Without Me

Yao Xi had the impression that she was drowning. She felt the icy water fill her lungs, piercing her senses.

By a coincident, her consciousness was incredibly bright. She knew she should die, but why is she still alive? And where is this penetrating frost?

"Is Li Ye Han throwing my body to devour the sharks in the ocean?"

Uncontrolled convulsions took control of Yao Xi's body. Her body thrashed as if someone were treating them with electricity. She didn't think that even after her death she would suffer torment.

She could only tighten her jaws and wait for King Yama to get tired of torturing her and kindly let her out.

Soon the convulsions ceased, replaced by the unimaginable feeling of burning guts. She couldn't understand what was going on, and how she was subjected to staggering agonies again and again.

Did she commit so much evil during her life that she must pay for her guilt even after death?

She just wanted it to end, she had no more strength to fight for something that was doomed to failure. She wanted to let the darkness take her far down, leaving behind her pain, fatigue, worries and fear. She wanted to give up. Not feel anything anymore. But each time it seemed to her that it was over, that she was finally released from agony, attacking her senses, the pain was coming back. Intensified.

As if someone wanted to test the limits of her endurance, just for fun.

Body temperature of Yao Xi grew rapidly, and finally she exceeded her expectations. She felt as if a fire was raging within her, destroying every organ of her body and turning her interior into a cough.

The blood in Yao Xi's veins stung dangerously, as if she were boiling lava rolling the slope of a volcano, absorbing everything in its path.

At the very center of this destructive element, she heard the galloping beating of her own heart.

Oh, why could not she just die and end this terrifying agony ?!

She hasn't experienced as much pain in her whole life, as in the last few dozen hours.

Why do the heavens punish her so cruelly ?! Was it really a divine punishment for disconnecting lovers?

Hell, she just fell in love! Was it so great a sin to love a man destined for another woman?

And what about her? What about her feelings? She did not kill anyone! Was she so unworthy?

She had the feeling that the day her dream of marrying Li Ye Han had come true, she died hundreds of times. Like punishing her for every day of happiness she took away from him.

She had sworn to the heavens that she would never fall in love again. What else do they need to end her torments? Putting up life is not enough?

Yao Xi's body became heavier, the flames spread beyond the pores of the skin, spreading unbearable pain on the c.h.e.s.t, abdomen and limbs.

They licked her face and burned throat.

She couldn't move. She wanted to scream and writhe to ease her suffering, but she could not. Although Yao Xi's mind was unbearably aware of every burning sensation in her nerves, the body remained paralyzed. It's like she lost control. She could not do anything. Just wait.

She would give away all her memories for saving the next second of anguish.

In the darkness of her own hell there was nothing but suffering and her silent screams when she begged for death. Even time did not exist, so it felt like her torment was one endless moment filled with terrible pain.

She did not know how much time had passed. Maybe minutes, days, months? Maybe even years? She did not care. The most important thing for Yao Xi was that apart from endless agony, she also began to feel something else.

It was not a relief. The pain has not decreased in any way. Contrary. The feeling in her body slowly returned, and with it an endless wave of new-level torture. The eruption of her previous feelings.

The pain was not weaker, but she began to see a new sensory ability. She could feel every flame penetrating her veins, so that she could focus attention on separate parts of her body. Previously, she did not have such a possibility.

Until now, the burning sensation pierced her completely, as if every part of her body burned evenly, not allowing her to focus on anything specific. Now she could feel each cell of her body perfectly. To perfectly...

It should be a thousand times worse, because the pain it felt was intensified.

Yao Xi, however, greeted him with gratitude. She sensed that this sudden and unexpected change was the culminating stage that could end her torment. She burned alive.

To her greatest shock, her other senses were slowly engaged.

" I went mad", she thought convinced that her consciousness was again determined to cast her last ray of hope before the final blow.

Focusing on one thought that all this would end, Yao Xi almost missed the moment when her heart, which was already pounding like crazy, accelerated even more, as if running at the fastest speed.

The flames seemed to draw back from her limbs, leaving a pleasantly cool feeling. They were moving upwards - to the head.

This extremely abnormal pace had to affect the intensity of the temperature she felt. Where the infernal heat raged a second before, a sharp frost appeared after a short while. It seemed as though someone had forged a metal sword from her body, which, after working in an oven, submerged in ice water to tempe it.

She did not know what was worse. Are the raging flames that repeatedly cast her into a circle of anguish, or a terrifying feeling of deep nothingness that pierced the bones to the last core of her being.

Yao Xi's heart galloped wildly, as if fleeing from a herd of wild horses in a panic.

There was a fight in her mind - the scorched flames escaped madly against their fierce enemy - the frost that wanted to take over her whole body, to the last hair.

With all her strength she wanted none of the elements to win. She just wanted to die, even if it did not leave a thread of consciousness behind her. She wanted to disappear.

At this moment, sounds came to her struggling two elements of the head. At first, so quiet that she thought she imagined it. When she miraculously focused the last ounce of consciousness on them, she understood the individual words.

With all her strength she tried to cling to the new possibility when a faint sound of dripping water reached her ears.

She wanted to cry like a small child who, after many days of wandering, found her lost parents.

With the return of this sense, she discovered that the pain in her body had become a little smaller. This change was barely noticeable, but Yao Xi was able to sense it after so many tortures.

A touch reached the sense of hearing, when I felt a brush on the wrist of my hand. It felt like it was a touch of a butterfly wing, but for Yao Xi it was like touching the Creator itself - unrealistic, but absolutely sacred for believers!

Then he quickened her breath in anticipation of some new sensation. Anything that would give her the chance to grasp the hope that agony would soon end.

As if the heavens listened to her prayers, a silent voice burst into Yao Xi's ears, which sounded extremely screeching, but for her it was like the most beautiful music.

She felt as if after many years of wandering in the desert she had finally found her oasis.

" Ma'am, if you can hear me, shake my hand," the mysterious voice repeated, burning in her soul, as if she wanted to write it in her, in case he turned out to be another illusion, a trick of her stupid mind.

- Ma'am, if you can hear me, please try and shake my hand, or at least move your finger.

Ohh, heaven! How much she wanted to do it!

Such a simple gesture, which a man learns from the first months of life, but why now Yao Xi had the impression that it was an impossible task?

"I can hear you! Talk to me, please, don't leave me! "

She shouted silently hoping that the mysterious voice would hear her, in some wonderful way.

She really wanted to move this damn hand, but it was as if it belonged to someone else. Her mind could not order her move. She couldn't control her own fu*kink hand.

The consciousness of Yao Xi gave a silent groan of failure when she realized that she could not answer.

Even the pain became more bearable for the brief moment in which she clung to this savior's voice.

Once again she surrendered to the dark. She was stupid, thinking that after so many centuries of torture, salvation would come. She should have guessed that the heavens would not end up with her so easily.

A lifeline was thrown at her, only to rekindle her hope, and when she touched it, she was brutally thrown back into the abyss of hell.