Him and i - Dreams of trauma

Blue. A dark blue, lively and deep as the ocean. An ocean agitated by the waves of the past. A murky gaze, that hides sadness and contempt. I get absorbed by her gaze, hypnotized by that blueness that I probably won't be seeing ever again. I'm caught in a trap of silence, a trap that I set it myself. Using happiness as bait. Happiness that I don't deserve, that I use as an excuse for my constant acts of self-sabotage. Happiness that I never willed on myself. And yet I found this happiness, without even searching or dreaming it. And then, something else interfered. Something, bigger than me, bigger than my wishes, bigger than anything else in this world. It was fate. Anything you wish, you can have, any battle you want to win, you'll win, but when you're facing the fate, you can only surrender. Otherwise, if you'll try to oppose fate, you'll cease to exist. I can try to escape. Escape my past, the fate, happiness. But first, I need to escape from this trap I'm in myself now. The trap of her eyes. Her gaze so angered and filled with hate, seems though harmless. I can't remember how I made her so mad, I was stupid. We've known each other too short a time. But I never, in my life, ever, loved someone so much. Tell her how I feel? No. I don't want to hurt her even more. She just got over an awful breakup. I don't want to maker her suffer even more than I already managed to do.

We were already friends when she broke up with her boyfriend, but it wasn't because of me, I didn't intervened between the two of them when they had problems, I didn't forced her to take the decision she took. It's not my fault they broke up. But still, I felt joy when I found out.

And I didn't take advantage of the situation, I didn't try to, strike while the iron is hot. It simply happened. Anyway, I worry for nothing, I'm not good enough for her.

Embrace the Light, let yourself guided by it, empty your mind and you will be transformed. Run from Darkness, shadows keep awful secrets, dreadful and life taking. Follow the path of Light and everything will be again forgotten. And if not, it's never too late…to end your life. Forget!

Blindness, did only to repeat the ugly fate, and bring more suffering for running and hiding. In all its might, blindness just grew more fright, now that the time is right, and our hero is ripe, we shall break the rite no more stare into light as nothing is just white. And with all the dread in spite. We shall remember that night. We shall fight.

Where do these thoughts come from? They are mine, but they don't feel like mine. I feel an internal fight is taking place right now, a fight for control. Control of what? A fight that involves me. Involves me how? But I'm not part of this fight… Ah! My head hurts, an itch, but I feel like I'm missing what I'm supposed to scratch…

I'm sorry for what I'm about to do… I'll help you now, but for the last time…take this and hold it tight…don't let it escape, until the time is right… Don't relax…don't forget to keep your hand tense. Don't let go.

Too much…! Too many thoughts. I don't understand a thing. Where was I, I need to gather my thoughts, I feel that I was arriving at a conclusion, yes. I was thinking about her.

"Tell me please, what is this message?"

…me, a rotten thing, DARKEN, a residue of a man, to be with a girl that is a lot more than me, in every aspect. I don't even know how I imagined that I can…

"Can you hear me?! Answer me!"

It was her. Eyes of a murky blue. Angry gaze. It was Sarah, with her friend, and both were looking furiously at me.

"Wha…?"

"What the fuck is this message?!"

She throws me her phone; I catch it and look at the screen. On screen was the audio player. I press the play button. I hear a beep, like the ones from voice messages, followed by a voice message. It's my voice. When did I sent this message?

I press the phone's speaker against my ear, and I start hearing club music, louder and louder. All the background turns black, air becomes stifling and damp. Lights of different colours are smacking my eyes in a violent way. I get dizzy from the light show. I'm trying to recover, slowly, I shake my head, close my eyes, try to calm myself down. Everything starts to calm down. I open my eyes, I'm back, I look to Sarah.

"I didn't send this message; I was at a party that night…or someth…"

She's not there anymore, only her friend. I look around, now I realize that I am in something close to a catacomb. Ahead of me and behind, are long stretches of corridors. Walls seem to be made of stone, everywhere I look I see lit urns and torches. It looks like the interior of a Mayan temple, kept in perfect condition, as if it were not affected by time.

The walls are covered in strange but intelligible drawings and sculpted figures. All seem to be in perfect condition. And they don't look like replicas. Nothing seems fake. I get close to a wall to touch it, it's made of stone, it's thick. In corners and at the edges I see webs, on the floor I see animal excrements, dust and dead insects, dead insects as far as the eye can see. The smell is different, too authentic to be a museum, or a replica, or anything else than an actual Mayan temple. No. I really am in a thousands years old Mayan temple. I feel like I am back in the Mayan time.

I don't understand what's happening, where I am… I feel heavy, and slow, and very confused. My feet are wet, behind me I see a line of footsteps that seems to come from me, and everything else is dry. I'm terrified by the situation. I look again where Sarah should've been. It was just her friend, she was looking at me with her hands crossed, as she was waiting for me to do something.

"Where did Sarah disappeared?"

Emma is looking around and just now notices herself too that Sarah disappeared.

"I don't know. Let's search for her."

Her childish voice, makes it seem like she is in a completely different situation than the one I'm in. Or she's not affected at all by what's happening. Her face expression changed instantly, she's not serious anymore, now she's curious, playful. Even her body posture seems like one of a six years old girl. An attitude that has no place in a painting like this. Or maybe I'm the one analyzing the painting wrong.

"I go ahead, you take that way."

She was pointing to a corridor laughing, a dark corridor, completely unlit and devoid of torches and urns. The only one dark at this intersection of 6 corridors that we're in the middle of. When I turn back to her, she was already running ahead.

"Wait!"

She's not turning. It's no use, anyway she doesn't look like she can help me, so I go slowly, on a different corridor than the one she pointed at, a not so darker one. I'm trying to formulate a logic explanation for what's going on, where I am. Maybe if I try to remember how I got here, but I'm trying and nothi… At the end of the corridor, I see a lit room. As I'm getting closer and closer to the room, I start hearing woman voices. Almost like an incantation, or prayer. Seems more probable to be a prayer.

I arrive at the entrance of the room and make one step in. Inside there's an old woman, dressed in an old and dirty cloak, or more like a bunch of black rugs just sewed together. The woman is sitting on her knees, in front of two sarcophagi, very beautifully carved. The entire room is filled with embossed drawings, this time coloured. These drawings cover all the walls, up to the ceiling, and continue on the ceiling to the very middle of it. In the middle of the ceiling is a large circle that shines rays. A sun.

On one side, I see a wave carved, same size as the sun and it's turned towards it, looking to swallow the sun. In the middle of the sun, I see something else drawn. A woman and a man, they are hugging. The man embraced her, holding her tight with his arms. But the woman is holding her hand behind the man's back, with the palm open to the sky. She has something in her palm, I'm not sure, but it looks like a wave, smaller in size.

The drawing gives me chills. I turn back to the old lady, she hasn't noticed me yet, or she doesn't want to. Everything seems unreal. I don't understand where I am, or what am I doing here. Is this place even real? I need to… I need to figure something out. Anything.

"Who are you praying to?"

No answer. The old lady keeps praying. I don't understand a thing from what she's saying, the sounds coming out of her mouth seem completely random and unintelligible. I start looking throughout the room, especially at drawings, maybe I'll get something out of them. I wander my eyes along the walls of the room, looking at the symbols and drawings and trying to figure out what they mean. Or more like trying to figure out the story behind them, the story they tell. I try to follow them, and follow the storyline, but I can't keep at it. The walls of this room are filled with these small drawings, forming a mosaic of stories. And following the thread, I always get lost, like if you'd write on another row by mistake, in continuation of another sentence, completely different. At some point, it stops making sense.

