Save Me

• Emily Kardum, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2014

Save me. Save my corrupted soul. Save my corrupted soul from the demons which inhabit this earth. I cannot sleep. I cannot eat. I cannot breathe without the poisons of my sins filling my lungs. The voices. All I hear is the voices. Their screams and their whispers. They engulf me. They suffocate my thoughts. Their words cut me like razorblades. I feel the burn in my lungs. The fire courses through my veins. The flames charred my bones. But these bones were no longer mine. These lungs, this heart, this body and this mind. They are no longer mine. They are his.


I hate this place. I hate what they've done to me. I am not crazy. I am no lunatic. I am not like the others here. My parents believe otherwise. That’s why I am doomed to spend all of eternity in this mental asylum. I resent my parents for what they have done. I know what happening to me is real. I know that they are real. I know that the fear that I feel is real. How could they possibly question my sanity when the screams of terror I release are far too real to be from an imaginary cause? How could they doubt me? How can I save myself when nobody else believes I can be saved?

I know in my heart that I will never find the answers to these questions. He would never allow it. He’s always here. He never leaves me. He’s sitting at the table when we gather for lunch. He’s behind the nurse when she arrives to deliver my daily dose of ‘happy’. He lies next to me when the lights are turned off and it’s time for bed. I am continuously drowning in the sea of his presence.


As the pills dance in my hands, I wonder if there is anyone out there who is suffering like me. “Stop wasting time and take your medicine, Elizabeth! You know how busy I am during this time of day,” Joy calls out to me. Joy is the head nurse. Everyone hates her. In reality, I really did not have any idea how busy she was during this time of day. I didn’t know what day was. I am always stuck in the darkness of the night. She never understood why I was so hesitant about taking the pills. I could never tell her, or anyone, that they made everything worse. I couldn’t tell anyone that they brought me to him. I took a deep breath, swallowed the pills, and tried to prepare myself as I drifted away.


“Oh, Elizabeth, what have you done?” he echoed. I felt a swell of hatred in my stomach. Lucifer. He motioned for me to come closer. “Why are you so afraid, Elizabeth?” he asked, a smirk forming on his face. I never dared to reply to him. I took a step forward, and it began. The deafening screams, the taunting, the pain and the suffering.


Save me.