Him and i - Dreams of trauma

I retrace my drive to the station and find the cemetery. I park the car on the other side of the road and get out to look at it. I can't feel anything now. But it seems so…it seems…like I've known it for so long. Like I've dreamt about it. And murky, impossible to remember, images from those dreams still float around my memories, images of this cemetery. This place feels so filled with these kinds of images of old dreams. Maybe I saw it on TV, in the news or something. Maybe I've dreamt the cemetery too last night? But it doesn't seem that close, no, I hadn't dreamt it last night. But that call, that pull. It beckoned me…

I check if I parked the car in a good spot, lock it and cross the street. Phone says I have no missing calls, so dad's still asleep. It's 11:11 AM. I pass the cemetery gates and start walking on the main path. It's almost empty, the cemetery, it's huge but levelled. I can see its ends. Without destination, I was just wandering on the main path, until something like in the car would happen to me again.

All the graves look so similar, not like in the most cemeteries where there's a lot of diversity. It's creepy, a little odd, but nothing out of the ordinary, besides this, itch, this constant feeling of déjà vu that I can't shake off. I almost get to the end of the cemetery. It feels so familiar this view. At the end, the main path diverges into two others, forming a T. And there, at the T, are two old, wooden benches, and a big old tree. It seems dead, the tree, but still holds up. I get closer to it, it seems so…

Kids' voices, suddenly, coming from the left. I look but see no one. It's not something I want to hear in a cemetery. My heart beats suddenly at insane rates, I look around, but see not one soul in the cemetery. And out of a sudden I feel so lonely, so lost. I get away from the tree and walk careful to the middle of the T intersection, to see all the three endings of the cemetery.

"Aha, I gotcha!"

In front of my eyes, two kids, one jumps over the other. They were playing. Heart stood still for a few seconds, until I realized what was happening.

"You're it, Johnny."

"Alright, but I'm sick of this thing, Liviu wins always and has never been, it."

"Don't worry about him, it'll soon be his turn."

The kids run back in between the graves, and I lose sight of them beyond the gravestones. They probably went to meet the others. What an odd place to play hide and seek, if they so much want to play here, at least they should play at night. I don't know why, but it would seem so awesome. I would've loved to have a childhood like this, and to play hide and seek, in the cemetery, at night. I don't have that many memories from my childhood, mostly because it wasn't that memorable.

I arrive in the middle of the T intersection; I can see the three endings of the paths. At the end of both two paths intersecting with the main one, I see a tomb. Looking afar, above all gravestones, I can see the house at the gates, were the accountant and the guard stay, and two other houses or so to say, small, and made of wood. I think they deposit tools there. And another building, massive, that looks like another tomb, the biggest one around.

The tomb seems like it's made of marble or something smooth. Everywhere I'd look in the cemetery, my eyes fall on that big tomb. It's beautifully made, like it was sculpted from one piece. I go towards it. Slowly, to not get scared again by the kids that play hide and seek in the cemetery.

 *

On the ground, I see how the crosses' shadows start moving, getting longer and thinner. The colour that sun lays on the ground turns yellowish then orange and then a darker red. Light gets dimmer. Everything changes abruptly. I don't understand what is happening around me. I'm hit by this change, like I'm suddenly in a dream now. I look at the sky, the sun falls instantly beyond the horizon and it's quickly replaced by the moon and stars. All this happened in front of my eyes, in less than a moment, like a cartoon transition from day to night.

I can't see around me, I can't see at all. My eyes are trying to get used to this sudden darkness, but I think I'm more blinded by fear. All this time I'm frozen, not moving at all, I don't want to move a centimetre. I'm just waiting to get used to the darkness, to be able to see again.

I can see the big tomb I was walking towards. It's close, I continue walking towards it looking at the ground to not trip over something. I feel my skin, getting cold, shivering, goosebumps. A little wet, like I was just splashed with warm water, but it's mostly my sweat, I'm sweating like I'm running for gold. This entire place has this odd energy about it. I'm alone. Now there sure is no one in the cemetery.

 I know it's night, but how did it happen so suddenly? It's night for everybody? I don't understand what's happening, I'm too scared to start running, and where to, I'm too scared to stop walking. I won't even look around me, whatever happens, happens, as long as I don't see it, it's good. It's too dark for my well being, I feel like whatever is going to happen next, sound, movement, light, whatever, I'll die of heart attack, before of it killing me.

And then it hits. Blue lights, too bright to make out the source, flashing left and right intermittently, made my heart almost jump out of my chest. It's a police car. I stop, almost 15 meters from the tomb, shocked by the image in front of me, image I don't trust, image that changes in front of my eyes.