The only drawings that caught my interest, were the ones on the ceiling and the ones on the sarcophagi. But I don't know where to begin reading them. I come back to the old lady and look at the two sarcophagi, they are placed with their feet towards the entrance.

The left one has a boy drawn on the face in front of me. A sad boy that fell on his knees and cries. In the next image, the boy is still on his knees, but he's looking scared behind him, above. Above him is a wave, a wave similar to the one that was about to swallow the sun. It doesn't look how a wave should look, it's not water it's made of, instead of blue, the colour of choice here is black. I can't imagine what kind of wave it is, but it's not good for the boy that the wave is about to befall him.

The next image, shows the boy sitting down, surrounded by people. Some are trying to help him, others are trying to hurt him. Most seem to not care, they just watch. In the next image, the boy sits on his ass and cries while the people behind him are trying to hurt him and the ones in front of him are trying to help. In the next drawing, the boy gets up and pushes away the people trying to help him, while the ones behind continue to hurt him. The next image is just him, crying, and the ones hurting him. The boy is growing, bigger and bigger.

Drawing after drawing, the boy becomes a man, but only in aspect. In all these images, the same black wave overshadowed him. The same dark wave on the ceiling that's about to swallow the sun. A wave that befalls him only with tragedy and despair. Wave that doesn't seem to swallow him already, because actually…it keeps hitting him, without ending. In the next image, the man is laying on his back, looking at the wave.

The next images show the man how he stands up and gets away from the wave. Step by step, drawing by drawing, the man is getting further and further from the wave, until the wave disappears completely. The story continues on the last row of drawings, the man is standing with his hands stretched out in front of him and his head leaned back, like he is trying to catch all the light and the warmth from the sun. Sun that is shown only through the rays it's sending down. Rays that keep getting closer to him.

One ray is shown longer than the others, the one that goes so low, it reaches the earth. Ray that leaves behind a woman. The man falls on his knees at the sight of the woman. In the last image, the man is on his knees, bent in front of the woman, kissing her feet while she is looking at him. This is how the story of the man from the sarcophagus ends, but that's only the first face of the stone, there are three more faces of the sarcophagus, but the other drawings also have the woman, woman of whom I don't know the story yet. I think it would be better to read before, her story too.

On the right sarcophagus, on the lid it's a drawing of a girl, this is probably her story. I get closer to the face of the sarcophagus that's nearest to me and start following the drawings. In the first image there's the same dark wave that befell on the boy and that is ready to swallow the sun. But this time, not the girl is the victim of this wave, she is the one unleashing it on someone else. But it's not on purpose. She is like a curious kid, that is unleashing the wave on another kid that is crouching and playing in sand. In the next drawing, the kid is just looking terrified at the wave. In the next image, the girl is on her knees, covering her face and eyes. She's crying. The kid too.

In the next image, the girl unleashes by mistake another wave on the kid. A wave formed by her tears. A wave made by mistake. A wave that crashes on the kid. The girl is desperate, she starts running and can't stop crying. Image after image, she runs and leaves behind her, myriads of waves that befall on all the humans she encounters. Until she reaches a boy, a boy that stood in front of her, with his hand open and reaching out to her. He wants to help her. Next drawings show how the girl accepts the boy's help and stops crying. The waves stopped forming. The two of them are happy.

All's good until an image later, in which the girl is scared. She stands on her knees and looks at the boy terrified. In the next image, she's in the same spot and the boy is reaching out with his hand once again, trying to help her, but it's too late, the girl started crying. Behind the boy, above him, appears the wave created by the girl. In the next image, the boy is laying on the ground, and the girl is on her feet with her back turned to the boy. She goes away. She abandons him. And she returns crying and unleashing waves after waves upon everyone she meets.

She brings only pain around her. Continues to destroy until she meets a boy in her way, a boy that didn't react like all the others. He wasn't reacting at all when the waves befell on him. The girl, with a curious face, stops crying and unleashes on the boy, a wave bigger than all other, darker, meaner even than the one ready to swallow the sun. The girl isn't getting any reaction from the boy. No matter how many waves she forms and unleashes. Nothing. The next image shows, that the boy already had his own wave that was befalling him, even before meeting her. In the last images, the girl gets under the boy's wave and wipes her tears.

The woman finishes her prayer, gets on her feet, and walks slowly between the two sarcophagi. She puts her hand on the stone on the right one and starts feeling the embosses with her fingers until she reaches the first drawing. The first drawing with the girl unleashing the wave curiously on the boy.

"Poor girl, she's been cursed, to never share with someone else, anything else, but pain. From when she was young, when she discovered pain and wanted to know what it means, how it feels, the girl accepted pain, as part of her life. She was sharing pain everywhere, without having control over it or aim. She believed that she doesn't deserve anything else but to hurt the people around her. From a mistake started everything, the chain of catastrophes that followed. She doesn't consider herself worthy of knowing happiness and love. And continues to spread hate, just to prove all the others, and especially herself, that she doesn't deserve to be happy."

The old lady takes her hand away and goes near the other stone. She starts feeling the drawings, the same way, until she reaches the one in which the boy stood on his knees, crying.

"He is predestined for the girl. It is decided for them to be together. Fated. The boy is the girl's opposite, and that's exactly why they are made for each other. They are forced by nobody to follow this destiny, they don't even know about it. But they don't need to. The attraction between the two of them is so strong, that they sure knew, both of them, even from the first day they met. They knew what was their fate."

"And what if it doesn't happen, for them to be together?"

"It can't be. The universe itself, the whole nature, EVERYTHING! is working to bring them together. Of course, they can fight their fate. But remember this, whomever fights his own fate, will cease to exist. This is their curse if they choose to not accept, they should not know happiness, but together."

"Are they even right for each other?"

"They are both addicted to dark waves, one to getting hit by them, and the other to releasing them. They both were pulled into this addiction by chance, by cruel fate, and both are suffering now from this addiction. They can't get away from it, which brings them so well together. They are so similar, so perfect for each other, so fated for each other. It cannot be otherwise."

"What if they don't like each other…?"

"You ask too many questions, and you can't understand the answers right now, and you ask the wrong person, and you ask in the wrong place. You need to go deeper."

A silence follows, so deep, that I start hearing a noise, a noise so quiet, it probably was there before I got in the room, but it never was too silent enough to hear it.

Torches start flickering, moved by a strong draught. Draught that came out of nowhere and that I don't feel yet on my skin. The old lady notices herself what's going on. She suddenly turns towards me and looks straight into my eyes. She's blind. Her pupils are completely white, and her iris is light yellowish, but with a dark spot around the pupils. The eyes also have small black spots surrounding the pupils. I had never seen something like this. It gives me a strange sensation when I watch her. Just by looking at her, I feel that I can get whatever disease she has. I'm scared to look at her.

"I pray for the girl, to not continue with this ritual she started. If she finishes it, she will do a direct act of fate defiance. It will lead to the end of this story."

"What ritual? What act?"

Silence again, I start hearing the murmurs again, even louder this time. The draught becomes more intense and blows out a few torches. The hag is startled. She looks uneasy and afraid of what is happening.

