HALF LIFE UNDER THE HYDRA'S SKY.

            Half Life of the Hydra’s Sky, also known as ecliptic nyctophobia, was a many-faced disorder characterised by an intense fear of social situations and an impaired ability to function productivily in many parts of an individual’s daily life. 

            As specified by the Diagnostic Asterism Manual, the Hydra’s Sky was the offspring of post-fault line depression and a variety of deep sky anxieties.  Accordingly, the psychological symptoms accompanying the Hydra’s Sky may have included half-life mimicry (identity decay), dizziness, panic attacks and cognitive distortions (such as catastrophizing, mislabeling, depersonalization), unintentional thrashing and masking s (a form of constellation dysmorphic disorder), as well as the co-occurrence of narcissistic defenses and virulent behavior.
            It was common for sufferers of the ecliptic nyctophobia to reduce interpersonal communication and social activities in an effort to limit exposure to both others and themselves.  If undiagnosed, untreated, or both, this could hvae lead to self-confinement, isolation rituals, avoidant food intake disorders and other kinds of anatomical nausea and abuse.

            Research into the causes of the Hydra’s Sky were wide-ranging, encompassing multiple perspectives from surface psychology to celestial cartography. Scientists have yet to pinpoint the exact cause of the disorder, however studies suggested that continental upbringing can play a part in combination with chemical factors.  For some, even a minor instance of identity decay could evolve into a complex, many faced disorder, cyclically strengthened by both negative schema and self-destructive reflexivity. 

            We lived under the western edge of the serpent’s sky, closer to starlight than we'd ever been.  

            Back of each jawbone was broken still, covered in gray splotches, dust storms, pale clouds.  More sky tissue scarred open and disappearing at the same time.  Were they paying attention, keeping track of the replacements I tried to make?

            Wore black eyes every day, didn’t have a choice.  That’s what they must have meant by permanent.  

            What parts of ‘terminal anxiety’ did I forget to understand?  They said it was a post-fault line depression, found a new name for a color I couldn’t touch.
              Was I just getting used to a half life anatomy?  Was there a way to say to explain it simply, without deflection or disguise?  I don’t think I was even close.  I could barely remember which expressions I was supposed to hide, or how to keep a conversation a certain size,  or when to breathe left or right.  Slowly, the skies were getting smaller and smaller, starting to sink into each other.

            I tried to prepare an explanation for them the best I could, worked on a home-made inventory:     

            Slow.  Sluggish.   Already lost more than arms and legs.  Non-responsive.  Almost cold-blooded.  A list of minor traumas, anxieties, tremors.  I knew I couldn't just keep using exhaustion as an excuse.
            How could I tell them how corpse white they looked to me now? Kept dissecting scales and skin, it wasn’t getting better anyone else.  

            Hydra’s wrong, I wouldn’t last.

            Only exile was left to connect stars to the sky.  Jillison called it the end of denial, a rejection of clear lines and recursive intent.  She said each constellation had a consequence of it’s own. 

            It had been a year, a year and a half, two years?  Still couldn’t move to close the night windows, still hardly ever left the room.  Kept swallowing the same stale air over and over and calling it what was left of me.  

            Of course I knew the obvious metaphors.  Toothmarks on a raw white spine, a ring of cyclical incisions, a serpent swallowing its tail.

            Decay was not constant, decay was not a coincidence.  

            Tried to get as dead west from there as I could, used isolation as my last form of revenge.  That was just the way it was, I could never keep myself from taking the bait, even when I knew it would all taste the same.  

            What did you mean to take me back there for?   How much of it has anything to do with a body?

            Eyes still gravel black, and only a shallow sky allowed you to survive.  I stayed awake, I wore scales and fangs to keep myself safe in the night.  I learned there are two kinds of half-life (blood loss, sentimentality) and they can both kill you quietly.              Starlight tried to strangle us, tried to poison us, maybe we should have let it this time.

            Jillison called it the oldest and the longest of the constellation traumas.

            We couldn’t leave each other together, not there at least.  My eyelids were lying open and I still couldn’t tell the difference between a defense mechanism and a shedded snakeskin.

             Curtains as this as, yes, I still remembered it well.  You don’t forget the first time you see yourself split in half. You don’t forget a full continent without a face, without a skull, without hands or even shadows of them.

            How many times had those shadows died already?  Even after all of it since, the rifts to come and those that controlled us completely.  How many faces had we used up as an excuse to live anywhere else?  

            Hydra by starlight, naked and vulnerable, severed and choking.  Another threat within a threat, and the Hereafter wasn't anything like we thought it would be.