine wisps of hair, something that slithers backward and draws into itself, much the way I have snatched my own hand away, clutching it with its blood covered finger to my chest.

Crawling again to the bathroom and scaling the sink, I open a drawer and reach for my scissors intending to cut away a chunk of hair to more easily see inside my ear. As I grab a handful of hair, I realize that the clump I’m clutching is slowly pulling away from my scalp with a slurping sucking noise. Tendrils of a thick sticky substance adhere to the skin for a brief moment before slopping to the side of my face. The exposed tissue is raw, puss covered and stings – small globules of fatty tissue clinging in place.

With a terrified grimace, I turn my head ever so slightly to allow the light to shine on my ear. There! Just like the shadow scuttling behind my eye, something quickly moves further into the darkened recesses of my ear canal. Barely able to stand on quivering legs, weak from hunger and brought to the brink of insanity by this infestation, I pull my long tweezers out of the drawer – the medical ones, and with a shaking and still bleeding hand, I begin to reach into my ear hoping to extract what is hiding there.

A sharp nip warns me to go no further; I drop the tweezers and my other hand slips off the slickened sink as I crash to the tile floor. The coolness of the stone a brief reprieve from the molten pain I feel in my head and throat. The smack upon my skull barely noticed above the crunch of crushed bodies.

Day 6

I wake in a sticky patch of drying blood on the bathroom floor. Disoriented at first, I wonder how I got here, but the first subtle movement reminds me as they begin to rummage through my decimated body. Glancing downward, I can see the shape of one as it moves under my skin making its way across my abdomen and down my thigh. They’re crawling throughout my entire body now. They seem to be making their way to the cooler surfaces that are in contact with the tile floor I lay upon.

They relish the cool feel of the stone as much as I do. The clutter of them must have moved while I was unconscious. There is a pregnant hum to the silence, almost an anticipation of retribution should I try to move yet again.

The more aware I become, the more I come to realize that they are not all seeking to be dormant – not all moving toward the cool floor. The smaller ones still crawl through me, using their clawed legs to move in and around my organs. My body spasms from the pain, and I feel the frenzy of awakening. They nip in vague warning for me not to move, poke at my tender innards with their pincers and jab with hardened claws.

Exhausted from not eating, from the loss of blood, and the horror of knowing my body is their only source of food, I reach out towards the edge of the bathtub. As my hand closes around it, I feel their carcasses crunching between skin, tendon and bone. They bite and scrabble frantically to escape; I can’t help but feel a smug bit of satisfaction at this. Others awaken and join the fray, biting and stabbing with abandon at their host; my body. But I refuse to be coerced, I have found strength in their terror. I will drag myself to the bathtub – its cool surround offering a coffin of reprieve.

I manage to pull my torso up and over the edge. God do they hate this. The moment my abdomen is bent in two, head dangling in the tub, I begin to spew blood and small black bodies. Fatigued from my efforts and unable to go any further, I lay bent over the edge and watch as their slickened bodies scurry about, unable to find purchase on the smooth surface. Too drained to do more, I collapse in a heap half in, half out of my enamel coated salvation as the malformed creatures desperately crawl up my limp hair, trying to enter through ears and mouth that others are still using as a route of mass exodus from my traitorous body.

Day 7

Pressure, there is so much pressure building behind my eyes. My head feels like it’s going to burst. So many of them have returned to my skull – I feel them packed in there like the woolen stuffing of a doll. For some reason this thought makes me laugh. Stuffed like a doll I am with crawling monsters gnawing away at my insides. More laughter, hysterical this time. I hear it as if from a distance, but know it’s emanating from my own cracked and swollen lips, my own cracked and damaged mind. The laughter gives me energy, makes them crazy. I can feel their panicked agitation escalate with the flow of what little blood is left in me.

Heaving the rest of my body into the tub, my swollen and infested carcass is wracked with uncontrollable convulsions. A stream of small creatures emerge with the spittle that I cough up. They scurry for the darkness of the drain. Lifting one foot, I manage to flip the hot water tap. Immediately they begin to scale my body and climb my flesh to escape the torrid flow.

Twisting, contorting and clawing my way around, I manage to turn my body so that my head is closer to the near boiling stream. It is excruciating; gloriously agonizing. I rip handfuls of my own hair from my head, and stuff them into the drain effectively clogging it to trap the scalding water in the basin with me – with them!

Delirious as I am, a small voice in the back of my mind whispers that I may be imagining all of this, but as my flesh peels back from bone and sinew, and the smell of steaming meat assaults my nostrils, I can’t help but feel that I have finally won. They will die along with me in agony and pain. My final act – to slide shut the glass doors, trapping them in the swiftly filling watery grave I’ve chosen for us all.