"What is happening, if she finishes the ritual, or what is this ritual for?"

"The girl unleashed a wave on the boy. And the second wave, that she unleashed now with this ritual, will start something in the boy, and soon the fate will be challenged. If the boy survives the second wave, it will be extremely hard for the two of them, but if a third wave will ever come… Then they will cease to exist."

"What is this wave? What is she trying to do? And which one is it?! I didn't understand anything!"

All torches blow out. The only source of light is coming from the corridor and those rays barely light up the room we're in.

"Search for the right person to answer your questions."

The light coming from the corridor is getting dimmer.

"Tell me what she's trying to do."

The draught becomes stronger, I can finally feel it. It's cutting through my skin. I can feel my soul freezing, I can feel it looking to blow out even the fire inside me. The murmur becomes louder and louder. The old lady goes between the two sarcophagi and starts feeling the one on the right. The one with the girl. I get closer, scared of everything. I don't know why, but my heart is pounding like hell, my breathing is heavier, and I sweat so hard, it feels like I'm crashed by a mountain. It's like…I already know what's going to happen. On the lid of the sarcophagi is carved the girl, from head to toes, with perfect detail. Her face is…I know her…I have an idea of who she might be, but it's not enough, I don't want it… That until I saw the moon on her leg. Birth sign…

"Where is she?!"

The woman points towards the opposite way of where I came.

"She's outside. Doing the last ritual preparations."

I dash towards the exit.

"Don't try to stop her now, it's to late, it already happened. And you'll miss the other sig…"

As further as I was getting from her, her words where getting lost along the way, until I wasn't hearing her at all, her words stopped reaching my ears. And then, suddenly, I hear her loud and clear, as she was speaking from inside my head.

"Too bad. Maybe next time."

All the torches on the walls start getting out. Soon, the corridor is covered in darkness and silence. As if I wasn't even in the same place anymore, murmurs, draught, everything disappeared. Wet feet and… Not long after the silence came, I became overwhelmed by a whisper, a flint and a…

Another whisper coming, from someone else now. I'm terrified. The whisper comes from deep inside me and it now reaches me.

"Run from the Darkness."

I continue running on the long dark corridor, until I start seeing the end, and the exit. I sprint towards it. As fast as I can I run towards the light. That's where I have to be. The gate of light is shining so bright it must lead outside. Before the exit, I see a ladder that goes into the ceiling through a hole. It is lit by a torch, and the closer I am getting to it, the more I am allured by it. If I stop now from running, the exit will still come towards me. As I never even had a choice. The road to outside shortens and shrinks with or without me doing any steps.

I feel my steps, my body, everything, becoming heavier and heavier. I have this feeling that I must go up the ladder, but I want so much to see what's outside. I can't wait, the loud noises that come from the exit, my curiosity to find out what's happening, the urgency, the exit that passes by me on itself. I don't even get to make a decision, I'm already outside.

Struck by the powerful sun, my eyes used to the darkness burn. I force my eyelids to stay the least open. But even this doesn't make any difference, I can't see anything. Slowly, my sight comes back to me, and I get used to the outside light. There is just forest around me. I am very high, and the trees surrounding the temple are looking like dots. I turn towards the entrance; it really is a Mayan temple. Opposite to the impossibly small entrance house that brought me here, are the stairs, with hundreds, probably thousands of steps. The temple is split into three bases, me being on the last, highest one.

First base, the lowest, was the largest. Between the three bases, the number of steps seem equal. The middle one was smaller, and the third was the smallest. And above the exit that took me here, there's a small tower, more like a furnace that looks like it touches the sun. On every base I see people, hundreds of them, waiting and looking up. And down on the ground, seem to be thousands, all looking like Mayans would look like back in the day. All looking like ants. All looking up, towards me, towards the sun, and shouting.

I too try to look in the same direction, but I'm blinded by the sun. I guess my eyes haven't fully recovered. I rub my eyes, I blink fast, my eyes are already tearing up from the effort. Coming up the exterior stairs is Sarah's friend, Emma, she was also looking up. I'm starting to feel my head heavy. I want to look, but I can't at all, turn my head towards where everybody's eyes lay. Dizzy. I feel my body heavier, much so, I feel how something is pressed on my lungs, and I can't breathe. I feel like I'm cemented in some kind of heavy air that binds me and keeps me from looking up there. The air is thickening even more. I slowly and heavily approach Sarah's friend. I…I don't want to know…

"Whe…where is Sarah?"

Sadly, she heard me… She turns towards me, rigid, almost like a robot, and shows me above the temple. Without even looking I know she is pointing towards the top of the tower where that ladder led to. Where I couldn't look because of the light…sun. I knew that's what she was going to show me. I want…to see what's happening, but I can't…I can't know. I'm frozen, petrified by fear, completely dead. I feel terror, shivers, the coldest ice running down my spine, in my veins. I can't breathe! I can't get any air inside my lungs. Everything shakes around me. I shake… I, can't. I don't want… Anything…but to look up. I know already what's going on, but I refuse to think about it. Anything, just to end this, to not have to look. To not have to feel every feeling that's already forming inside me. Or to hear the impact sound…

FUCK! Phone's calling. I still had Sarah's phone on me. It was in my hand all this time. The phone rings a second time. I quickly answer, anything just to not be there, to not have to feel… To not have to know.

"Mother died!"

 *

I'm in an apartment, finally I'm safe, far from… I quickly turn my head, up, towards the…but it's just the ceiling, and the light bulb. I look down and see George on the phone, crying.

"My mother died!"

Stuck to him, were his brother and his sister, each holding one leg of his, each crying horribly. On the faces of each of them, I could clearly see the desperation of the situation. Besides the death of their mother, they are also alone now. Without an income or help from anybody. Their too early abandonment, their stranding seemed so tragic, even more than the event of their mother's death.

The absence of their mother could be already seen from the state their apartment was in. The living room, in which the three of them stood, was already falling apart, the walls where cracked everywhere, the carpet was dirty, the ceiling was peeling off. It was a total state of filth and decay. The whole apartment felt lifeless. Even those three siblings which had the appearances of cadavers, they were pale and with blue lips, and looked like their life got sucked out of them.

Death, was reigning in that living room…death and fungi. The only things that were giving life to the living room, the abundance of colonies of fungi on the walls, which looked randomly scattered, but also as if they each were put strategic in different formations, prepared for the dreadful battles against the rest of the untouched wall. A series of battles of mould against the entire apartment. A blitzkrieg of mushrooms against any living being. The war of fungi against matter. Black versus white. Good versus evil. Darkness versus light. Life against the very dead.

War that seems already decided. Walls are getting more and more darker. Walls…no…the entire living room comes to life. The living room is slowly conquered by these living beings, and still gives me a sensation of death. This darkness that spreads. I don't think a better champion to represent life could be found for this battle. I'm witnessing a unique spectacle. A lively and animated show. But still a spectacle of death.

It wasn't George's apartment, George's room anymore. After his mother's death, the apartment was passed down to the fungi. The living room, almost transformed into a dark realm, was now belonging to another living being. Over this realm reigned the life's champion, king of darkness and death. Walls were getting even darker, and the little white that remained was trying to fight while retreating, and then started to get into defensive positions. But it was futile.

