9 Lives Part 2

Sri City:

Life 5 – The Refugee

I woke inside a man

His stomach clawed at itself with hunger

His lips cracked dry as old stone

His feet were torn from walking too far on ground that never ended

Around him lay the wreckage of what once had been a village

Charred walls leaning like broken ribs

Smoke still clinging to the air though the fire had died long ago

Bodies half buried under dust

Some small some still clutching rags of clothing that had once been loved

His arms carried nothing now

They had once carried children but the weight was gone

I felt the memory of their warmth still pressed into his skin

Gone in fire gone in smoke gone in screams

The angel’s voice slid through the ruins

Decide

But there was no choice here

Death had already decided long before I arrived

This man had been dead the moment the first shell fell from the sky

His body only hadn’t caught up yet

I felt the weakness in his legs as he stumbled into rubble

The walls trembled with distant blasts

Each sound closer than the last

The ground shook and stone rained down from the sky

It struck him hard across the back

Spine cracking like dry wood

He collapsed with dust flooding his lungs

Blood poured from his mouth and nose hot and choking

He clawed at the earth as if he could dig his way out of death

But the rubble pinned him harder with every breath

One stone broke his ribs another crushed his arm another shattered his skull

There was no beauty in it only violence

The sound of flesh breaking beneath rock

The sound of a man vanishing into debris

I felt it all

The weight the suffocation the way the world pressed him flat into nothing

When the last of his air escaped I snapped back into the void

My wrist burned again and the fifth line carved itself beside the others

Five marks

Halfway to the end

The angel’s laughter was crueler now sharper than before

So many ways to fall he said

And yet every end feels the same

I looked at the scars on my wrist glowing red in the dark

I felt the hunger still clawing inside my belly

The broken ribs still crushing my lungs

The faces of children still screaming in my head

I wanted to stop

For the first time I wanted to stop

But the void tore open again and I was dragged through

Life 6 – The Neglected Child

I woke inside a boy

His hands were small his eyes wide yet hollow

The room around him was dim and cluttered

Plates unwashed clothes scattered

A house where no one looked at him long enough to see him

I felt his hunger

Not only in the belly but deeper in the heart

He wanted someone to notice when he spoke

He wanted someone to hear when he cried

But the walls never answered

The footsteps of his parents echoed without stopping at his door

He had grown invisible

Every word swallowed before it left his lips

Every gesture ignored until he stopped making them

The silence pressed against him harder than hunger ever could

The angel’s voice drifted in soft and cruel

Decide

I lifted his head and guided his eyes to the open window

Beyond it stretched the night sky painted with stars

They seemed close enough to touch

Closer than any hand had ever been to him

He climbed quietly onto the ledge

The cool air brushed against his skin like the first kindness he had ever felt

He spread his arms as if they were wings though he had never flown

I felt his small heart beating like a trapped bird

And then he stepped forward

For a moment it was not falling

It was flying

The world spun beneath him as the night carried him down

Air rushed past his ears like whispers

His arms still stretched wide as if he might rise instead of fall

Then the ground struck

Bones shattered in silence

Blood spread across the pavement in a shape no one would ever see

His body lay twisted yet still no voices came

No hands reached out

Even in death he remained invisible

I woke in the void gasping

The sixth tally cut across my wrist

The marks deeper now darker as if carved by fire itself

The angel’s laughter was hushed this time almost reverent

Beautiful little bird he whispered

He flew only once and even that was enough

I lowered my head

For the first time I felt tears threaten though they did not fall

The ache was not only his now

It was mine

And before I could hold it longer the void split once again and dragged me down

Life 7 – The Corrupt Politician

I woke inside a man

His skin was heavy with sweat his chest thick with rot

His hands trembled not from weakness but from greed

He clutched papers that promised power

He clutched money that smelled of ash

Every corner of the room whispered names he had betrayed

His mind was loud

Voices clawed at him from shadows

Accusations threats curses

Faces of people he had crushed under laws and deals

Mothers starved children wept men broke their backs and he had eaten their pain like bread

