CW for Gore

It's summer right now. It's hot, and it hasn't rained in over a month. I hate it. When times are tough, and I miss you more than anything, I could always count on the comforting embrace of a cold rain. But now it's just hot.

I feel empty. I've felt empty for months, but I feel especially empty now.

When you left, I had to grab onto something to keep going. The hollowness was terrifying, I would've done anything to fill that void. I used to have so much love and care in me, but it's like you took it all with you on your way out. In all your kindness though, you left behind a burning coal of anger.

It hurts to hold, but I can't bring myself to let go. I hold onto it for dear life with a white knuckle grip. My nails dig into my palms around it.

Blood leaks out around my clenched fist, and a dizzying heat climbs up my arm. It mixes with my sweat and makes this horrible concotion that seems to burn and melt everything it touches. What was once my hand is now a mangled hunk of flesh that used to be able to help people. My apartment is in shambles, the pictures on the walls have faded, the floorboards are bending, their stability long gone. The only things flourishing in these fetid walls are the plants. They drink up the disgusting ichor and grow into the shapes of human skulls, cracking open to reveal nightmarish, sickeningly pink flowers that defy description.

Still, with my world rotting around me, I hold onto that spiteful star. If I let it go, there won't be anything left to keep me standing, and there won't be anything left of you.

It's summer right now. It's hot, and I hate it.

Julia is dead, and I need to be okay with that. Her spirit might be tied to a horrifying monster, she might still be conscious and doing gods know what, but that doesn't change the fact that in my plane of existence, she's dead. I'll never ride the elevator up to my apartment and make small talk with her again. She'll never be there to pick me up after work if I need it again.

We'll never have another movie night together. I'll never get to watch her face light up as she talks about Mercurio again. I'll never get to watch her pace around her apartment angrily ranting about city council proposing a plan to cut funding to public transportation. I'll never get to sit on her bed and feel butterflies in my stomach when she sits herself right next to me, close enough our arms are touching.

Julia is dead, but I'm still alive. And I can't just rot.

Not anymore.