Nothing could stand a chance against the king's greed. He wanted everything, until the last drop. A fight of non-colours, that's the title of the battle, a battle in which the black is the favourite, and white isn't even trying anymore. Everything gets darker, including him, and his eyes. George was looking straight at me; his face was filled with tears. He was speaking to me, we where in the same room, he was right in front of me, but I couldn't hear him other way than through the phone.

I look at the phone in my hand, the call was still connected to George. His words were coming through the speaker, I was barely hearing them. While George, in front of me, looked like he was wailing, screaming from the top of his lungs. I put the phone closer to my ear, maybe I can hear him better. But my ears start to bleed. His words, razor-sharp, cut like a bitch. I can't hold the phone to my ear any longer, but I must, he is my friend. I have to help him, to be there, to listen to him.

"She's dead. What am I going to do? We are alone. Alone!"

I feel heavier and heavier. His words are stabbing me. I can't hold the phone to my ear any longer. But I must! I must listen to his words even if they… Press hard on my body until they penetrate deep and leave horrible pain behind. I can't help him, and that hurts the most. I become heavier, my body is suddenly drawn towards the floor, even though I feel how I'm freeing myself, as I am losing weight, as if I'm bleeding. Devoid of any strength, my knees become weak, I can't hold myself. I fall. I feel holes forming on my chest, one after the other. I feel my skin getting perforated. Spots form on my shirt, blood spots that get bigger and bigger. My body is colder. I feel how…I feel nothing.

The room is completely covered in mould. Even the last drop of white was conquered. All objects. Everything. I try to look at George. He was holding the phone to his ear. Completely covered in mushrooms, and his eyes… Eyes were dark. His siblings, him, they didn't look dead anymore, they weren't pale, they were full of life. Everything was full of life. Covered by… Everything was black.

George wasn't himself anymore. It was someone else. A known character. He was sad and dark. His eyes were hiding something… Besides the limitless hate… I've read about him. I know who he is. I can't look at him anymore. I choke. My lungs are covered by this mould, this mushroom, this… These fungi, they cover me too. It's not longer until I also get completely under the reign of king Crypto. My body is heavier, my brain can't handle it anymore, it's overheating. I try to scrunch myself into the smallest piece I can become, covering everything I can cover, maybe I can protect myself, somehow. I close my eyes.

 *

I'm touched by a cold draught. I can feel, I can feel again. I quickly open my eyes, maybe… Everything is black, I don't even know if I have them open. Again… The cold draught, more like a night breeze. It's…pleasant. I get up and shake off the fungi and blood that's…not on my clothes anymore. I don't feel like earlier anymore, I feel like I just waked up from a good sleep, but I'm outside. It's dark and I finally start to see something, first the moon, the black, thick clouds that surround it, and then the lit buildings and streets surrounding me. I start to distinguish objects.

I'm on the roof of a building. I look left and right for an exit. Nothing. No door, instead, I see a human figure standing on the very edge of the building. Someone that's either looking down, or is missing their head. I sense the time slowing down. I look at the cars' headlights and rear lights, they move normally. Only I, am slowing down, with each move I make. I'm heavy again. I can barely breathe again. I move slowly again.

I need to get there. I know what's happening next, but I don't want…again… I don't want to think, but what can I do all this eternity it takes me just to make one step…? The person on the edge also raises their foot, forward, ready to walk towards their fall. I feel like my actions are not a part of the unknown person's world. Anything I'd do to stop it, would be useless. I want to say something, to yell, to move enough to just get their attention. I want them to know I'm there. I just don't want them to…not in front of me…

She jumps.

"SHE IS JUMPING!"

Thousands of people scream this…

I can hear and feel my heart pounding in my ears. The only thing I hear are my heart beats. Everything becomes lighter, I feel how I'm getting back to the same world. I can walk. I can run, towards the edge. I don't want to look, but…I must know.

My heartbeats, I can still hear, loud in my ears, but this time there's a rhythm. I stop suddenly on the edge of the building and look down. I gasp for air. I try to look, but I see nothing else but darkness, again. I'm dizzy, from the…vertigo I think, I can't see anything. Eyes wide open and nothing. My heartbeats turn into something…I know this, like it means something. Blinding lights start flashing in my eyes. The lights are flashing crazy, synchronized with my heartbeats. My sight comes back.

 *

"Are you going to stay there all night?"

It's Matthew. I calm myself down. I know where I am, I was here…the other day? I was here before… I was with Matthew then too. I don't understand anything that's going on. He's just waiting quiet, looking around the club. He's sipping little by little from his beverage while looking nicely at the beautiful girls that were passing by him. He looks happy, as he already completely forgot about what happened just two days ago. I can't believe he got over…he looks again up at me.

"You'll miss all the fun if you'll stay there all night. C'mon, get down here, we have a drink with your name on it, writer."

I go down the long, wide, and wobbly stairs, slow, trying to not break my neck and draw attention to me. I don't understand what's going on, but I have this feeling that everybody around me knows. Everybody knows and follows my actions hiding from me. They analyse me, like I'm an experiment, and everybody takes notes on every move I make, every action I take. Like I'm on a TV show, that I don't know about, and everybody is waiting impatient for the next scene that only I know about.

I don't… Is Matthew in this too? Does he know? Every step I make, I try to keep it under the radar, and every step I make, as if intentionally, echoes throughout the club. Echo that amplifies with each iteration. As I'm walking down the stairs, I get a strong feeling of déjà vu. We are supposed to be just us, me, and my cousin, here. But still…someone else will appear. I know for sure. I know what happens next. I know…but I can't remember. I see Matthew, he's returning with a huge grin on his face, from the bar, and with two glasses full of whatever poison he chose.

"Drink, how much you can, it's on me today."

"You know they haven't given me a response about publishing my book yet. And anyway, it's my first one, I don't think…"

"Exactly, you finished your first book, you can finally brag that you are a writer. Especially tonight, with some many girls around, you can go tell everybody you are a writer, that ought to get you some p…"

A huge needle suddenly pierced through my brain. My head hurts and it's becoming unbearable, this recurring pain. I'm dizzy. My head is getting so heavy I can barely hold it in one place. Is this from drinking? No, I can't be drunk, haven't even got a sip yet.

"Listen here, these days I'm gonna ask Andrea. We've been together for so long. She was with me for better or worse. I think it's time, I mean, I want to make a family with her. Let's drink to this."

We grab the glasses from the table, we clink and drink. I barely get to put it down, and the dizziness comes back to bite even harder.

"Hey, hey, let's drink for us being together again."

"Wh-what?"

"C'mon, I know you don't like her that much, but let's drink to me and Andrea being together again."

I don't understand, he looks younger, it's this from drinking? He puts the glass in my hand, we clink and drink. Damn it hurts. As each mouthful of alcohol is like a bash to my brains…

"Hey! Hey, wake up, the night is early! You promised me we drink all night, to celebrate me getting myself a girlfriend, FINALLY!"

"Wha…?"

We clink and drink. And I think, I'm on the brink, of puking, in the sink, till morning. Oh…I should drink more and write a poetry book.

"Let's drink!"

"Let's drink! For what?"

"For what?! For you, surviving that…"

Darkness covers everything for a second, even my thoughts.

"What?! You have to speak…"

He puts the glass in my hand, and we clink and drink.

"For leaving you to be devoured by darkness."

Everything distorts. Matthew's voice was monstrous, demonic. Everything…every shape…every figure and form turns into something else. I reach for my glass, but I hit another. The table is full of empty glasses. When did we drink so much? Funny, I don't feel drunk at all, I don't feel a drop of alcohol in me.

