"The nape of the neck" by rogan-x <1/24/1999>

	The miserable cry rang out through the night, setting my mind down hard on a bed of rusty razors. Small ripples of angst spread out from the epicenter of the scream, eventually lapping against the black shore of my mind. The impact on my eardrums was just a tingle, but the subsonics reached deep into my heart and toyed with my pulse. Uncommon, for a Friday.
	I was surprised that such a scream would come from my girlfriend's mind and soul. I knew from the urgency and strength that it was no ordinary cry at all. It was what most people call 'psychic' energy, being directed violently outwards.
	My mind hit what I call 'second gear' rather quickly, for although I was dreaming; I knew that this impulse came from the realm of flesh. What happened was gut instinct, the raw need to preserve my body from harm and accomplish a physical task in very short time. All that I could hope to do was to relax and let it happen; everything flowed like white water across jagged bedrock. This anguished cry needed tending to, in haste.
	I was wide awake in mere seconds, pulling on my pants before my feet hit the floor. Shirt, socks, down the stairs, shoes, and clean away. My feet fairly flew as I ran towards her house. To the end of my street, down the hill and around the corner so fast my lungs hammered in my ribcage.
	I saw from the end of the street that no lights were on in the house. I couldn't figure out if this was a good sign or a bad sign, though. More running. I got close enough to let my mind open up to hers. It's the strangest thing about our relationship; we are near-telepathic. Ever since I met her, I have shared my deepest feelings and hopes with her, through a mental pipeline with few limitations. I wondered why everything seemed so out of place. A flurry of activity on the forebrain, and then some swift mental dodging, as a wall of gleaming knives hurtled across the starry night directly at my mind.
	I wasn't prepared, and I felt the sting of malice as our minds brushed against eachother for a brief moment in the unlimited expanse of time. The sting tasted, to my mind, of sun-bleached candy-canes glistening with expired sugar and a slight undercurrent of herbal essences. It wasn't cloying, but not definable as a good feeling, either. Where had been only comfort and love was now the most bitter hatred I'd ever tasted.
	I reached the door, legs pumping. Shoulder put into it, and it came free of the hinges so easily I could have sworn it was a butter frame. The clean, sweet rush of hormones, flooding my bloodstream, attempting to confuse my already injured mind. The lights were off, but enough starlight filtered in behind me to illuminate the living room. Two cats, huddled together in one corner where no light shone. A couch, turned upside down and two chairs heaped on top of a broken TV cabinet. Plants and loose potting soil scattered, tracked into the carpet so expertly nobody could have made out a definite trail. 
 The television emitted a soft white noise, much like apathetic radio static. I ignored it as I made my way up the stairs. I appeared at the top of the stairwell ready for anything...
She lay next to me with one hand on her stomach and the other draped over her eyes. Slow tears wound their way down her cheeks, outlining the definite curve of her cheekbones. Her hair flowed out from around her head, almost like a burnt aura. Her beautiful round face, pale skin and bright veins highlighted in orange by the lazy afternoon sun shining across green blinds. The juxtaposition of her body and the light made it seem like the bed was a stage and she was spotlighted during a solo recital of her anguish. The scene dripped with raw emotion, yet it remained static.
My lips parted to speak, but she began before me.
"Do you know what mother cats do to carry their young?"
"Yeah. They gently bite them by the nape of the neck, and carry them like that. It doesn't hurt the kitten at all, even though it looks painful."
"Wish Humans could do that," she mumbled.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Well it's not rea..." I began.
"Really physically possible. I know, but I still get to wish, don't I?" Her question was basic.
"It's not that you don't get to wish," I said. "It's just that Humans aren't built like that."
"Too bad for them, huh?" She began to wipe at her eyes with the back of her arm. I remembered what I was going to say, but she had rolled over and locked gazes with me.
"I love you," she breathed.
"I love you too." 
The sight of four cracked doors made my stomach squelch. Had some axe-murderer come rampaging through here? I peered into each one quickly, and stopped when I reached the fourth. From the top of the stairs, it was the farthest door on the right. I stood between the cracked frame and the remnants of the actual door, dumbfounded. 
Two women were silhouetted in the ambient light. My eyes had adjusted already to the low light, so I could see perfectly. This was a strange sight, though. They were silently miming this tableau, much like statues. I could not move closer, in fear of breaking whatever spell lay over the house. The younger figure, my girlfriend, was struggling to free herself from the false succor of her mother's arms. Their muscles were tense like guy-wires, their faces set with an eldritch fury usually reserved for the montage of a territorial gorilla. Such a scene, almost too perfect. That's exactly when I realized that this was an illusion, all in my head. That's exactly when my head blossomed into millions of gray-blue sparkles, that expanded and then snapped back into place with enough force to rattle my teeth. I knew I was unconscious, and that I was powerless to drag myself back to the world of light from this abyss.