~ Nina D’Arcangela

Heel

April 1, 2014March 7, 2018 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 34 Comments

Stripped bare of her clothing, wrists shackled in heavy irons, ankles and neck fettered as well, she does not bother to struggle. Staring down the length of chain leading from her throat to the beast holding her bonds, disdain bleeds from her eyes as they bore into his.

“You’ve always been an arrogant cunt, it’s time someone taught you to heel,” he slurs past the malformed lump serving as his lower lip. His jagged, cracked teeth do nothing to improve his enunciation.

With a quick, hard yank, he drags her forward a step, but only one; the crunch of bone distinctly recognizable over the sound of the rattling chains. A bare flicker of emotion registers in her expression as her left wrist falls slack. Still, she stares in defiance.

Stepping down from the dais, he paces, seething with anger. The longer he paces, the angrier he becomes. Standing on the stone floor several arm lengths away, she remains stoic. His nakedness as rigid as her obstinance, he closes the gap between them in two quick strides.

“Ragged whore, I am your keeper. Without me you are nothing, as pathetic as those loathsome sheep you seem so fond of. When I command you to heel, you will do so.” The threat issuing from his vile, twisted mouth is unmistakable. Still, she stares back as the bones of her broken wrist begin to stitch together.

Wrapping the chains around his forearm to shorten the length, he looms over her, spittle flying as he roars, “You were told not to interfere.” Ah, the crux of her punishment has come to light.

They continue to stare at one another, his breathing growing heavier by the moment. Finally she breaks the silence. “And I did not, My Lord,” the slight bow of her head clearly meant to mock him; her dismissive tone conveying her disinterest in his attempt at intimidation.

With a growl that comes from deep within his chest, fury radiating from every pore of his being, he begins to froth. Using the chains wrapped around his arm, he raises her two feet above the ground, bringing her level with his eye. With the other hand, he snaps her right wrist between his forefinger and thumb. A slight groan escapes her before she can contain it. A smile begins to spread upon his face.

Cupping her ass with his free hand, he presses her body hard against his own, his want throbbing against her. He leans forward, whispers in her ear, “So you do feel. I’ve heard an angel is an extremely… erotic creature and the darker the soul, the sweeter the nectar. Perhaps I have been going about your discipline all wrong.” He slowly licks her shoulder, her neck, the side of her face, then begins to boom with laughter – intent all too clear in his eyes.

She returns his slight smile as he runs a razor-sharp black talon over her lips, tearing them to shreds. Blood begins to trickle down her chin; he laps it clean. She unfurls an obsidian wing; he stares at it in wanton lust. With lightning speed, she uses the tip of a feather to pluck his left eyeball from its socket. There is a moment of resistance as the sinew and tendons try to cling to his skull before tearing away.

Screaming in agony, he releases her and she tumbles to the stone floor. His arm still tangled in the chains, he drags her with him as he retreats to the dais until they become unwound. Cupping his empty socket, he screams, “You whore!”

Lying on the floor, she begins laughing manically.

“You fucking whore! I’ll see you dead for this!”

Gently, she places the eyeball in her mouth, blood still running down her chin from her slashed lips. Through peals of laughter, she positions her new prize between her teeth, and as he watches in horror, she smiles brightly and begins to chew.

Darting forward once more, her wing tip slams into his other eye with an audible pop, then carves it in two with a single stroke. She leaves this one in place to heal useless and deformed; a match for his lower lip, a reminder of her for the days to come.

Rising to her feet, she walks to the dais and flippantly asks, “You wish to see me dead?” With a mirthless chuckle, she leans in and whispers, “I don’t think you’ll be seeing much of anything…”

~ Nina D’Arcangela

Your Call

November 5, 2013November 17, 2014 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 38 Comments

Darkness surrounds me; my ever-present companion, both the bearer and child of my scorched and withered being.

Inky pools of lesser light that beckon me to breach them. A soft, subtle whisper of promised indulgence; the caress of a dank breath never to be drawn that tugs at my soul; the gentle rustlings of the unknown scuttling though my mind that speak of a dusky beauty – things that never were but should always have been.

Dare I step closer only to find myself enamored by the all consuming draw of your call? Do I finally release the pang that I have held so dear and tender to me these years gone by? Do I allow you to exist in the light or shall I surrender to the smothering depths of a mind already drowned in madness?

The pull of the shadows is such a thing of comfort as to blanket itself around me while it slowly suckles my very being into non-existence. But the exquisite embrace this lack of existence offers is such a supple and soothing one; to fade to obscurity, what a delight that would be, yet an injustice to all that you would have been. Year upon agonizing year I have listened to your call and let it go unanswered, keeping hidden the unbridled desire to glance upon the you that never was.

There may not be a path that leads back to the dimmer shadows once I allow myself this wanton freedom, though I do not believe I would seek one. My poor darling Angel who has lived in a trapped darkness for so long, will you no longer torture me if I allow this coupling its place, or will you still haunt every step I lay upon a ground you shall never touch, breathe the breadth you shall never have, feel and see the beauty that you shall never know?