"And you, how's it going with you and Sarah? Some progress?"

I look at Matthew, everything is back to normal, or at least seems normal. He looks awkwardly at me while playing with his wedding ring. And then, it suddenly hits me.

I must tell him before she com…but…I feel thousands of pins and needles climbing up from my stomach. I can't… If I let one word out, one sound, I'll puke all my insides. I must run to the bathroom. I must…

I barge into the toilet, enter the first stall I see open, and collapse on the toilet to let it all out. But nothing does come out. I have a knot in my throat. It's like a clump, it's like everything I had in my stomach and had to come out, came out all at once.

The pressure rises in my upper body. From the throat blockage, up to my head, I'm about to explode. There is no blood coming to my brain at all. I'm prepared to die here, to puke all my insides and die.

In all that agony that I was in, suddenly, I feel relieved, I feel everything coming back to normal. Muscle cramps are gone, everything…almost everything relaxes. My six-pack abdomen came back to normal beer belly. The knot, the blockage releases and rises quickly up to my mouth. A burp. It was all that got out. It was all that was needed for my pain to stop.

I'm waiting over the toilet, with my mouth open, just in case I… I hear a noise. A buzz, echoing lonely. And then I see an insect, hairy and big as a bottle cap, flying out of my mouth and out of the bathroom through an open window. It looked like a bumblebee, but bigger, completely black, and disgusting. I feel lighter, as all my weight and my pain from the stomach were caused by that, creature. How did it get there in the first place? That big…just to get it in must be painful, not an experience that I'd forget, and yet I have no recollection of it getting in…ever.

I get myself up from the toilet, happy that all that agony that made every second feel like a year, all that desperation ended, suddenly. But all this didn't last more than a second. I haven't got even enough time to gasp for air while I was up, that immediately after, I collapse back over the toilet, holding from the toilet's rim like I'm holding on for dear life.

Same sensation again. Thousands of flies trying to get out of my stomach, flies like that one that got out, that huge ass bumblebee. I have tingling sensations along the torso and continuing along the throat. My throat hurts, moves, expands; my neck deforms. I put my hand there and feel all the lumps, multiplying and moving towards my mouth. My head will explode, burst open by these creatures. I hear thousands of friction noises, thousands of small taps, I hear the small bug legs walking along the faïence tiles, the noise becomes louder. I hear them. I hear them and feel them walking, tapping on my brain, thousands of legs. I once again await, over the toilet with my mouth open, ready to puke my life out.

All the insects, same as the first, come out at once. A wave of darkness is unleashed from my mouth, spreading all on the floor, climbing the walls and covering everything in sight. Same as the mould, same as the black wave. The walls are now covered in darkness, this time by insects. Everything is black and what isn't…will become. I shake off all the insects that got on me and step back to get out of the stall.

Out here, in the open, it seems less suffocating. I lean on the sink and see in the mirrors how from the stall I was in, the creatures of darkness come out covering the walls and everything along. I see how darkness itself comes for me. To possess me. I see how it covers everything in its way, and it won't stop until it conquers me too. In fact, I'm the only one it wants. It's just me it follows. Starting at the temple, then at George, and until here in the club. It won't stop until I'm belonging to it.

But it moves slowly. I have time to escape. I'm not afraid. Yet. I bend over the sink and wash my face with water. I'm soaked in sweat, especially my face. And those ugly insects that wanted to cover me… I scrub hard, until it hurts then I gurgle and rinse my mouth out with soap, tastes way better than those insects. Everything seems normal, inside my body. I feel detoxified after the creatures', evacuation. But I start to have a metallic taste in my mouth, in my throat, no…it's the alcohol.

I soon get dazed and light-headed, I feel like I'm about to fall, all because of alcohol. I'm drunk… But I haven't drank, I don't remember drinking, I try to remember… In the almost perfect silence that reigns the bathroom right now, beyond the light noise of the creatures of darkness that were still advancing strategically towards me, I hear a voice. No. A cry. I look and see a fool.

The fool's crouching in the bathroom's corner, facing the wall opposite to the entrance. He's holding a phone to his ear. He is the one crying. I recognize this kind of crying. Crying for love. He's crying and sobbing and between breaths, he's talking. I get closer to him, to listen, I try not to make him aware that I'm here.

"…love…very much…extremely much. You don't even know how much… But I can't make you suffer anymore. I beg you…forgive me for doing this, out of nowhere. I…I…I don't know either what happened then. It was my fault. But I wasn't myself. I don't understand, why…who was… But I didn't had control, over myself…"

I'm felling drunker and drunker. Dazed. Devoid of control over my own body. I hear again the echoes of the last words said by the fool in the corner of the bathroom.

"I didn't had control…"

I turn around and head for the door. I want to get out of here. I already have a lot of problems myself, I don't need others' problems too. I get to the door, grab the knob…as soon as I did that, the neons started to flicker and shut off. I hear the fool in the corner, his murmur is intensifying. I don't understand what he's saying at all, but I hear him louder and louder. Closer and closer. I turn towards him, scared. I expect him to be exactly behind me.

He was in the same place. Unmoved. Not even turned. It stops. Faïence, sinks, walls. Everything…shrinks instantly. I'm not moving, he's not moving, but the distance between us shrinks instantly. We are so close one to the other. All noises, murmur, insects, even the room tone. It all stopped. Nothing is moving anymore. Nothing can be heard anymore. Not even my breath exists now. I can hear my eyes moving in my head. My blood flowing to my head. Pulses. Then nothing…

"…He was in control."

I don't want to be there anymore. I have to leave. I think I know who he's talking about. It's like a word…m…it's right on the tip of my tongue, but I can't, it's impossible to find it, that's how my memory of him wanders through my brain, but it will be impossible to remember. I can't describe him, I don't even know who he is, what he is, or what can I do to remember, and I don't even want. I somehow know, if I remember, I die. If I remember…my feet are cold suddenly, no…they're wet…and I can see h…no…please…

"Forget."

I…remember…but…not…

"It's not working as before. It can't be cast away anymore…"

Something below moves, it's the fool, he gets up, still with his back to me and turns slowly towards me…

"You!"

I turn and dash away. Distance comes back to normal, escape is again an option, I run as fast as I can. I see the creatures moving again, they are running too now. I don't have enough time to stop and open the door. They'll all cover me. I must somehow get through the door. I don't stop.

"You, were all this time, the one that hurt us. You and her. And Him. But…whatever you do…"

I made it. I got out of the bathroom, I escaped. I passed the door, I'm on the corridor, and heading towards the bar. I need a drink.

"Don't remember, don't force your fate."

On the corridor, everything is calm, quiet, there are some boys waiting, leaning on the walls, trying to get a little sober. I can barely walk. I stagger and I constantly feel I'm about to puke. I guess I'm the worst of them all, but I won't wait here in the corridor. I'm clearly drunk, but I'm going to cure it, with more alcohol. I need to search for Matt, I think I need home actually, I can't…anymore, maybe if I sleep a little, I'll get better. I get by our table but he's not here, only empty glasses. I head towards the bar, if he's not there either…I'm getting another glass of whatever and search from there.

