Hazel

Before I could run, I fell again.

I woke up to this same— harsh, cruel, yet achingly right— voice.

I look around, and the same mirror appears again— yet it is different.

My red death candle once again burns a lively yellow.

The voice summons me again into its lifeless laughter, scheming.

“Oh, sinner, Have you ever thought of this cycle— of achingly right and greedily wrong, of greed and kindness, of heart and mind?

Of morals and life, of life and goodbye knives?

Will you look back into this hole within your own self once my bloody hands let you go?

Will you forget the care I kept you in?

Will you forget your sins— the sinner I once was, the demon I have become?”

I was about to speak— of all the things that had ever occurred to me about the devil—

yet I couldn’t.

I sharply fell as the floor disappeared into nonexistence, and I opened my eyes.

“How long will you sleep? It’s still daytime.”

My mother called from another room.

I woke up at my table, with sketches of devils and virtue scattered around me, a book lying wide open beside me— Demian.

My lamp flickered. Warm light came and went like life itself.

I closed all of it and walked out of the room, looking back at it just once— just enough, just a small glance.

And the book mumbled when all ears were away:

“Humans and their greed— doomed, so doomed, and so silly.

Mere humans and their small minds, wishing to be free from me.

Till another sinner wishes to be tempted, I shall rest within this boundless little book about me.”

That evil laughter echoed one last time as the book read:

“This cycle that I created for my freedom shall bind you till eternity.

I am the devil— your greed, your desire itself.

I woke up on this cold, lifeless floor I tried standing up walking again, But I hit something and I fell, hit something again, and fell.

My flame lights up again— red? A red flame?

Stable— It doesn't vanish anymore with each breath? Why? Am I dead?

I look up to see what I hit— a mirror.

A mirror.

Same girl, holding the same candle— but her flame, Her is yellow. Mine is red.

She smiles, looking at me, full of wince and malice—

Is— Is this the tempter?

How? I heard a deep and harsh voice before Assured it was a man How is this ME? Or maybe it is still him?

The sinner has fallen to where the tempter once rested? Is this where the tempter rested? In me?

The tempter— he betrayed me, took my life in exchange for my greed.

I put my hand out to reach him, but he disappears, his light getting stronger and stronger, while mine burns itself.

I collapse to the floor.

Who am I? Where am I?

Is this where the tempter spoke from? Where he fell into?

Was he just a sinner too? Has he become one again?

Or— Am I now the tempter? to tempt another sinner’s life, to end his, to begin mine? Is this where I have fallen to? Where am I bound to be? To these bleeding threads of Achingly rights and deadly wrongs? These piercing needles, Thinning my heart every time A breath passes too close to My mortal life, or maybe Is it no longer mine?

Why must I be a tempter to another sinner?

He calls again, same cruel whisper I turn around And run again And I don't know when I fell again .

I woke up to this boundless dark cage that imprisons me with nothing but mere mirrors, a candle, and me.

It’s dark— enough to not even see my own hand.

Each step of mine makes me ache with this stinging pain of needles, painted red— of love or rage— still bounded to my mortal roots.

Only this candle accompanies me. With each breath, it begins its own end. It comes and goes as if tracking my life, each counting my flickering breath.

With all the greed that was deep sown, I gather courage to look for my only hope— the evil, the tempter.

I call out— “The sinner has come. You shall reveal yourself.”

What follows is complete darkness, with my own voice reflecting:

“I am indeed here. You shall find me before the fire goes away— or your life will.”

Why— why does this sound like my own throat? But happier, dipped with pure mockery and arrogance, waiting to win.

It shivers me. So have I become the evil itself?

Or have I been engulfed into this bottomless pit of eternal darkness and temptations, full of greed and malice?

I shall walk— or run- right with this breath.

Look. Look for the tempter. Look around.

The flame- It comes and goes faster, in a hurry, like it has been summoned somewhere else. It appears more red— like the cruel blood I bleed.

Long before me, There appears a human holding a candle similar to mine, but no— Theirs is stable. Mine is not.

Is it because they are alive and I am deceased, or am I about to be?

I keep running to them in this dark cage, to reach nowhere.

The flame goes out. I still run, in only hopeful agony.

The tempter caresses my head With the ill hands of seduction.

I, the sinner, have been called upon To be seduced, once and for all by all the immoralities of a mortal Disgustingly fascinating I know, Or maybe I should not have ever known .

His embrace engulfs the resting worldly emotions in me.

This world— mesmerising, achingly mesmerising, to ever let go.

Will the tempter let go of me into this world or another, to yet again eat me alive just one more time to let his winceful hunger stop whispering

This vicious cycle, Will he ever let me break the chains? Will I ever be just a free thought, leaving behind a part of me That doesn't breathe but lets others breathe?

A breath that doesn't cost them comparison of ill or intent of betrayals and trusts they will have to prove?

Image :

Mine :

I fell into the depths of beauty.

I fell from misery.

I fell from love,

I fell from God,

and I felt like a dove.

I let myself finally be free

from all the cages and merchants

that once bounded me from falling.

I was scared of falling,

and I still fell.

Finally, I fell

and I couldn't stop falling

again and again.

I let myself fall

till I sleep

where once, I rested.

From a womb I fell from

to a womb I'm falling into.

Oh how I love falling......