~ Nina D’Arcangela

Let the Damning Begin!
Those cursed with our foul taint, heed this call, bear witness to this Damned offering. The prizes for burying yourself in our Coffin are as such:

Grand Prize:
Jaimie Engle shall swig her poison from a Pen of the Damned Flask!
(Pen of the Damned on CafePress)

Pen of the Damned eBook Anthology prizes:
Yessss, the Damned have been scribbling their demented ravings and collecting the torn shreds for your bemusement. May the eyes and ears of the Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse bleed upon sight and sound of our collective madness!
Lori Joyce Parker, Mari Wells, Georgina Morales, and ShadowGirl

Coffin Hop Anthology:
One final slaughter to add to the Coffin, a Death by Drive-In – no finer way to depart this existence for the next! Juan Gutierrez will be granted an eBook copy of the Coffin Hop Anthology!

Until the next utterance from the Damned, beware what scuttles in the darkened corners of your own mind…

Darkened Reflections

April 23, 2013November 17, 2014 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 35 Comments

I sit here listening to the rain tinkling off the darkened glass of my window. Like so many nights before, I peer into an eternity of nothingness that shows only my blurred face in its shadows. Shadows that dance around in the ambient light as the wind whips and sways the tree limbs, keeping pace with the rain as it shifts from a patter to a pounding, to a more gentle touch on the pane.

I begin to turn away and see just the merest suggestion of movement from the corner of my eye, I turn back… But nothing has changed, nothing is different, no one is there. My blurred view is as it was before. Rivulets of rain running down the glass; impressions of shapes I know so well that exist beyond the safety of my window; my face looking back at me lost in the dreary visage of the existence in which I suffer. A face distorted by the passage of the rain running over the glass… a face twisted in pain.

I wander to the door, drawn by a force both within me and beyond these protective walls. What an exquisitely beautiful night to breath in the smell of the wet grass, the saturated earth, the dampness all around me. What a sumptuous night to twirl circles in my tattered gown, soaked and clinging to my body like a lover that has been released but wishes not to go. What a glorious night to stroll under the rows of the ever reaching Maple trees, listening as their limbs sing a song of agony as they rub against one another. I let the rain wash me clean under the hidden moon before wandering farther into the shadows of this night.

The beast, he wakes; I can feel him watching, waiting, growing from the pangs within me. Will he come to me, this creature of anguish? The rain is slowing, a mere drizzle now, barely even falling – floating on the breeze like his warm breath upon my bare neck. Will he stalk me in the lingering mist? I live knowing he terrifies me, even as I long for his touch; the touch of a soul as dark and tortured as my own.

The moon tries to protect me with its light, but I hide in the shadows as does he – this monster of beauty and destruction; this primal creature that will destroy me; this half-man half-beast that will ultimately consume me. How long can I resist his not-so gentle pull into the dark of the woods that now surround me? Do I even wish to try? Or would I willingly rush to him if only he would beckon?

I stand on the brink of the deeper shadows trembling with fear; fearing the need to take that final step. I feel his want calling out to me – yes, he wants me to enter his world, but he does not guarantee that my journey there will be a sane one. I move out of the shadows and fall to my knees weeping, begging him to emerge from the dim recesses and enter my world of glowing moonlight. But he fears the light, no – not fear – hate. He hates the light. This light that shines upon my upturned face and tangled hair has been his undoing. He was not always this beast, he was once a creature so different, so full of life, that he has no choice but to loathe the fact that I have not become what he is. His presence near demands that I enter his domain; his mind delves into mine impaling me with his desire. But I know his lust is insatiable, and once he has touched my darkness, I will never return to the light again.

Frightened, I cannot move; he is enraged – so angered that he nearly allows himself to reach out and grab hold of me, dragging me to him. I will not fight, I will let him take what he will, yet I cannot offer my submission even under his heated gaze. But no, he will not take me, I must come to him; my damaged companion, my kindred tortured soul who seeks nothing more than I – a release from this distant embrace of hellish pain we are destined to exist within.

With a snarl of anger and disgust, he leaves me yet again to weep at the edge of the darkness, screaming silently to be where he’d have me go.

I hear him howl into the night; he screams his rage while crying out his longing for that which may someday leave what meager light the moon sheds to walk in the dark at his side – owned by him for all eternity.

~ Nina D’Arcangela

Heed the Tale Weaver: Celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Damned. Through May 7, 2013, upon each new post, a comment you will leave. A package of ghoulish goodies tainted with an offering from every member of the Damned awaits one fated winner – glorious books, personalized stories and eternal suffering at your feet. Now Damn yourself, make your mark below! But remember insolent ones, you must leave a comment, a “like” will not earn you a chance at our collection of depravity. Do not make the Damned hunt you down.