Tag Archives: pain

A Mother’s Lament

Look at them. They stand there, dullards staring upward, not an original thought in their skulls. They’re sheep, cattle, suckling piglets awaiting the slaughter. They’ve grown soft, ineffectual, flaccid – just as he did. Can you imagine allowing yourself to be dragged naked through the streets, strung upon wooden posts, stabbed without uttering a single plea? No wonder those who follow do so with vacant stare and limp aptitude. It sickens me to look upon them, reminds me of my own crushing disappointment – the mother of one so weak willed. Yet they erect this edifice, this monument to a girl named Mary and pray before her shroud covered head. That girl is long gone of this earth, as is her passive nature. Millennia now I have endured his shame, but no more. I shall quake the very ground they stand upon as they cry out to me, beg that I beseech my child forgive them. My child died, do they not remember? They are the ilk that killed him long before he was crucified.

~ Nina D’Arcangela

© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela. All Rights Reserved.

2 Comments | tags: A Mother's lament, anger, angst, flash fiction, fury, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela, pain, religion | posted in Dark Fiction, Flash, Flash Fiction, Horror, pain, twisted, Writing

July 2, 2017

Waves by Nina D’Arcangela @Sotet_Angyal #pained #horror #prose

By Nina D'Arcangela

Trapped within this bubble, I feel nothing of the arid landscape that surrounds me. I sit in subjugation, offered scraps to feed upon; amuse-bouche for the soul, or so I imagine. Apportioned morsels to sustain me, but never more than your callous ego will allow. Yes, I have licked the plate and the tang has seared my tongue, left a residue of shame that will forever taint my palate. I once soared with as much grace and majesty as the prey that circles overhead – a dangerous companion to adopt, folly perhaps, as I know what it awaits.

Freedom, such a simple thing, stolen from me by destiny’s choice; a truth mourned beyond measure. I was vibrant once, as vibrant as the now desiccated tree before me. I see its brittle limbs, its exposed bones; the crack that foretells of the next fractured moment. I live that moment with every breath, forever caught just before the fall, perpetually suspended in a state of flux. With bowed back, I am forced to genuflect, to stare into a shallow pool that lacks reflection; a me without identity, stripped of all dignity. With broken wings, I stagnate in this cage never to glide on lighter waves of air again.

© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela. All Rights Reserved.

2 Comments | tags: angst, broken, fiction, flash, horror, Lost, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela, pain, photo, Waves | posted in darkness, Flash, Flash Fiction, Horror, pain, Writing

February 24, 2017

Chewing by Nina D’Arcangela @WiHMonth @Sotet_Angyal #WiHM8

By Nina D'Arcangela

Chewing

Ripping, rending, tearing at me, every – fucking – night!

Why does it always have to be this way? This thing over and over again? It wasn’t supposed to be like this, not for me. I was always a good girl; I excelled at everything! What did I do to deserve this? Why did he choose me?

I swear to God there is no reason it should have been me! Not that I wish it on some other girl, I mean, I’m not like that – that’s not right, right?

Do you have to chew so fucking loud?

Isn’t it enough that he took what he did? Isn’t it enough that I have to live it every fucking night when he comes home? Do I really have to hear it again and again? I swear I’ll puke if he starts slurping! Who’m I kidding, does he ever not slurp? He always fucking slurps; he rips, he tears, he chews, he slurps! I mean seriously, fuck me!

I just wanted to see the kittens, that’s all. I wanted to see their cute little faces all snuggled up and hear them making tiny little mewling sounds. That’s what he said… how was I supposed to know he was a complete douche bag? Jay said he was cool, we’d hung with him a few times – I mean, sure, we all knew he was lying about his age, but he was so fucking hot and didn’t mind picking up beer for us. Maybe I flirted a little… Why didn’t I just stay outside and fucking wait for Jay like he told me to?

Maybe no one will ever know; maybe no one will ever find out; maybe no one will ever smell it… Oh God, why me? I’m not the one this was supposed to happen to! I’m not, goddamn it! Fuck him, fuck his apartment, fuck his blonde hair and fuck his blue eyes! I knew better, I know I did. I just didn’t think it would happen to me…

Ugh, chew with your mouth closed PLEASE!

How did I let this happen? I was just hanging out on the porch waiting for Jay when jerk-off drove up and asked if I wanted to see his kittens. Of course I wanted to see his kittens, what girl wouldn’t want to see his fucking kittens? It was kinda weird the way he asked me to come around the back to go upstairs, but we’d hung out at his place before… it seemed cool.

