Sans moi...

    It starts in my heart, I believe, and travels through my blood until it reaches my mind. Sliding fluidly with a ferocity only captured by the adrenaline an emotion, hate, can hold. Fangs barred it squirms through the capillaries towards my memories, of a better time. When I could stay up all night with her and play chess, or call her on the phone and confess my worst fears. Now that is only a memory, and this serpent, this basilisk, wants to ruin that for me. It wants me to forget all about when we were friends, to surrender my hope that someday we'll be like that again.
    To wipe away my dreams of a best friend who is figuratively dead. A friend whom I trusted my biggest secret to but lost it all in a single summer. The one I miss every day, when I'm alone and on the verge of tears. When life doesn't go according to my plan.
    And this snake, this venomous, legless, lizard, will not allow me to have my friend back.
    Finally it has reached my memories, leafing through them like a stack of papers,for the ones that will leave the burns. Hot, angry fire will scar my thoughts of her and leave me to sit in the pile of soot that was, at one time, a very close friendship. But friendship is lost to her, and she only wants to better herself. Not once did she think about me. I blame the snake, now hissing triumphantly. The snake got to her before it found me. His jaw unhinges, open and waiting. Thoughts and opinions of my dearest friend fall into the pit. Darkness climbs in around them, and I have lost her.
    The snake is obviously not completely satisfied; I'm not completely ruined. It allows its forked tongue to slide from its scaled lips for a moment, tasting the disappointment. Quickly it pulls its long, thin body through my blood and down, down, down... To my heart, which seems to have skipped a beat or two, apparently watching, baited. Venom, fiery in my blood, begins to sink in. I feel it trailing along the sides of the serpent, leaking into my arms and legs, making them feel heavy. A solid mass of this venom floats, suspended, in my heart.
    But it doesn't want to kill me. No, it would never do that. An actual death would ensure an end to this torture, and the thirst for suffering has not yet been quenched. So it heads for my stomach, pulling itself through my ribs. It winds around my lungs on its way, leaving my breath shallow and hot. Sweat breaks out on my forehead and I can only wait. Beads of moisture that seem to boil.
    I hold my head in my hands, waiting for the attack. But nothing comes. I don't understand! I feel it sitting, heavily, right against my lungs. My fingers shake, every moment more annoying than the last as I wait for the nausea to ensue. But... it doesn't come in a single burst.

    The reptile sleeps now, coiled through my body like the wires of electricity through a house. The fangs are poised against my stomach, but not permanently. With each passing hiss, a snore, from my enemy, there comes a slight tightening of the coil. Scales flow over my insides as I feel the animal writhe, laughing in its slumber. At some point I will explode, inwardly. My heart will collapse, my stomach will shrink as I feel more and more sick, and my mind will crumble. The venom that sits in my veins will pour out through my eyes and mouth, and I will become dry. This will occur at the breaking point, at an undetermined time. I don't want to wait for it to happen, but I have no defense against the disease within me. The disease which robbed me of my best friend, who still calls sometimes to 'check up' on me and to inform me that her values have been lost as well as her self restraint. It kills me to know that this is the serpent's fault, that it chuckles in its head, dreaming of agony. But this is also her doing, I wager, for the serpent does not choose its victims.

    The victims choose the serpent.