To be “touched” is a wondrous thing. “To touch” is that of the same prolonged desire. But to be felt is that of another nature. Thoughts, emotions, and feelings (even those of the physical nature) have long existed between all beings in life. It is a thing that graces not only you and I, but a thing that inhabits the world around us. Insanity had never felt the innocence of emotions, not in this life so muted in silver. She longed to feel the hot grip of love, the long, gnarled fingers of hate, and the cold, blue tendrils of sadness… But emotions were lost to her and instead she resided in a grey world of purgatory. She was destined to observe those around her, understanding one another, loving one another, feeling one another as she wished to be felt. However, as she broke free of her instabilities, she fled her ashen world for a world of color and possible demise. She wanted to breathe the musty air of freedom in which she sucked wholly through new lungs. She would be contained no longer.

Beneath a heavy, crusted lid lay an empty black pool that threatened to swallow those who dared glimpse her. Her gait was even, if not fluid in nature and she wore her tattered coat with uncompromising dignity. Insanity was not afraid to grace this earth as the demon she appeared to be and in her valiant reign across the barren lands, she ghosted her way through lifetimes of defeat. Her mere presence was frightening, and yet in spite of her ghoulish features, hauntingly beautiful. Thick chords of matted tail snapped and rippled at her haunches and her overgrown mane struggled to keep hold of her thick neck like an ebony collar to that of a hellhound. As the day began to lose it’s fight to the suffocating grasp of nightfall, she opened up her spindly legs to the callous ground below. It shook beneath her wide feet, trembling in her shadow like a hidden grave. The tempest was on the hunt for those willing and otherwise to satisfy her hunger, however undefined that hunger may be. Nightly, as she called to the heavens in search of her true purpose, the world was bestowed a most unpleasant sound. Upon those notes rode the deep symphony of tortured sadness, accompanied after by an anguished tune. She was in every meaning of the word, tormented, but just as enthralling. Her heart had long since been ripped from the cavernous hole in her thin chest and now she searched desperately to find it’s replacement.