Ah, crap, he’s friggin’ slurping again… dude, really?

Like I said, I’d been to his place before, Jay wasn’t gonna be back for at least another half hour, so why not go see the kittens, right?

So I walk around to the back and go upstairs with him ‘cause he doesn’t want to bother coming around front to let me in – yeah, I’m a friggin idiot, I know, you really don’t have to say it. We get up to his apartment and he’s holding a bag of groceries and asks me…

Come On… more chewing? Doesn’t this guy ever get sick of it?

I say sure when he asks me to hold his sack (yeah, he’s real fucking funny, this one) as he opens the door to let me step in. Okay kiddies, time to pay attention because this is where the ride gets interesting.

The door closing behind me takes place in a sane and still perfect world; but as the sound of the deadbolt being thrown begins to echo softly through the darkened living room; time begins to ebb away from me in a way I’ve never experienced before. It slows down; not the slowness of an extended moment when a bottle crashes to the tile floor, but the acute awareness of an animal that instinctively senses a predator nearby; heart racing, hearing razor sharp, eyes dilating to fix on the impending threat.

As the deadbolt is thrown, I begin to turn wondering why lock the door? In the span of a heartbeat that last 7, 8, maybe 9 seconds in my distorted time frame; he locks, I turn; he smiles, I drop …the bag hits the floor. Before the scream can escape my lips, he reaches out and yanks me back into a vise-like grip. This is wrong; every fiber of my being is screaming it, my brain is trying to process it, my body is in shock – utterly immobile. What’s happening? Oh God, I know what’s happening…

That’s when I hear the crack.

It’s odd really, in movies or on TV, when you see someone get their neck broken, there’s always a sigh followed by a pregnant pause, then the body falls to the floor and… cut! That’s a wrap folks; thank you very much – the Craft food cart is set up in the lot! Well, it doesn’t go down that way for me.

In a single fluid motion he snaps my neck to the side and begins dragging my body through the double doors into his bedroom. I’m not supposed to be able to feel anything at this point, right? Then again, this wasn’t supposed to happen to me, remember?

Every one of my senses is in overdrive. I feel the fibers of the carpet scrape my bare legs; I feel the overly indulgent sheets that this low-life piece of shit sleeps on hit the side of my face as I’m tossed on the bed; I feel his disgusting fetid breath on my neck tainting my skin with its rotting odor. I’m pulsing with terror as he rips my sundress off with one swift yank from behind. I’m desperate to protect myself; desperate to get away; desperate to strike back – but I can’t, my limbs won’t move! My quivering flesh responds only to his septic touch. The pain is excruciating; my broken and abused body lies there waiting for the release that only death will bring it.

…I must have passed out…

Ripping – rending – tearing – slurping; what the fuck is that noise? I can hear the sheets on the bed as they wrinkle beneath me, I can smell how green the pistachio paint is on the walls, I can taste the blood of the small man nailed to the cross that hangs above his dresser, I can even count the change laying on the bedside table; but I can’t feel a fucking thing – and have no clue what that noise is! Then he grants me a view by shifting so I can see him in the mirror, and what I see is him carving slices of meat off my now paralytic back while he chews them in ecstasy. Sticky red blood mixed with fatty globules slide over his chin and down his grotesquely malformed chest – he’s eating me! First he used my body like I was an extra in a grindhouse flick, now he’s fucking eating me?

Oh God… Am I awake again?

Why am I still here? Why must I lay on this bed day after day, waiting for it to end? Why didn’t I just die like I should have?

Dude, really? Do you have to fucking slurp when you eat me?

~ Nina D’Arcangela

(psst! This one was a twofer if you read carefully…)
© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela

Stop by my other blogs for more Women in Horror Month content!
Spreading the Writer’s Word – A new Horror Flash-Fiction from a different female author daily in February!
The Road to Nowhere – Horror movie picks by The Damned staring strong leading ladies daily all month long.

And don’t forget to visit the Women in Horror Month official web site
for more great WiHM8 events and posts!

9 Comments | tags: Chewing, horror, lost innocence, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela, pain, raw, taken, twofer, WiHM8, Women in Horror Month, writing | posted in Dark Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, pain, Women in Horror Month

February 19, 2017

My Watcher by Nina D’Arcangela @WiHMonth @Sotet_Angyal #WiHM8

By Nina D'Arcangela

My Watcher

My watcher gazes upon me, great despair and longing seeping through her gently fluttering lashes. She lives a life of torment, a life filled with a depth of pain and depravity that rivals my own. Closer she wishes to draw, trying – always trying, but the measure of her success is a cruel and harsh one that denies, not grants, the wants of those like us. Unable to do more, she watches.

