Lashing lengths of caustic blackness slither up from that chasm deep within my chest, honing their tapered tips, slitting my skin from the inside out. Hissing for me to kill. Kill. KILL! I can no longer hear the wind, the thunder, or the sound of my own heartbeat. I can no longer hear the raging ocean as it heaves and churns—riddled with beasts that won’t think before they chew. All I am is brain-bursting pressure and hissing vengeance. My fingers twist with the chain around my ankle, brutally aware that the jetty is made of wood. That cutting my ugly loose will kill me, too. I’ve lost
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