Persuasion, the beginning

In the cauldron of the skies a bolt of lightning stirred the clay of my world. The rain was so many knives scarring the surface of the earth. I looked out at the storm from the shelters of these walls, hoping stone fared better than silt. It had stormed for so many years.

I am ready for a change, I declared, no more pelting downpours. But how, this question nagged at my mind and time and the ever present worry had driven me farther and deeper, looking, searching, needing an escape. Immersed in my contemplation as I was I did not hear the intruder. Yet soon the change in the atmosphere alerted me to a foreign presence.

And as I studied what little I could see, the storm sent down lightning like an invasion illuminating the world in blinding light. The piercing rays passed right through the one I saw and though the thunder brought me to my knees by its strength that thing did not waver. I had met an entity who was impervious to the tempest.

In the deafening darkness and the blind noise I felt myself ask how. How can I be like you? It did not respond. Is there no way? I pleaded, can you not help me? It did not even seem to see me. I would do anything, try anything, bear all burdens to escape the madness of the cyclone. Then as if being suddenly surprised the thing saw me.

And all hope abandoned me. For in the moment of it peering at me I perceived what it would require of me to enable me to weather the hurricane. Service for protection, fealty like enslavement, a cold barren cell in exchange for my thunderous hell. I would be punished for any reason, or none, I would be used as it pleased, and I would do it... or I would be cast out into the storm and denied all shelter.

No hope, no purpose of my own, no escapes. Sold body and soul, sold down to my bones. Yet not sold, stolen away a theft to the core and the thief my jailer. But despite the bleak reality I accepted my lot knowing fully I deserved far worse. I created the storm, I fashioned every wind and every raindrop. I brewed the lightning purposely and caused the clouds to gather.

And now because of my exchange I have accepted a storm beside my spirit in the place of a storm upon my flesh. Dealing done, and nothing won. All is lost and I care not, for my fate is sealed and no one can unseal it except one. And why would He unseal me? I've been persuaded, I can't stop it anymore. My road I walk, my journey into a coffin.

Dt

P.s.

If you think this rather depressing then you have missed the purpose. Indeed it is depressing, but it is a story. And the story is not over, no journey is completed without reaching a destination. So I invite you to endure the sadness and the suffering, to understand the path of one who is persuaded, who is possessed. But I want you to understand someone who is afflicted in this way, and to have a passion to help them. So I will continue the story, I will continue to unfold the misery, to show the depths into which they are forced.