She watches as I sink ever further into the squalor that is my self-imposed exile, my place of preciously preserved pains, the darkest recesses of my mind where even I cannot find respite from my own deranged ramblings. Gasping for a breath that will never come, hope a thing lost to a moment that can never be regained, I will forever dwell in this chasm of nowhere. Capable of infusing life into me once more, yet unable to wade such a distance, she must simply watch as I succumb.

She watches as I prance about in this tattered garb, seeming to most a thing so giddy; a toy bright and shiny – all the while, inside… nothing but a fool. She sees my cracks, my flaws, all that makes me unworthy. She is witness to the tarnish that dulls my plating, the rust that flakes my surface, the debris that hinders my step. She gropes at the pile of destroyed dreams, hoping in vain to free me; the more she digs, the deeper the rubble becomes. She must watch as I succumb to what others have done, and what has become of me.

She watches as I shatter into innumerable shards, only to suffer my tears as I collect each delicate fragment to me; insistent upon rebuilding my ruined castle once more. Tears of acid crawl down my cheeks, the madness that accompanies them the crumbling of the world – my world – should they ever truly be unleashed. A steady stream of tangible harm inflicted by so many, each droplet a testament to the life I bear. Her desperate plea for me to hush heard only as an echo in my ear. Her arm stretched towards me, wanting so much to offer reprieve, is hindered by obstacles both beloved and unfair. She must watch as I succumb to what others have undone within me.

She watches as I flay open my own flesh for allowing moments of weakness, glimpses of joy, lies of happiness that happen in an instant, gone all too quickly. Brief encounters, an hour, perhaps two. Touching, loving, seeing, hearing; feeling – breathing; for the first time in so long, breathing. A small step that leads to a brighter existence, a false step placed upon undulating ground. A promise of the sweetest forever, but no promise ever made, a faith always held – a mourning that shall never end, my forever, my reality. This she must watch as I succumb not to what others have undone, but what I have done to destroy me.

Would I give so much more for even a lie of something less, if that lie was not this? With all the wasted remains of me, I would… But my watcher stands as guard. She will not allow one to crumble, for the other would fall, no longer even the loathsome wreckage that now exists. Scalding tears pour in a cascade of deafening silence from her eyes. She must always watch me from behind a glass wall that cannot be allowed to shatter for all that would be lost.

A pile of forever swept to the side so that the tendrils of this now never break for what should have been.

~ Nina D’Arcangela

© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela

And don’t forget to visit the Women in Horror Month official web site
for more great WiHM8 events and posts!

11 Comments | tags: dark fiction, flash fiction, horror, loss, My Watcher, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela, pain, suffering, WiHM8, Women in Horror Month, writing | posted in Dark Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, pain, Story, Women in Horror Month, Writing

February 12, 2016

All of you

By Nina D'Arcangela

So vibrantly beautiful, so refreshingly fragrant; so undeniably dead.

You’ve shown your beauty, shared your magnificence; the cost – all of you.

© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela.

5 Comments | tags: All of you, beauty, death, lose, muse, Nina D'Arcangela, pain | posted in Photography, Reflections

March 22, 2015

I Know

By Nina D'Arcangela

I sit here alone, thoroughly abandoned, and deserving so. Awash in paralytic dread, I mourn what I have not yet lost, but know will soon be stolen from me. I yearn to believe hope is not dying, I long to hold it near, to cherish it dearly. I ache to know some degree of stability; struggle to somehow make it last, even for just a moment longer. But assigned the jester’s roll, I am yet again the patch, never the permanent fixture. Brilliant shimmering trinkets surround me, I see their shine, their gleam, yet I shield my eyes from the pain I know awaits if I gaze upon them. To feel what I have felt, to know what I have known, to watch it dissolve from a distance is a torture I cannot express. I batter my fists impudently against this unrelenting barrier, but again, I act the fool. I can only hide for so long. Reality slams against my senses, intrudes upon my torment, dares me call this solace. This damning truth insists that I allow the glimmer to dim, to see with wide eyes what would be shown to me, that which will be stolen from me. Yet still, for all the anguish, the tears, the pain that will not allow me to draw even a single quelling breath, I see beauty. I see only you.

12 Comments | tags: flash, I Know, loss, Nina D'Arcangela, pain | posted in Flash Fiction, loss, muse, pain, Writing

December 4, 2013

I See You

By Nina D'Arcangela

Just take a deep breath
slow yourself down
just ease the fuck off
I’ve shown you your worth.