But I find him at the bar, he's talking with a redhead. It didn't last long his family idea, but he's not the type to do something like this, no, not even drunk beyond himself. The girl he's talking to seems familiar, I knew someone else is supposed to come here. But who? I get closer and closer, and notice that the discussion is very heated, it's more like a fight.

I hear again the synchronized march of the thousand insects. The creatures of darkness are coming. I see them on the drunken corridor, conquering it, covering it in darkness and coming after me. I have to go tell Matthew that we have to leave. By how is Matt gesticulating, seems like it's something serious. Behind the redhead was a man, white haired, seems old but still good looking. The kind of money can buy beauty, type. He seemed closer to the redhead than Matt, and he was just a spectator to all that conversation, not caring at all. He was laughing from time to time, with a smug and wearing a superior face, sipping from his whiskey which also looked different in colour than what we drank, looking like the whiskey you see in commercials or films, expensive.

The redhead turns towards me, she notices me, it's Andrea. She dyed her hair! But what is she doing here, what…?!

"…are you doing here?! Who is this guy you were making out with?"

"…too sentimental for me, too overemotional. I don't want a weak man in my life. A child."

Ouch, it hurts even me…

"A child?!"

"At least he's an adult…more mature than you."

I can barely keep myself from jumping in the future, or blacking out. I can barely follow this fight. I don't even know if what I'm hearing is true; everything sounds so soapy.

"Mature?! He's 30 years older than you! I can't believe this. Two years together… How could you do this to me?"

"Our relationship was getting cold."

"How?! I even bought a ring; I was going to ask you! To start a family to…"

His face was full of tears. I'm here with him, and I don't know what to do. How do I help my friend? At the word family, Andrea snaps and interrupts him.

"Together? A family?! When you can't even support yourself? Us? Let alone a f…"

"For this?! For money?! You throw away two years of relationship, of love, for the first rich fucker that gets in your way? For a fling that will last months at best? For money?!"

The old guy gets up from the bar stool and puts his hand on Matt, so casually.

"Enough. Calm down."

Matt's face changes into something close of a beast. He yanks his shoulder out of the old man's grip and smashes the glass he had in his other hand onto his face. The glass doesn't break and falls on the floor. But the old guy has his nose broken and a wound right around his eye, blood is flowing out of the wound and of his nose. Ugly. And he can barely see as he wipes his eyes hard, for the glass had some type of alcohol in it. All this chaos, and nobody around to notice it. The whole club exists separately from us. Not even the bartenders noticed, as they are too busy with orders, and the customers with dancing and drinking.

Matthew looks at Andrea who's in shock, then turns suddenly towards the exit and walks. I quickly follow him. I hear him talking softly, but then he snaps.

"I can't believe this. What, what, what…"

He stops and turns towards the two of them, and yells at the top of his lungs. The song blaring now from the speakers has no chance to cover him.

"…WHORE! That's what you are. You…you…you're whore! A whore that fucks for money. That sells herself for money."

I grab Matthew and try to calm him down. As I'm telling him to leave, I'm feeling the hotness of his body, the shaking, the tension. His body is functioning at extreme parameters. I don't know what to say to him to help, to calm him down. He needs me, my help, but I can't help him, I don't know how. He turns around again and continues grumbling his way towards the exit.

"Whore. Stupid whore. Fucking whore!"

I tighten my grip on his shoulder. I don't know what to say, but I can't let him go, I must show that I'm here for him, at least. I don't think I could get through what he is…with Sarah… He's broken.

"She thinks she gets off so easy. She'll pay! Both! They'll pay!"

"Matt, wait. Calm down. Please. We're going home, get some sleep, I know I need it…and tomorrow, when you're not drunk anymore, you'll talk to her…"

"Talk to her?! What to say? I don't have nothing to say. She'll see. It doesn't end this way…"

Matthew pushes off my hand from his shoulder and he picks up the pace. He quickly gets out the club while I, trying to keep close, get stuck in the crowd of people entering the club. Before I get out, I'm stopped suddenly by the girl at the entrance, the girl that hands out condoms. She has a mail carrier costume, of course with a skirt shorter than a napkin, and a huge, almost completely revealing, décolletage. She smiles at me and winks while handing me out a condom. I shake my head of my impure thoughts, grab the condom and turn towards the exit. From behind I hear the girl yelling after me.

"You forgot something!"

She tries to stretch her hand through the mass of people, to give me something, but she doesn't reach. The crowd pushes her away, and me outside. The doors close in front of me. I'm outside. I didn't get to see what she was trying to give me, but it seemed especially important to her that I get it. I look around for Matthew. The parking lot was empty of cars and nobody around. I want to yell after him, but it's pointless, there's nobody to hear.

As I look around, trying to figure where he could go, I play with the condom in my hand. Condoms. There are two of them, and they become much bigger as I play with them. I look at them, I had two envelopes now. I analyse the envelopes, back and front, nothing written on them. I open the first. It was from our landlord, if we don't pay the rent for the last two months and the current one in two weeks, he throws us out.

If mum sees this, she'll have another panic attack. She'll want to get a job again, father will oppose because of her heart problems, they're going to fight, again. And father wins enough, for us to live alright, at his new workplace, but before he gets his new salary, we'll live on the streets. I put the letter and the envelope behind the second one, and open that too. Inside there was another piece of paper, and an old key. The paper was from a publisher. They liked my manuscript. They want to publish. This will solve a lot of problems, will solve everything. That's…too good.

 *

I try to put the key back in the envelope, but I cut my finger and drop it. It drips, in quick drops. Each drop comes faster, one after the other. Abnormal quantities of blood just from a paper cut. As if I cut an artery…from the finger? No, but it's too much blood. I bend over to pick the key, but I don't see it. All I see is blood. My feet are immersed in the pool of blood that just formed. It is almost reaching my ankles.

And it's rising. I plunge my hands into the blood pool to search for the key. I touch the floor until I find it. And I pull it out, dripping with blood, I try to wipe it. The key has a different shape from the usual keys. It is round at the base, and it has no cuts, no marks, no pattern to push the pins, it opens no door. The only thing that gives the impression it is a key, it's the base, the handle that has a hole in it, like the old keys had, but from there, to the end, it's just cylindrical. What does it open?

I look around, I wasn't in front of the club anymore. I am in an elevator. All I see around me are the elevator walls. And a button. Blood is coming out of my finger like it's going to stop, ever. It starts gushing out. The pool got to the middle of my shin. I press the button. It moves. It goes down. The elevator, along with the level of the blood pool.

I feel my body weight shifting suddenly. Everything shifts. I see myself, in the elevator, I see from another perspective, the spectator's one, it's strange. I see myself from this perspective, but I'm inverted. Upside down. I see everything inverted. I feel my body being pulled up, but the floor is keeping me from floating towards the ceiling. And not just me. Everything was pulled up. Like the gravity itself shifted. The hair floating towards the ceiling. My clothes floating off my body. The blood drops coming off the pool, and floating upwards, but, but downwards in my new perspective…

One by one, the blood drops touch the ceiling, and form streams, strings of red connecting the ceiling to the floor. Waterfalls of blood that flow in reverse. Only the floor feels like is having its own gravity, keeping my feet and the blood pool still. The elevator stops, and all the blood drops, streams, hair, clothes… Everything is still, being pulled up. The blood continues to pour with the same flow and in the same direction, towards the ceiling. The blood pool continues to rise and cover my legs.