Now every face sat behind his eyelids screaming until he could not rest

The angel’s voice licked the walls

Decide

I felt his fear boil

Not sorrow not regret only terror

The paranoia that someone waited for him in every alley

That every knock on the door was death come to collect his debt

He wanted to end it but he was too afraid of surrender

So I gave him what he feared most

I walked him through a narrow hall that bled into black

The air pressed hot against my lungs

From the shadows hands reached out

Rough and sharp

They pulled him down with ropes of rage

They cut his skin with knives not sharp enough to be quick

Every slice jagged tearing slow through fat and flesh

Blood poured thick and hot over his suit

He screamed until the sound shredded his throat

But no one listened

No one cared

They carved him apart like a feast

Bit by bit the body split open

I felt it all

Organs trembling in air that stank of iron

Bones cracking like branches under a boot

The eyes gouged out so he could not look at what he had built from ruin

When the last shred of his breath rattled out the shadows dropped him cold

Nothing remained but meat and silence

I fell back into the void

The seventh line burned into my wrist until smoke rose from the wound

Seven tallies glowing red against skin that no longer felt my own

The angel laughed again but softer now

Not cruel not amusedAlmost thoughtful

Power is only flesh he said

And flesh always rots

I shook

Not from fear

From exhaustion

Every death cut deeper than the last and my body carried them all like anchors

The void ripped open again and pulled me down

Life 8 – The Forgotten Old Man

I opened my eyes and found myself in a chair

The smell of dust and medicine weighed on the air

The room was small with a window that looked out on a garden no one tended anymore

A clock ticked too loudly as if it were mocking me for still breathing

I felt his bones ache

His chest shallow

His mind frayed at the edges like an old sheet

He did not remember the faces of those he once loved

But he remembered the silence when they stopped visiting

He remembered the birthdays missed the empty chairs the phone calls that never came

His family had moved on as if he had already been buried

Loneliness hung heavier than age

It crushed the lungs more than sickness

It whispered that he no longer existed

That he was a ghost wandering the halls of a body too stubborn to collapse

The angel lingered in the corner

His smile curled but not cruel this time

Almost tender almost worse

Do you see how easy it is to erase a man without touching him he asked

The old man did not want fire or blades or drowning

He only wanted rest

To fade in a way that no one would notice

To become air and nothing more

So I closed his eyes and leaned back in the chairI let his breath slow until it barely touched the room

I let his heartbeat stretch farther and farther between strikes until silence filled the space

It was not violent not brutal

It was emptiness swallowing itself

The world blurred like mist over a lake at dawn

I felt myself dissolve with him

Each thought thinning each memory scattering like leaves in autumn

No screams no blood no spectacle

Only the long cruel weight of being forgotten

When the final thread snapped my wrist burned

The eighth mark seared itself beside the others

Eight tallies carved deep into my flesh like bars on a cage

I stared at them in the dark void

One more remained

One final life

The angel’s voice coiled low almost kind

The end waits for you where you began

Then silence

The void shivered

I knew what came next

I would return to myself

Life 9 – The Beginning 

I woke in my own bed

The same sheets

The same stale air

The same silence that had once swallowed me whole

My chest rose heavy but alive

I touched my wrist and felt the scars carved deep

Eight tally marks like a prison wall

Proof that death was not freedom but another chain

The angel waited at the window

His wings blurred with shadow

His smile the same cruel slash

He looked at me like a puppeteer admiring strings that could never be cut

You wanted nothing he said

So I gave you everything

You felt their despair you wore their deaths you learned the cost of escape

Now you will live because you no longer have the courage to die

I hated him

I hated how he was right

Each scar throbbed with the weight of lives that were not mine yet lived in me still

Mothers who drowned children who begged old men erased by silence

I had killed them all and felt it all

And now the thought of taking my own life tasted cowardly even pathetic

The knife was still in the drawer

The window still opened into the night sky

But I knew I would not use either

The scars would not let me

They whispered stay not out of hope but out of guilt

A leash disguised as wisdom

I rose from the bed

Not to live but because I could not die anymore

Breathing was not victory

It was sentence

The world outside looked pale and tired

Like me

Behind me the angel was gone

But the echo of his laughter lingered in the air

Not kind not cruel

Simply amused

I pressed my wrist to the glass

The tally marks looked like a joke

Eight failures etched into my skin

And I knew there would never be a ninth

Not because I was strong

But because the angel had already broken me into obedience

Life stretched ahead

Not as redemption

But as punishment

And I would endure it