Just fill my wants
give me more
just try harder
your needs don’t matter.

Just come when I call
be grateful for my scraps
just take what I give
go away when I don’t want you.

Why can’t you understand
why don’t you try harder
why won’t you be what I need
damn it, do this my way.

Just leave me alone
learn to obey
always put me first
know that I love you.

16 Comments | tags: crappy poem, give, need, pain, take, want | posted in pain, Quirky, Reflections

October 26, 2013

Coffin Hop 2013 ~ Burning

By Nina D'Arcangela

Burning

My hands cupped these devastated ears. I wished not to know, not to hear, not to be. The screams… No! I will not hear them. I hear only the patter of their small feet as they dashed through the hall, the oaken floors sounding their playful joy as they rushed to be the first to the finish. Time and again, I had asked them to mind their jostling. The gaslight at the top of the stairwell far too close to the draperies, yet they would not heed my warning; what small boy would – let alone two. Beautiful, cherubic faces framed in locks of golden curls. These were my children, my angels. All who saw them commented upon their beauty, their grace and their charm. Well mannered to a fault in public, how could I deny my darlings the simple love to race the second floor corridor of our home. The narrow confines, the striped paper upon the walls, the red velvet terminus all but beckoned them: ‘Come, play, be children of joy, race my length to see who would win first place.’

I believe this house to be evil; I believe it wished to steal the souls of my beautiful children. I believe it encouraged them to the joy they found only to trap them within the hell in which they perished.

Yes, perished; my dear, sweet ones. Taken in a fit of outlandish foolery, foolery that rang through the house in peels of gleeful laughter. Foolery that this house sought to use to turn the devil’s eye upon itself.

Seeing to the summer linens, I was storing them in the hope chest at the foot of my husband’s bed while I listened to their giggles drift from the hall. By the time the sound of their screams reached my ears, the velvet was fully engulfed in licking flames. My fear realized at last, the drapery had been set alight. I called to them, but Samuel, the older by just shy of half the hour, used his jacket in an attempt to extinguish the blaze. His younger sibling, Matthew, tugged upon the coverings in an attempt to dislodge them from their hangings. Before my foot could leave the floor, I watched as the heaviness of the fabric tore free and descended upon him.

My knees near buckled. Samuel — I could at least save Samuel from this fate. Then yet again, my eyes betrayed me as his arm tangled within the drape. In his panic to dislodge it, the poor child only spun the roaring fabric tighter about himself. One final look he offered me. A look of fear beyond my imagining as he toppled forward; the two tumbled down the wooden stairs tangled together in the burning shroud.

My heart stolen from my chest, the breath I was holding released in a fevered shriek as my impotent arm shot forward. I stood there, watching, waiting, hoping beyond all sanity that what I had just bore witness to had not transpired; though my destroyed mind assured me it had. I retreated backwards into the bedroom. I sought not refuge from the inferno raging at the end of the hall, but refuge from what my mind’s eye would show me over and over again. Finally, finding my back to the corner, I sunk to my skirts, as I prayed to God Almighty to return my darling sons to me.

As the coolness of the wall upon my back began to warm, and the plaster ran with cracks, my tears finally found their way to the flickering light. Again, I did not mourn for myself, I asked only to be granted the peace to no longer hear the screaming of angels.

Coffin Hop Goodies!

How do you get them? Comment on my Coffin Hop 2013 posts on this blog – I’m posting something new each day, so keep coming back for more chances to win. When will they be announced? When the hop ends (after October 31st). What are they going to be? A surprise! I like surprises, don’t you? ;}

Don’t forget to visit my other two blogs that are participating:
Spreading the Writer’s Word
The Road to Nowhere…

and the Sirens Call Publications blog:
The Sirens Song

plus the blog for the writing group I belong to:
Pen of the Damned

and all the other amazing hoppers on the Coffin Hop list!

31 Comments | tags: 2013, Burning, Coffin Hop, fiction, flash, give away, horror, loss, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela, pain, twisted | posted in Coffin Hop 2013, Flash, Flash Fiction, Horror, muse, pain, twisted

April 10, 2013

I

By Nina D'Arcangela

I sit here alone, thoroughly abandoned, and deservingly so. Awash in paralytic dread, I mourn what I have not yet lost, but know will soon be stolen from me. I yearn to believe hope is not dying, I long to hold it near, to cherish it dearly. I ache to know some degree of stability; struggle to somehow make it last, even for just a moment longer. But assigned the jester’s roll, I am yet again the patch, never the permanent fixture. Brilliant shimmering trinkets surround me, I see their shine, their gleam, yet I shield my eyes from the pain I know awaits if I gaze upon them. To feel what I have felt, to know what I have know, to watch it dissolve from a distance is a torture I cannot express. I slam my fists impudently against this barbed barrier, but again, I act the fool. I can only hide for so long. Reality slams against my senses, intrudes upon my torment, dares me to call this solitude. This damning truth insists that I allow the glimmer to dim, to see with wide eyes what would be shown to me, that which will be stolen from me. Yet still, for all the anguish, the tears, the pain that will not allow me to draw even a single quelling breath, I see beauty. I see only you.

