I watched them every day. Willing them, to just say my name. I wanted to mean something. I wanted to be thought about. To not be forgotten. I wanted to scream. Scream so loud that they would turn: look for what had startled them. Look for me.
They never did.
I wanted to cry. To smash or tear apart anything, everything I could get my hands on. I wanted them to hurt. To rip them apart, one by one, until they saw me. Until they saw my pain. I wanted them to hurt like I was hurting. Just once to remember me. I wanted them to miss me!
They never did.
I watched them.
I watched them every day. My Family. My Brothers, my Sisters. I wished they loved me like they loved each other. I wished I’d meant something… I hurt so much when I watched them. I’d wanted so much to be one of them. One, of their always and forever. Why had they never seen it? My heart felt as if it was constantly being clawed apart, ripped open from the inside out. It was the worst horror in this place. The dull dead ache of emptiness. Of meaning nothing, to no one. Not the dead Witches wraith, those hell-bent upon their quest to torture me. Not at first...I almost welcomed their malice. The pain they inflicted upon me.
It gave me moments of peace from my own thoughts.
Moments where the endless, emptiness: the overwhelming sadness didn’t feel like it would consume me. I’d begged the Witches to end me, to shatter my soul into a thousand tiny pieces. To do their worst! I didn’t want to feel anything anymore.
But that was when they had come to realise, the only way to put me through pain; to truly torture me, was to show me life.
The life I was missing with my family. A family, who never once missed me. A family who forgot me a day after I'd died. Who never needed me, as I needed them. I wondered if any of them had ever felt true loneliness. Its hollow grasp as it eats away any warmth: any hope you carry deep inside. I wondered if they ever felt that empty, a husk of someone who should have mattered. A soul bursting with unshed tears; and yet unable to shed a single one. I could help them. I could have helped them so many times. I could have been there for them. I could have been so much more if they had let me feel like I belonged. If they had tried just once to understand my pain. I wanted so badly to reach out, to place my hand upon their shoulders: and have them turn. Welcome me with a smile, and say my name. I wanted them to love me then. I wanted them to love me now.
I hated them. I hated this nightmare. I hated being dead. It was my biggest fear.