"Ever notice how blood comes out of a straight cut?" Her face was serious, but serene.
"Yeah. It usually beads in one spot, and drips from there."
"That's a shallow cut, you pussy. What about deep cuts?"
"Blood just jumps to the surface as fast as you can soak it up with a rag. It spreads across the cut, usually just comes out of the middle faster though," I replied frankly.
"Wanna see it now?" She made the razor appear in her hand, as if she were trying to impress me.
"Sure."
The mind-shattering nature of reality persisted in re-asserting itself in my life. "Trying to set up shop in my head again aren't you, you fucker?" I thought without really knowing it. I realized that I was hanging by my forearms from the ceiling of my own room, rope snaking away into the murk only a foot away from my face. A familiar, but not friendly, stinging sensation called for my attention. My leg was suddenly on fire, but the heat only traced a tight line down my thigh. The muscles wouldn't heal from that, I knew instinctively. Unless it was all just an illusion, of course. I tried to push with my mind, and just felt the solid walls of reality.
"No use, my love. This is so real you can probably taste it." I knew her voice, but not the older overtone that played around the edges. 
I tried to speak, but my mouth suddenly felt stuffed by so much dry cotton.
"Don't try to talk, this time. Just listen to what I have to say, and then I promise you'll die as quickly as I feel like letting you, ok?" The overtone was definately not part of her voice, but some sort of dubbing. Like Darth Vader's voice mixed with the breathing sound of scuba gear, it was a part, and simultaneously discrete.
"You're here because..."
"I love you," she breathed.
"Nobody said you didn't, man." I was feeling a bit uptight.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing, yet everything..."
"Tell me," she said, "I just want to help you."
"I just want you to suffer. Suffer for what you've done to me, and suffer for your own egotistical ways. I want you to die knowing that I killed you. Knowing exactly why you failed to save me from myself, and exactly why I chose to end everything like this." Her little tirade whooshed out all in one breath. She paused to recover it, as my vision cleared slightly. I could see her now, standing at the foot of my bed, clothed in nothing but a leopard-skin bikini. She must have seen me look at it, because she grinned a wicked grin.
"Leopard-skin. You know why, don't you? Tell me you know why... No, wait! Let me tell you, because I just remembered that you don't know.
"Do you remember what..."
"Time slows down when you're with someone you love. That's how you know you're in love. Everything slows to a crawl and you don't have to think. You just have to be in their arms, safe and warm, right?" The question caught me off guard, but I was hasty to reply;
"Sorta. I know that time does slow down, but you can do other things. You're not confined to bed just because you love someone."
"I guess. Here, put your hand on my back, can you?"
"Sure." I did...
"Made life worth living for me? I'm sure you do, it can't be all that hard for you to remember. In fact, here's a little reminder!"
	She reached out with the already crimson razor and flayed my leg open even further. That leg would never be useful again, and besides that the skin was starting to turn white. My blood fought hard against the gravity of the situation, but lost. The bed was covered in it, coagulated now.
"That jog your memory? No? Pain is what made it all worthwhile! I was born in pain, raised in pain and I lived my life in pain until you showed up. All you brought was this alien concept of 'love' and the pathetic escape of 'comfort'." She spat the words out delicately, like they were fish bones instead of raw meat. The vehemence was there, but it only backed her words partially.
 Why was this? What was happening? My arm hung useless and without pain by my side, mouth still felt like warm sand had invaded it.
"It was all bullshit, too! I was actually happy until you came along. Then all of a sudden, I'm dosed up on you like you intended from the start... Dosed up so that I wouldn't notice you destroying me and everything I'd worked hard for."
I managed to moan a portion of my negation. My mind screamed at her that she was all wrong.
"I know what you think of that, but it's true. I saw your soul..."
"Sitting there, in the malevolent gaze of angry Sol."
"Hold on a sec, other line."
"Ya." I waited patiently until she came back onto the phone.
"Anyway.. Keep going!"
"Don't want to, man. Sorry."
"Fine, be that way!"
"I wi..." She had hung up! A first in our relationship.
The dull ache of my leg was beginning to numb the lower half of my body. I wasn't in too good shape, I knew. She had cut me up like a piece of tricky ham, and left me hanging from my own ceiling. Irony, I knew. This was her representation of what it felt like on the inside of her heart. Intriguing, to say the least.
Footsteps outside my door, hesitant in the waxing light. This had taken all night, so far. How much longer would I not understand? When would she make things clear for me again... Oh the bliss of ignorance hurt so much more than the gashes in my legs.