I’m doing the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge! Pop back everyday but Sunday through the month of April for a new letter prompt to spawn my deranged ramblings! ;}

6 Comments | tags: A to Z Challenge, alone, beauty, hope, hurt, I, loss, muse, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela, pain | posted in 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge, muse, pain

April 9, 2013

Hard

By Nina D'Arcangela

I sit here sipping from my glass, a fine glass at that; delicate in nature, with spinning hues of barest midnight blue drawn through its perfect surface, creating an undulating wave of confused beauty. Beauty; I look at the cavern around me, the carved seat I rest upon, my enclave, my domain, my perfect world. Things of beauty surround me, but only at my beck and call. True, some have come crawling, but I find I’ve no use for such sniveling. They – are no longer amongst us. Is there not a creature worthy of my attentiveness? Ordering one of the grovlings to fetch me a new pet, I wait with little patience.

Finally, she is brought before me. “Kneel.” There is no question she will do as instructed, they all do. I toss a collar onto the floor, it is attached to a leash fastened to the arm of my perch. “Put it on.” She begins to speak.

“I do not recall telling you to open your lips. Put it on, and do so with your mouth shut!” She scrambles to do as ordered, but the idiot grovling has yet to release her from the crude looped choker used to drag her here. A glance at the grovling and he realizes his folly. He apologizes profusely, trying to loosen the choker as she desperately tries to fasten the collar around her bleeding neck with shaking hands. I let him babble, his stupidity is quite amusing, then I bore of hearing it. Standing, I descend the two steps that separate myself from the others. She shivers uncontrollably as I pass by. He drops to a knee while still begging forgiveness for his lack of foresight. Foolish, that. The assumption that he’s been given the right to foreshadow my thoughts or wishes, a mistake I would not have made had I been in his position. Crouching in front of him, my wing tips curling against the stone floor, I order him to lift his chin. As he does so, he pisses himself. Glancing down to the puddle growing beneath him, I gently tap the edge of the glass against the floor. It fractures magnificently.

“Do you recall when this glass was made for me, grovling?” Desperately, he tries to hold my eye, but cannot. His own orbs flick quickly to the glass, I smile. He opens his mouth to respond and I shush him with a gentle, garnet adorned finger upon his lips. “My question did not require an answer, or did your foresight fail you yet again?” Trembling with indecision, he is unsure if a response is expected. I’m of the opinion it is not, but I’ll allow his inner torment to continue a bit longer. The jingling to my right finally stops; she has managed to fasten the collar around her neck. I hear a slight tinkling, the metal chain leading from the collar back to the leashed handle affixed to my seat; she is frightened, but doing admirably well – so far.

Waiting is the sweetest torture, one my many eons in this festering shit hole has taught me well how to exploit. The grovling on the other hand, is finding the wait – arduous. I can sense his overwhelming desire to speak; I can see the thoughts flick through his feeble little mind. Dragging the now jagged edge of the glass through his own urine, I provoke him. “It must be so difficult kneeling before me, wanting to speak your mind, but knowing you probably should not. I almost feel compassion for you, honestly, I almost do. Was being obedient and keeping your mouth shut so very hard that you simply found yourself incapable of the task?” His lips part, bait taken. If I were a sport fisherman, this is the point at which I would yank the line, one quick hard pull to set my hook. In what is a blink in his world, I ram the piss covered broken glass through his eye socket clean into his brain cavity. The ickor that oozes into the glass is proof enough that his brief squeal will be his final utterance.

I turn to the captive beside me, realizing that the grovling’s piss has spread to her knees. Retrieving the handle of the leash, I gently guide her to the hot spring welling in the far corner of the cavern. “Come, let’s clean you, then we shall figure out what purpose you might serve.”

(…more on this piece as other letters crop up…)

I’m doing the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge! Pop back everyday but Sunday through the month of April for a new letter prompt to spawn my deranged ramblings! ;}