The Numb

A Story by BarrageOTM

The burn of pain and past.

Pain. It's something you grow accustomed to. It becomes so natural, so expected, that it becomes numb, that you become numb. It didn't begin like this. At one time, this pain was a fire. It burned and melted and scarred. It was a prison. Holding in the torment you felt. It was so deep, so vicious, that it eventually hollowed you, consumed what was left to feel. It became numb. Sometimes you regrow a little bit of yourself, little parts of who you were. The fire destroys it. Molds it into numb so you don't feel. That hollow shell, that feeling of empty, knowing who you once were, and who you've become. The numb spreads like sleep. Slowly at first, then altogether.

We fight ourselves in an attempt to regrow what we've lost to the flames. The embers that are continuously stoked by our struggles.

Memories, smells, thoughts, regrow and repair. But sometimes they can burn. Enraging what was once a source of warmth, turned deadly by the fumes of pain. Slowly the smoke fills up, numbing the hollow area. Raising up until it clouds your head. And suddenly, you're asleep in a fire. Scorching more than can be replaced. A home, a room, safety is being burned. Your walls are burnt, losing their structure, their frame. So you have to break through them. Collapse the walls behind you. And new walls are hard to come by, especially if the house they held is collapsed too. But you'll see now, the walls weren't your own. Only something created by others in reflection of yourself. You must build your own walls now, and support a house.