#PulpitOfInsecurities

[chardaearchive]

Shadows of Redemption Short Story By Chardae Hilson

2. Kairos

This room resembled a jail cell, brick walls with peeling paint that held a single window. The window itself  was small in size, something the shoulders of a man could not fit through, it was adorned with thick metal bars that rusted at each end. Despite her above average stature, Kairos herself could not dream of reaching the bars. Her mattress sat on a metal plate on the side of the room, the metal jutted out from the wall like a shelf it kept her thin and aging mattress cool. Her room was always cold, as was every room in the facility, if she blew out she’d see her breath. Her lips remained chapped and her skin was gray with ash caused by the cold air. Kairos spent the better parts of her days entrapped in this frigid hell, she’d become numb to the cold but remained terrified in the dark.

Each night the fluorescent lights would shut off and the shadows in her room would begin to creep towards her, morphing into living nightmares. The scenes before her were like a car crash, so terrifying that she could not force her eyes to look away, and so she didn’t. Sleep deprivation became a lifestyle here, the facility’s directors knew of her fear of the dark but assumed this treatment would help. At least that is what they told her the first few months when she had begged every morning to keep her lights on at night, the begging had only added to her misery and humiliation. Kairo's only solstice came in the wee hours of the morning, when the sun touched the horizon and sent droplets of light through the bars of her cage. In these early hours she rested until the guards came, then she forced herself up and trailed them into the facilities cafeteria.

Kairos was certain the months of missed sleep were starting to get to her, at nights the shadows stopped morphing into creatures and instead turned into a cloud of unmoving smoke. The cloud surrounded a small light, like a tiny fire where the corner of two walls met. For some reason the smoke didn’t hurt her lungs but still it worried her, and despite its diminutive size this small flame seemed to warm the entire room. Kairos wondered if her mind was playing tricks on her or if the God’s had heard her cries for death and given her solace through this small and illogical flame. Whatever it was, Kairos’s mind did not dwell on it for long as sleep became warm and inviting. The peace of unconsciousness welcomed her, enveloping her small frame until the last pieces of her mind drifted away.

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Let me know what you guys think of the story so far, I am still making edits and adding things but I would love to hear suggestions. As always, do not copy or redistribute my work in anyway.

[chardaearchive]

Chronicles of A Moving Target

thoughts of you become the genesis

of a war in my mind.

impetus feelings fester

spreading like burn holes in decaying flesh,

pristine white marks the site of the assault.

midnight suspicions turned premonition

in the light of day.

insecurities adorn the pulpit

selling sermons of betrayal and liaison.

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this poem is a hymn of overthinking. hope this puts into words what us overthinkers experience in feelings. let me know what you think, also please do not redistribute my work in anyway, thank you.