The elevator is here, I have arrived, but I can't open the door. There is no door. Besides the walls and the button, there's nothing else. I press again the button. Nothing happens. I put my hand there and press again. I can't feel it anymore, it's shoved inside. I pressed too hard. I try to get it out, but the more I touch it, the deeper it goes. And it went so deep that now I can't reach it with my finger, not even the middle finger.

I get the key out of the envelope and try to press the button with it. I have to unstick that button somehow, or else I don't think I'll escape this death-trap, soon to be filled with blood. But, as soon as the tip of the key enters the hole, all of it is drawn inside instantly. Like a magnet, or more like a force field…pulled it. The key, snatched from my grasp, was now floating inside the hole, without touching the interior walls of the hole. I push the key with my finger to see if I can touch the button, but it doesn't reach. The key comes back in its initial position. I can't pull the key out either, this magnetic power holds it in that spot. It's stuck…the button, the key, and me.

Only now I notice that the blood already reached my hips. There's not much time left until the entire elevator gets filled by it. I grab the key with my left hand and try to pull it, I try to shift it. But I didn't manage to do more than hurt my finger again. Now even more blood is flowing out. I have to do something. I prop my back on the wall lateral with the button and raise my right foot at the same level as the key. Once pulled out of the pool, my leg starts floating towards the ceiling.

I lower my foot and hold it steady in front of the key. I aim for the flat margin of the key and smash forward, hard, with my foot. I only get to touch the upper edge of the key's base with my heel. The key turns 45 degrees towards the direction I kicked, and with it, everything else. My upside-down perspective is now shifted 45 degrees to the lateral. The gravity force that pulled everything up, now changed suddenly and pulls everything behind me. By body stays glued to the wall I was leaning my back on, my feet are now free from the floor, but stuck to the same wall. And everything else follows the direction of the force. Everything comes towards me.

The blood pool that was reaching my bellybutton already, inclines and almost covers my whole head, but stops just under the chin. Some waves manage to get over and into my mouth. All my body is covered in blood, except part of my head and face. The part I need for breathing, luckily. The blood streams and drops follow the same direction, and the blood is already on the back of my head and rises at an alarming rate and I'll soon be covered completely. But I understand. I raise my foot and fix my shoe under the key, the tip under the edge that's towards me, which is at an imperfect angle, and I kick it hard, upwards. And the key rotates in the same direction, 135 degrees.

Everything shifts again, this time back to normal, and my perspective is again, normal. I see now from my own eyes. Everything is normal. The drops, the hair, the clothes. Everything is upside-up, downside-down, the laterals where they should be. I shake my body, as all this gave me a crazy shiver. There is no other force in the elevator, except the one that I was used to at birth. The walls are unchanged though. Except the button. The button and the key are gone. The hole is not there anymore. I look down, the blood is gone too. I try to look around the elevator for other changes, but I don't notice anything else, until I turn around.

 *

The wall behind me is different. Now it's a steel door, from an apartment. My apartment door, I think, it feels like it, though it's not the door we have now at the apartment. Where do I remember this door from? I press the doorknob and the door opens. From the doorway, I make one step forward and enter the balcony.

Not mine, it's not my view from Bucharest. I don't see the neighbourhood and the tall buildings that cover the horizon. There are just houses, some hotels and scarcely any tall buildings. I don't know where I am. What's…happening, how did my apartment get here? I look behind me, and it's not even my apartment, it seems to be the too spacious interior of a mansion.

Everything starts moving. Shaking. An earthquake, a strong one. I catch and hold tight onto the doorstep and look at the world outside. Somewhere far away, I see a mountain rising from out of nowhere. The shaking stops. On the mountain, close to the top, I see big, white shapes rising out of the mud. The mountain from distance, looks like the Hollywood mountain, with the white letters on it. But it's too far to make out what it says. The objects around me start moving again, this time with more intensity. The aftershock is even more powerful than the earthquake before. I can barely keep my, feet stuck to the ground.

From the mountain that just emerged, some kind of a tower rises, also out of nowhere, looking like it sprouted from inside the mountain. A black tower, tall, immensely. And it continues growing in height until it exceeds my field of view. Only the violent shakes of the ground indicate that it still grows, beyond the skyline.

Out of nowhere, a sudden fear that it might hit another planet hits me. It grows so much and at such a fast rate… And what will happen if it hits another planet? Will it stop? Will it penetrate that planet and grow beyond? Or will it push the earth from its orbit, killing us all from what I think would be the repercussions of that action, based on my shitty understanding of physics.

I get closer to the balcony railing and try to read the shapes on the mountain. I feel like it's a message for me. A small word that would explain it all. But as soon as I get close to the railing, my gaze is drawn down by a lot of red. I see the mansion garden, surrounded by a beautiful brick wall. And I look even lower. I start shaking. On the ground, near the pool, there are two people laying face down. Both seemingly lifeless. Full of blood. A man with grey hair, and a redhead. The whole grass around them is red, like it's its own colour now.

My heart is tired. But at the sight of this colourful painting of death, it begins to beat so fast. And with each heartbeat, a painful sting follows. I don't think I can keep on being subjected to these kinds of events, these dreadful paintings that I'm constantly put before. I can't even look at the bodies. Ice is running down the spine. I think I know who the girl is. No, no, I just hope it's not… I get back inside, hold my breath for a little, trying not to puke, and then run downstairs, three steps at a time. I have to get there faster, I have to see who that girl is, she mustn't be…

I get outside, get closer to her body, kneel near her. I don't want to touch, I don't want to feel her cold skin, her soft meat, her lifeless body. It comes again, I'm sick and I hold it in as hard as I can to not throw up. I put my hand on her face, and turn her ever so slightly, over. Wet. Cold. Puke in my mouth. Swallow it back. I'm turning her head, slowly, extremely slow, as to not break her neck, to not hurt her even more.

"I said it will end like this. I said it."

I look around me. There's nobody. Where did that voice come from? The voice's echoes keep hitting my eardrums. But nobody's here.

"Who said that?!"

The girl's head, that I was still holding in my hands, moves slowly, by itself. I feel her mouth opening…grabbing my middle finger…with her lips and…starts sucking… I don't…understand. I'm afraid to look at what's happening. I turn my head slowly towards the girl, she stops suddenly. With my finger still in her mouth.

"I thought you are my friend. But even you betrayed me…even you will pay!"

I see her opening her mouth, no, only her lips, she's still holding my finger with her teeth. The other body, the old man, spontaneously combusts and the fire is raising high and wide. I try to get my finger out of her mouth, but at the first move she bites me. I get scared, and pull my hand, as hard as I can, away. But my finger tears off, and is now in her mouth. Blood gushes from were my finger was. Her body catches fire instantly too. I try to get away but before I find an escape I'm surrounded by a circle of fire.

I don't see a way out. The smoke gets denser and begins to cover the whole area inside the fire circle. I can't see anything around me. But darkness. Again. The fire gets bigger and louder, casting rays of light through the smoke like the sun just came down on me. Ready to eat me. To burn me alive. It gets closer to me. Closer and closer, the light, the rays, the fire. It reaches me. I'm suffocating. I'm covered.

"Burn Judas! How you burn now…this…how you'll burn on the other side."

The fire conquers me. I burn. Like a campfire, like a piece of wet wood soaked in gas, like an unmovable object. The pain is increasing tenfold. Without a pause to get used to the pain level, it just goes higher and higher. I feel my skin cracking, burning, melting, boiling, sizzling. Eyes burn, from the inside, and then, a small sound tells me that they burst. The meat is contracting, condensing, melting on my bones. Bones that become red hot.

