TW: Spoken Word With Graphic Depiction of Torture, And References to Abuse and Self-Deletion

 I keep having this recurring dream, where I am burning alive but I cannot die. 

There is a cord I am tethered to on one end, and something terrifying just watching me on the other. 

I desperately heave trying to cut this cord with an ax, but I can't, and I start screaming.

It takes different forms and levels of seriousness. Sometimes it is vivid and dark, and when I let the ax drop to my side, I scream like a banshee with flames reflected in my eyes. There is a flame of its own inside. 

Other times I am drawn with ovals and a pencil crayon, On a paper background with a simple Horizon line. 

I scream high pitched and almost comical. These are the days I can make myself laugh, and have a bit of dark humor. 

But they mean the same thing. 

I also call it a dream, even though it's more like a horrible daydream, because there is something easier about telling people about such a horrible scrne you're mindconjures when asleep, versus the full and conscious version of me seeing it in my mind when I'm awake. 

In this vision I screamed to let me die. I turn to the person on the other end of the cord and screen that if I can't die then you should instead, so I can be free. 

The Monster on the other end is the person who tactically poured the kerosene until the container was empty, struck the match, then simply wiped their hands with a paper towel and call themsleves clean since they aren't pouring kerosene anymore.

(Such a person could be called a terrifying monster.)

“I love you too much to let you die, though,” he says, standing a short distance from the firelight with the glow on his skin.