Asher day 3: Smashing the fetters – Full-of-Grace

Asher day 3: Smashing the fetters

“No, no, no—” The word pulses through Asher’s body like fever, each repetition forcing his spine to arch against cold stone. Rain needles his exposed skin, but he’s burning from within. His bound fists clench and unclench in desperate rhythm, like a heart trying to burst from ribcage prison.

The scream builds low in his gut, coiling like a serpent. His throat works against it, muscles straining visible beneath filthy skin. Lightning flashes and in that instant his shadow fragments across white tombs – a monster with too many limbs, too many faces. The taste of copper floods his tongue as teeth break skin.

“Nooooooo—” It tears free at last, that thing inside him. His chest heaves but can’t catch air. Each breath slides through him like smoke, leaving him emptier, hollower, hungrier for pain. The chain links bite deeper, and he welcomes their cold kiss. At least this pain has shape. At least this agony leaves marks he can see.

Rain tracks down his face – nature’s mockery of tears he can’t shed. His fingers dance spider-like across the chains, seeking weakness, seeking release. “Just one night,” he pleads, voice raw as fresh wounds. “One damned night.” But even as the words leave his lips, his body betrays him. Muscles spasm. Tendons crack like whips beneath skin.

“Can you hear me?” The question echoes in skull-caverns, bouncing back distorted: hear me hear me hear me until words lose meaning and become pure sound, pure pain. His spine bows impossible angles. Joints pop and grind as something else takes control.

Thunder answers his challenge. The storm speaks his shame. And Asher – or what’s left of him – draws tight as a bow string, every fiber trembling on the edge of surrender. One heartbeat of perfect tension. Then—

His body becomes pure motion, pure violence. Chains shriek against stone. Blood blooms in the darkness. And Asher’s scream joins the storm’s voice as fetters shatter, setting loose all his demons into the savage night.

#MARK 5:4

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