She is dead and this is not her house, though the shape of it is the same, and so is the scent and the placement of all things that matters most, and the sight of it as she wakes after wounds deadly is itself another wound, deeper and longer yet, because this is not her house, and she knows she will never see it again.
She'd tried to bargain, foolishly, with Him: she'd tried to say, afraid and alone with His empty presence, please, do not do this to me. This is the image of the last place I've lived before You took me in Your hands and reshaped me to Your liking, the last place Heysel, the woman, not the hunter, lived in. I can tell You carved it from my memories, because the chair in the kitchen is moved just so, slanted with the motion of someone lifting from it, and I can see the soft indentation of my mother's body in the couch, and three cups of tea, two empty and one not, for my father had a habit of getting distracted, of not concluding a task and beginning another and so he'd leave behind half finished things behind himself and it feels as if I was there and it is not fair it is not fair I do have love for You but this is a hundred needles through my heart, it is glass in my lungs.
Things did not change. She had died again, and back to the house, upon opening her eyes, she was. She'd tried, again, her voice smaller: I am begging You. Do not do this to me. The shape is right but the walls are wrong, they were not bone white losing red, like bleeding tree-sap; and there were not cracks, here and there, daring to display a within not of bricks but of meat, marbled with fat, still wet. I know this but if You insist on doing this to me I'll cease knowing and this house not mine that You have given me will be what I'll remember instead, and I am so afraid of this idea, this notion, please, please don't do this to me, memories are ever fleeting, I want to remember, my God, have mercy, have mercy.
On her hands and knees upon the pavement of her not house she'd tried, weeping: please please please stop. Please. I am Your hunter, Your servant, wholly Yours. This has to be a show of Your kindness, to give me a place of last warmth to soothe me and keep me before returning me to life anew, I will not believe in Your cruelty, but this is flaying me alive. I am begging. Please stop.
She had died; injury, catastrophic, far beyond the bravery of her flesh, and there came the cold then the dark. But upon opening her eyes again, in the space between life and death, in place of her house there was nothing; and nothing; and nothing. At first Heysel had thought, I must be asleep yet, or healing, still, for sight has not returned to me, and so she'd tried to part her eyelids. But they already were. Fearful, then, she'd tried to move, advance, grasp at anything unseen surrounding her, to listen for clues of where she was. And to her horror, then, she understood that her senses were not returning a lone information to her at all.
There was no light and there was no sound. There was no understanding if she was laying down, or standing, for her flesh was telling her nothing, because there was only that, all around her, only ever that, she un-existed within the void of His palms clasped tight, between the roof of His mouth and His tongue, and here she could go no further, she could only scream without voice I AM SORRY I AM SO SORRY PLEASE ANYTHING BUT THIS RETURN ME TO THE HOUSE PLEASE PLEASE DON'T DO THIS TO ME I LOVE YOU I WANT TO LIVE I AM SO AFRAID I WANT TO LIVE.
Life comes to her. Death does, in time, as well, as it always does to His hunters, painful and terrible. The cold, then the dark.
She wakes. Opens her eyes to the house that's not hers, bone-white, losing red. The two empty teacups, the one that's not.
I thank You, Oedon, for you immense kindness. I am Your hunter, wholly Yours. I thank You. I thank You.