I opened my eyes and saw the hungry leopard poised to strike. Her legs uncoiled and launched her at me. She swiped at the ropes holding me vertical with her razor, and suddenly I was falling. The blood soaked bed wasn't too far below me, but the vertigo lasted seemingly forever. She was on top of me, sitting on my chest.
"I don't know why you don't understand. I set it up so perfectly so you'd understand."
Weakly, I whispered to her. "Explain."
"Well, I've gone to great pains to make it obvious," she opined. "You're just not getting it."
"I don't know what it is."
"Why I love you, and hate you at the same time."
"So, why?"
"Her..." She didn't point or gesture, but I knew who she meant.
"No reason to destroy me."
"If only you knew how much I loved you, you'd stop and just go away!"
"Rather hard, considering..."
"How much I owe you?" She asked with that seductive voice of hers.
"Nothing. I only do this for friends."
The sunbeams spilled over the edges of my wondowsill. On them were borne a tide of dust particles. That were always there, but most of the time you didn't know you were breathing them. I looked over at her serene face. In sleep it was just as beautiful as when it was animated. She lay curled up beside me again, razor clenched in one small fist. 
Normally, I could break her bones with one hand. But her mind held sway here, and I was crippled due to her quack surgery practice.
My mind was so tired, I could barely think. That's when the fear broke. Seaweed cleared from the bottom, and an oil slick sucked up by vacuums. I suddenly knew the resolution. It came with a sick revulsion of the product. I didn't want to die like this, a victim of bitterness. I didn't want to have the person I cared about most forget me and move on. It stank of unfairness.
She opened her eyes, and rubbed at her forehead; smearing sticky blood across one eyebrow.
"Figured it out yet, my love?" she asked so innocently that I longed to call her a hypocrite.
"No." I lied, but for my own good; I hoped.
"Oh well. Time to die then. I don't have all day, you know." The non-chalant attitude was incredible. Something my love never mastered...
"Do whatever you need to do, bitch. I don't love you! I just love your daughter." I replied languidly.
"What did you say?" Her indignant voice raised a semitone.
"I knew it was her scream. I knew it was her house, but I couldn't figure out her mother. I knew something was up, with all this funky mind shit going on. Let go of her!" I demanded with the last of my strength.
"You're in some position to demand, aren't you?"
"Fuck off and die. I'll be seeing you in hell."
"So matter of fact, too. Intriguing, to say the least."
"Stop stealing my lines, you brain-suck!"
"Now now.. Let's not let it deteriorate into namecalling."
I paused for breath, I marshalled my wits, I gathered my thoughts. The next minute or so would determine my immediate future; live or die.
"Do what you have to. I know you now, and why you did it. You may have wanted to protect her, but all the while you just let the pain sink in deeper. You weren't good enough for her, so you chose to smother her. She was daring to live the life you wanted and didn't get! You rubbed it in good. So go ahead, and kill me now. If you don't I swear by my clan that I'll destroy you so thoroughly that not even God could find your body!"
She smirked the self-satisfied smirk of the insecure. Inside, I was congratulating myself on another victory, while outside I was fuming. That's when she plunged the razor deep into my chest and stood up. "Die," she spat.
"A dishonorable death, fit for none but the lowliest." The monotone voice was somehow grave.
"Don't you think that firing squads were more efficient?" I asked.
"Well, from that standpoint, no. Too many bullets being expended per prisoner."
"Oh..." Was all I could muster.
"That hurt. A lot." I was trying to hold back the tears of pain.
"Well it should. Anyhow... Enjoy the rest of your short life."
"This is wrong. This can't end like this way. I can't die like this! I refuse! Rewind the fucking tape, man. This is not a fitting motherfucking ending, man!" I yelled. Sound tore, and the sky swapped between orange and blue. Clouds went momentarily black in the sky outside, at least from where I could see them.
"What are you doing? You'll ruin everything..."
"Everything begins and ends with energy. Matter is made up of pure energy." The monotone was blank. The TV was blank. The radio wasn't even emitting the usual white noise. The only sound that existed was this drab voice in the back of my head.
"Everything you experience is the direct result of particles of energy reacting with and interacting with other particles of oppositely charged energy. Dreams are just energy bouncing off the inside of your skull." This was bullshit. If purgatory only had one station, I wanted to shut it off. Then my horizon lit up...

She could have used a less painful method to describe how alone she felt. Much less intrigue. Less of everything, but she didn't and that's what made it special. It had been a harrowing experience, all because of my stupidity. I had put myself through the test, and come out with flying colours. Stress? What stress? I laugh at the turntables of time, I flaunt my fearlessness in the face of furious anger and farfetched imagination. Tired? Yeah. I'd go through hell for her. I probably burned all of my dopamine up, being in there. You'd be surprised how easily two minds can fit into one head... And how easily mama cats carry their kittens, when Humans can't be so gentle with their young if they try.