I see a kid running towards what seems to be his mother, and jumps in her arms. The door from the tomb is down. A man, running from behind the mother, comes and grabs the kid, frantically looking to see if he's alright, maybe the father. A cop gets out of the car, while the other one which was coming from the tomb goes to the car to grab a lantern. Both of them then go to the kid and his parents, standing in-between them and the tomb, keeping always their eyes and lanterns on the tomb's entrance.

I see them all in front of me. They came out of nowhere. I see them so clearly, so real, that I feel I'm the only one that's not real. I look around me, nothing else is happening but what's in front of me, and what else would happen? I think I'm hallucinating. I start hearing everything, the engine, the outside night sounds around me, the noise coming from the altercation, people's breathing, mom's voice, kid's cry.

"It's alright, it's ok. You're safe, you're with me, it's alright. How happy I am you're alright. You're safe baby. You're safe."

The child doesn't stop crying, sobbing and trembling. He's odd. It's like something is broken with this kid, he's crying from happiness, crying from sadness, crying from despair… He sure isn't crying from fear. I would, judging just by the look of that tomb and the broken heavy door. His laughing is changing. Now it's becoming a wailing, crying and yelling louder and louder. It makes me sad, it brings me to tears, this crying. He's crying like the worse has just started for him. I look at the tomb again. It gives me this chilling, not over my dead body would I ever get in there, sensation. The kid suddenly stops crying.

"Wait daddy don't go in there!"

I see his father, trying to get closer to the tomb, stepping cautiously, as if he was crossing a mine field. The cops notice him immediately after hearing the kid and run after him.

"Stop! Don't go in there, wait for our colleagues to come, we are not armed properly for this kind of situation. We cannot guarantee yours and your family safety if you don't stay with them."

The kid's father already got near the entrance. He was standing still, less than 4 meters away, but I don't think he could see anything inside as it was all covered perfectly in darkness. He turns towards his son.

"What happened? Please, tell me."

The cops get to the father and pull him slowly, away from the tomb and back to his family. The two cops always keep the tomb's entrance in sight. Then they head towards the tomb with their pepper sprays in hands, aiming towards the tomb. They start scanning the area and look for other entrances. The father crouches in front of his son.

"Please, tell me, did something happen in the tomb? Did something happen to you?"

The kid is still in shock. He's sobbing and crying and barely breathing. Father is scared.

"Please tell daddy what happened. That's it, that's it, stop crying, we're here, mummy is here with you, I'm here with you, these cops are here with you. Please, tell us."

"N-n-n-n-no…I…can't…"

"Please, try, I beg you."

"I-I-I don't…I don't remember…"

"Try to remember. We have to know, was something else in there?"

"What? Something else? What does he mean?"

Father turns to the cops. One of them was waiting at the entrance of the tomb, with his spray aimed at it. Like he was waiting for someone to get out…something… The other cop was at the car, talking at the radio. The father gets on his feet and heads to the cop at the car.

"What are you doing?! Aren't you going to get in there already?!"

"Stay back! We have to wait for instructions from the section, we have to wait for our colleagues, they're on their way and they have firearms in their equipment and are better suited for this. Get your wife and kid, and let's get some distance from the tomb."

"My child is traumatized! He can barely talk or breathe and he's all dren…ood. I want to know what happened in there. I must do something. Maybe you can stand like this doing nothing, but I can't until I find what's in there."

"Stay with the kid, he needs you, stop bothering us."

I see the father looking at his kid, he looks blank, out of this world, and how he said, traumatized. I get closer to the kid, and crouch near him. Nobody observes me, I don't exist for them. I can hear the kid saying faintly, repeating the same things: "I'm sorry. Please. I didn't want to. Forgive me. Kill me!". Kid's voice got distorted on the last part, I fell on the ground, terrified by the monstrous voice.

The father has his eyes closed. He can't bare looking at his kid. His face is filled with tears, he's suffering. The cops get away from the tomb, getting in the car and backing up so they can set the headlights to light inside. The powerful lights light up the entire interior of the tomb, and for a flash of a second, I see a red room, the interior of the tomb. Inhumanly amounts of blood, covering all I can see. The headlights break, making all that I saw disappear before my eyes.

Father gets up instantly, turns to the tomb and marches towards it, with heavy steps but certain. He won't be stopped this time. I get up and follow him from close distance. My heart pounds so hard it hurts. The cops yell, try to make him to stop, but with no success. He's almost running towards the entrance, and I behind him. Right before, he slows down, to not enter head on, and to be on guard, ready for whomever…for whatever awaits him there.

