It is this outer reach of existential abnegation _ the moment where subjective identity deserts itself and becomes enslaved without consciousness of its subjugated condition _ that Mirbeau consistently sought to decry with horror.

Your cunning has proved to be that of Cain. I grant you power over the Hellmouth. May Samael take my revenge." The thing said with a bitter look and a voice that seemed to be many.

The stuff of nightmare is their plain bread. They butter it with pain. They set their clocks by deathwatch beetles, and thrive the centuries. They were the men with the leather-ribbon whips who sweated up the Pyramids seasoning it with other people's salt and other people's cracked hearts. They coursed Europe on the White Horses of the Plague. They whispered to Caesar that he was mortal, then sold daggers at half-price in the grand March sale. Some must have been lazing clowns, foot props for emperors, princes, and epileptic popes. Then out on the road, Gypsies in time, their populations grew as the world grew, spread, and there was more delicious variety of pain to thrive on. The train put wheels under them and here they run down the log road out of the Gothic and baroque; look at their wagons and coaches, the carving like medieval shrines, all of it stuff once drawn by horses, mules, or, maybe, men.

I__ broken. Fucked up. I feel sick. I can__ breathe. It__ like someone__ snaked their fingers around my heart, capturing it in a crushing grip. It__ Emma. This is her doing. Well, it won__ fucking bleed for her. It won__ bleed for anyone. It__ black. I__ dead inside.

Mel rolled her eyes. "You can't live your life based on 'what-ifs,' Liv. And change is inevitable. It's the one thing you can always count on. Stop worrying about what might or not happen and follow your heart. How can you expect to ever be happy if you don't?

The good man is free, even if he is a slave. The evil man is a slave, even if he is a king.