The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

When I Finally Gave Up 
by Lee Mitchell  

Trigger warning: suicide

I thought I’d known what true grief felt like. Unbearable. Crushing. Relentless. I thought I had known. How spoiled I’d been. The world had felt so gray for so long, I had no idea it could actually get any worse. So, so much worse. I’d merely sought relief, rest, respite. I was so tired, all I wanted to do was go to sleep and stay there forever. I just wanted my pain to end. Had I known that there’s no sleep here, no rest, no relief, I would have pushed myself to continue ever further along that lonely, desperate path, painful as it was. At least I had a chance at hope back then.

There is no hope here. There is nothing but my thoughts… of who I once was and what I might have redeemed had I chosen differently.

Forever… such an obscure term when you really don’t understand what it means. I thought I’d found my escape. I thought I could force my suffering to end, finally, on my own terms. It seemed like the only solution at the time. But a lifetime of human suffering is just that, a lifetime. So finite. So fleeting. What I would give for what I had, gone in the blink of an eye. Life was gray, but what is gray compared to pure, unyielding darkness?

This… this endless cycle of rot and torment and regret… this is infinitely worse.

.

Fiction © Copyright Lee Mitchell.
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from Author Lee Mitchell:

Alisha Brown led a mundane life until the day monsters started trying to kill her and random strangers began to shy away from her in awe.

All hell broke loose, quite literally, after Randy Thomas turned right on Main for Honey’s instead of making a left for home and then murdered his beloved wife in an unusually gruesome way. Escaping police and stopping traffic in New York City with a gas-spewing tentacle erupting from his mouth, his fears are confirmed: That one small backslide would serve as the final tipping point for all mankind, inviting in a timeless destructive force that would lead him to the frontlines of the war to end all wars.

A growing population has succumbed to their worst fears, some transforming into dreaded fictional monsters—leaving the streets flooded with vampires, werewolves, spontaneously combusting humans, and other horrors—while others have become angels and demons determined to fight in the holy war they believe is upon them.

Questions soon arise as Randy’s and Alisha’s roles in this bizarre apocalypse become uncertain. One is a professed sinner, the other an asexual virgin. Each has been touched by the hand of fate, and each believes they are humanity’s last hope. But belief can be a funny thing…

The Divine Darkness is the first installment of The Divine Darkness apocalyptic horror trilogy.

Available on Amazon!