THE PURGE

For all who’ve fallen and given in to the flesh;
The very nature that sought to please you, destroyed you.
And for those who’ve sunken so deep to the depths,
The image on the outside failed to fool you.
Your true self is locked away somewhere within,
Look into the mirror of your heart and don’t give in.



The darkness was choking, stifling and her breathing grew deeper as her breaths became hard. She tried to speak but her voice was hoarse, making talking virtually impossible and screaming out of the question. She felt hot, cramped, but she couldn’t smell the smoke, she could only feel as the burning heat enveloped her body.

As it did, she could feel her flesh slowly singe away. There was no pain, just the lingering feel of death. And the smell; the stench of burning flesh filled her nostrils. She could sense as with each movement, her innocence was being stripped away.

Her heart raced faster and faster and she was sure it would burst any minute. The sweat trickled down her face as the heat of desire burned her skin, gnawing at her every will. The more she tried to control it, the sooner she lost control again. Until, she could no longer fight. Gradually, she began to fall weak, succumbing to the very desire that sought to destroy her, to control her very being.

She tried to move, to take herself away from this abomination. But the harder she struggled, the tighter the grip on her body. It was like walking into quick sand: the harder she fought to come out, the deeper she sank. Soon, she was completely submerged and covered in filth and grime. She tried to think good, happy thoughts to take her mind away from the searing pain and the feel of waste. But it was no use. Her mind, like her flesh, had already caved to submission.

She felt her last will give way as she finally let go. The sensation washed over her like the sea washing over the sand on a beach. It tickled her senses as it moved over her body. She had given in; after what seemed like an eternity of fighting. Now, she had nothing left to fight with; to fight for. It was all gone. Her innocence purged away like a demon expelled during an exorcism. There was nothing left.

And then, as swiftly as it had started, it stopped. There was stillness in the air and as she took a deep breath, she felt nothing. Numb. And for a brief second she was pleased: At peace with herself. It was a flashing moment of bliss, for it was soon over. And when it was gone, the deep feeling of shame settled in. She rolled into a ball on her side as she let the wave of shame wash over her. And soon, she fell asleep again.


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She woke up with a start, eyes wide open and the sweat from her face trickling down unto her hair. Her breaths were deep and hollow and for a second she didn’t know where she was. Gradually, it all came back to her in pieces: The unbearable heat, the burning flesh, her throbbing skin and aching muscles.

As the realization of the dream she had just had settled in, she suddenly bolted from the bed, nearly knocking over the bedside lamp. She glanced around her in a drunken-like haze and got up, running a quick hand over her body. She was fine – at least from all indications.

She crawled back into bed and tried to go to sleep once more but her eyes were wide open. She felt sleepy, but she couldn’t seem to get her eyes to close. She picked up the alarm clock on the bedside table and checked the time; it was 5:30 am. She placed the clock back and slowly, pushed her duvet to the side of the bed.

She was about to stand up when she felt something moist between her legs. Puzzled, she slowly sat up and glanced down at her legs, and in the darkness saw a pool of thick liquid on her bed. Fearfully, she stretched out a hand and touched the liquid with the tip of her middle finger; it felt warm. She brought her palm closer to her face and through a tiny ray of morning light peeking out of her bedroom window, she saw it clearly; blood.

She let out a chilling scream and tried to move. But she couldn’t feel her body. She began to feel faint and soon passed out.




Her eyes opened with a start as she tried to adjust them to the darkness. Tiny rays of day light were beginning to peep through the curtains. In one movement, she jerked out of bed, blinking hard and fast as she tried to wrap her mind around what had just happened. Had it actually happened or was it all just a dream? She tried to think, as she ran a hand over her sheets. They were dry and her body was fine, but her sense of reality was shot; dead. She had no idea what was real and what wasn’t anymore.

She stood up and walked over to the standing mirror at the corner of her room. She knew she was the same, but she felt different. Standing in front of the mirror in her blue night shirt and staring long and hard at the figure staring back at her, she knew something looked different, unnatural.

She could hear the morning’s activities begin downstairs. Soon, father would call out to her to come down for morning devotion. But as she thought about the long prayers and endless admonitions from her parents, a feeling of disgust began to creep into her mind. As soon as she realized it, she promptly banished the thoughts. But as she did so, she found out that she had also secretly enjoyed it.

A tiny grin crept up the side of her mouth: An evil, devilish smile. She caught a glimpse of it in the mirror before it vanished, and then she knew; this wasn’t her. This image she was staring at in the mirror couldn’t be her reflection.

She was nice and caring and she loved her parents. She had never had an evil thought about them in her whole life not to even mention liking it. She felt she should tell someone, anyone. She wanted to go downstairs and report this evil nature creeping up in her mind to her parents. But how could she? What would she say? “Mummy, daddy, something evil is trying to take over my mind?”

No, she thought. They would only look at her like she was crazy. They would probably rush out to call the pastor and elders in the church to lay hands on her and cast out the demon troubling her. Her mother would dance around hysterically while screaming occasionally, “My daughter! My daughter oh!”

Father would offer quiet support to the elders by muttering “Amen!” intermittently, as they laid their hands on her head and banished the demons away. They would call on the fire of the Lord and push her head so far backwards that it could almost snap in two like a twig.

The thought of what would happen didn’t excite her and so she stood there staring back at the reflection in the mirror. A reflection that was supposed to be her, but didn’t feel like it was in any way. She shivered slightly and blinked hard. And as she stared intently at the image in the mirror, she suddenly realized why something had felt strange.

The truth dawned on her like a light bulb switched on in her head and she suddenly knew. She realized then that all along when she had thought that all there was to it was herself looking in a mirror but not being able to comprehend the image staring back at her was a lie. And the truth was that she wasn’t on the outside. She had never been on the outside looking in; but she was in, looking out. She was the reflection; the image in the mirror. And whoever it was that was out there looking at her was most definitely not her.

She was the image, locked in the mirror. And that person standing in front of it was someone else. She tried to move but she couldn’t. She felt bound but there were no cords tied around her. She opened her mouth to scream, to call out to her parents for help. But she couldn’t even hear the sound of her own voice.

The person standing in front of the mirror was not her, yet it looked like her. It smiled like her and moved like her and probably spoke like her. But it was not her. She was locked in a world she had no idea of and that person out there was in hers.

It wasn’t her, and yet it was her. Who could she explain that to? Who would believe her? Who would choose to come in and rescue her from this alien world she was trapped in? She didn’t want to be there, she wanted to go home. She tried to get out, but she didn’t know how.

The tears trickled down her eyes as she watched herself walk away. Something else had taken over her life now. She was no longer in charge. It was walking away and not looking back; leaving her trapped in a world she couldn’t understand, a world that threatened to consume her. She was all alone, locked outside her world and stuck in the dark, cold emptiness of another she didn’t understand.

As the lights went off in her room in the real world, the darkness swallowed her into itself. Slowly, she disappeared into it, becoming nothing more than a mere mist on the other side of the world she had left. She vanished into the mist and all that she had left was a shadow; a shadow of what she knew used to be her. And a longing for a life she had let pass her by.




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