It smells of burnt hair and burnt skin. Exactly like the pig torched on Ignat, is my skin now. The smoke is getting in my eyes, nose, mouth. It takes the job of burning from the inside. Everything burns. My whole body. My throat burns, I can barely breathe from pain. Like every breath takes with it a barbed wire through my airways. I get chocked by the smoke that takes over my insides. My blood is boiling, veins pop and melt and weld with each other. I'm drying up, and my complex, highly organized, result of millennia of evolution, body, becomes…just a skeleton.

 *

From the middle of the smoke, a draught of fresh air makes way. For a second, I was able to breathe. I hear the wind around me; I hear it loud and constantly. Another draught. In all that smoke, a small patch of light, clear, unfiltered, unmasked, shines through. It's a hole in the smoke screen. The hole gets bigger. I start coughing violently. But I can inhale air into my lungs again. The barbed wire from my throat starts softening, and eases away. The smoke disperses, the image becomes clearer and my eyes don't burn anymore.

The unbearable burning heat, changes into a suffocating, not so annoying heat. In front of me I see the back of a truck. All this smoke comes from its exhaust. I'm in a car. I'm driving. I open the window to let the air in and the smoke out. And I overtake the truck. The rest of the road ahead is free, I swerve back on the first lane and continue driving.

I'm on the national road. DN1. I recognize it, the signs, the forests, the road. I'm driving dad's work car. Fuck. He's definitely going to be angry for taking his car. I pull out my phone to call mum, to apologise. It's hard to drive and handle both the wheel and the phone at the same time. Especially now that I arrived at a portion of road where the opposite way is under construction. And now, instead of having two lanes, one is filled with oncoming traffic, and I have to use just the right one. The other lane is completely stuck in a traffic jam, they barely move, people that are leaving Bucharest, at the end of the weekend. And nobody is going towards the city besides me… Mum answers the phone.

"Mum, I'm very sorry. I know I f…'ve made a big mistake. I shouldn't have taken da…"

It's hard to make sentences while driving, carefully choosing the words, while handling the car in a huge curve. From the opposite traffic, overtaking, enters my lane, a black hearse, and accelerates. I'm looking to my left, on where he could get back inside his lane, but there is no empty place. He's just coming at me like he doesn't see me. And I…already entered the curve at a high speed…there's nothing I can do now…

"…are you alright? Where are you?"

I don't get answer mum, I don't get to swerve in time, for the ditch. I'm just braking but… He's already in front of me. I can only…

"Aaaaaaaaaa!"

 *

The car and everything else around it, is replaced by black. The black of the hearse's metal that crashed into my car, into my face, into me, and covered me. I'm in a black metal coffin. Covered by the same deep, dire, darkness, and already so frequent. I feel no pain, just terror. Terror and loneliness. And dreadful fear.

Alone, I am, and as if floating, gliding forever in a dense darkness. I don't feel my body falling, but neither standing still. It oddly feels like I'm in a state of imponderability, and no force exists to get me out of it. Alone, lost in the most terrifying loneliness. I feel nothing anymore. I feel myself no more. My body. Nothing exists here. Even the echoes of my scream faded. There's nothing of what have been. I exist not. Maybe there isn't life after death. No heaven, or hell, Valhalla or purgatory, not a river Styx. Maybe this is after death. A lot of nothing.

However. It's not all blacked out. Like when you enter a dark room. First, everything is black, but with time, you get used to, and little by little, start to figure out what's around you, to discern objects. I've passed that moment, I've got used with this darkness, and started discerning what is that's around me.

Nothing. That's what's around me. I'm floating in a sea of nothing. In the middle of a dried-up ocean and I'm left, death stranding, here. Like a baby floating inside his mother's womb, ready to be born. Maybe that's what I am now. Not stranded, left after death in an ocean of nothing. But a new-born. Maybe I've reincarnated and I'm about to lose my memories with my birth. Reincarnation? This is the answer to all my questions? Or just another question that I don't get an answer to?

There is no one to get this kind of answer from. Anyway, I don't think this is the answer. I don't feel the safety I would feel in a womb. That maternal love that should envelop me now. I don't feel loved, desired, needed, close to my mum. I just feel forsaken, that's the sentiment this place emanates, now.

Anyway… Why does it matter? If I get born again, I'll lose my memories. Answers don't matter now. And if I don't get born again, well then it just doesn't…

A drop. Finally. Something, in this nothingness. I try to look around, but I can't figure out if I'm even moving. Everywhere I only see the same dark pink. Same, everywhere. I don't know if I'm looking in the same direction, or in another.

A drop of black mist. Like a drop of ink in a glass of water. It falls down slow, but spreads fast. More drops. All around me. I start to orient around using them. Now I know I can see around me. But if I turn, I see exactly the same thing. But I can't turn, I can't know if I turned already.

I can't see normally. 180° in mathematic terms. Or how many degrees has a human visual field. I see omnidirectional. Kind of a 360° panorama. I see everything happening around me, at the same time, I don't have to turn around or move. I see everything in front of me as a chaos of images that only I know the order of. The drops drown near me, there are more and more drops and they lower and widen, and cover my whole field of view, my whole self, with pure darkness. Complete. That you can't adapt to anymore.

"Don't let it reach you. Cover you. Don't you get your feet wet."

I remember what the hag said. I try to struggle, to move. But I'm not moving. I exist not, physically. After all, I'll not reincarnate. I feel nothing anymore. Fear, anxiety, pain. Not even loneliness. I've adapted…or darkness changed me. It stripped me of all that is human, of all that I knew exists, and left me just with existence. And an itch that can't be scratched.

I want to escape, to scratch off this…sensation…a sensation of emptiness, a sensation of not being able to feel. I have to concentrate. I have to find a way out. I try to see everything, anything, but I can see no escape. Maybe I can hear it. A sound, something to guide me to its source. To guide me somewhere. Anywhere.

I try to hear. Noises, sounds that are not there. I try to feel them. I feel something, a sound, I can't hear it, but I feel its vibrations. Like having my head under the water and hearing muffled. The sound doesn't get to my ears, but I feel the waves touching my skin. I try to pull towards me, that non-existent sound of escape. Or to pull myself, towards that sound, that escape. I know it's there. So quiet, that it cannot be heard. Too quiet to know if it's real or just imagination.

I pull it. Like a deaf that can't believe he just lost his hearing. I search the sound. An intense effort. So intense, that I formed an echo around me. An echo so strong. Undetonated, it awaits the smallest impulse. The faintest sound to amplify to the infinity. I'm scared, I can't imagine how strong the sound amplified by the echo will be. And this silence that resonates, that makes me realize how unprepared I am for the coming of the sound. Of the explosion.

The silence before the storm. A storm of sounds, much awaited, to break this constant silence. It has begun! The echo starts moving. It was detonated. It vibrates. I don't have body, or skin, but I feel like I have goose bumps. As I also vibrate.

And I hear. An ending of a ringing. Silence. Again. That ending of ringing. It prolongs backwards, to the beginning of it, with each return, new sounds, I can hear, before the initial ringing, completing it. Until it reaches the beginning of the ringing. And now, once again, from beginning to end. I recognize the sound. I know it!