All this noise shakes the boy off, and he stops completely from crying, like he never was. It's hard to watch after both but I keep following the father.

"Dad no! The monster!"

Dad stops a step away from the entrance and turns towards the kid, I turn also. He's covered, head to toes, with blood. The kid, has now ripped clothes, deep, huge claw marks over his body and looks like he got bathed in blood. Blood that was dripping slow off his skin.

What…monster? What monster?! I get my head inside. Not even knowing what I'm doing, I'm now staring into the abyss, the perfect darkness, trying to spot something. Everything gets silenced, suddenly I don't hear a sound, nothing, I see nothing. And in all this stillness, silence, and darkness, this…this abyss gives birth, to a voice, it's whisper, coming from the tomb straight and just to me…

"Be careful…"

*

"Beautiful, ain't it?"

A man, in his 40's, asks me. I look around, everything that was, is gone, and back to normal. I'm in the same place, but before everything changing radically around me. 15 meters from the tomb still. I look at the man that asked me. Soiled, old clothes, torn by wear. He works here.

"Huh?"

"This tomb. The owners are the same since before the existence of the cemetery, but their papers are expiring next year. It's very beautiful. I say it's worth it, for a forever place this beautiful… It's probably unkempt in the interior. But if you buy it, I'll tidy up in no time. We are not allowed to enter it, and nobody came to clean it in an eternity."

I look at him, why does he think that I'd want to buy this tomb? I'm young.

"The door needs to be changed though, otherwise, it's beautiful inside, believe me, I've been just once, and I've been amazed ever since. It's superb, well anyway, as much as a tomb can be."

In my hallucination the door was knocked on the ground. Should I ask him? It'll sound stupid.

"The door…?"

"Mneah, don't mind such trivial problems. You get me some money and I'll get you a most beautiful door to replace that broken one. Nobody will ever know if it's the original door or not."

"Ok, but, how did it got ripped from the hinges?"

"That's what worries you? If you must know, it wasn't the hooligans or something, no, never has it happened for someone to get in this cemetery and vandalize stuff. We take care…"

"No. That's not what worries me. But specifically, how did it got torn apart, that heavy, metal, door."

The man takes a pause to retrieve his memories, scratching his head, looking through his mental archive. Then he reacts a little, like he didn't like what he found.

"Eh, there was this incident, a few years back, more than a few. Don't know exactly how long ago, but I had hair in my head, and strength in my knees, back then. This incident. The police came here, it was big noise, lots of police cars kept coming. They had to take the door down. But don't ask me what happened, they didn't let me get close."

The man shivers a little.

"It wasn't even on the news. Hell knows."

It's true? Everything was true? The kid? The cops? The monster?!

"Eh, so, would it interest you to buy it?"

"I'd like, to also take a look inside…"

"Knock yourself out. We are not allowed to get in, and if someone catches you inside, you don't know me. Be very careful with the door, it's just leaning on the doorway. You'd have to move it away. And be careful, it's very heavy. And if you like what you see, you go to the administrator and talk to him. You tell him Florea sent you. He'll give you a discount."

The man that presented himself as being Florea, laughs a little, winks at me like it's a great offer to take, checks the tomb up and down and leaves.

What do I have to do with this event I saw? Why did it show itself to me? Is this some kind of continuation from my dreams, my premonitions? I wouldn't want normally to get in that tomb but…

Especially after I heard that voice… Terrifying voice, fear inducing, and so powerful, like it came from a god, of death. I still shiver remembering that voice, letting its echo wander in my mind. It was different from the one at the university, but still, it felt like coming from inside me, somewhere even deeper than the first one. And what it told me; I feel like it wasn't all. Like something happened after, or it told me more, I saw something else. But nothing happened after, it just got interrupted. That man interrupted me; I think.

I feel deep inside me that I shouldn't go on, that it's not good what I'm doing, and that I'm in serious danger. Something bad is about to happen, but only if I continue. This survival feeling, flight or fight, is asking me, pestering me, do I fly, or do I fight? It demands and answer, now.

But I'm pulled by something inside, something that's calling me in there. I look around, the sun was high up in the middle of the sky, and was casting the people away to their homes with his deadly rays. There's nobody to notice me now. I get close to the door, it's big, bigger than a normal one, made out of metal, thicker than my fist closed. It's beautifully drawn and embossed, made long time ago. Now it's intelligible.

I can see the hinges on the margin, broken, ripped from the metal almost, and the wall on the right side, it's chipped where the deadbolt was. I grab the door by the sides and try to shift its weight on to me. It's too heavy! I quickly push it back before it falls on me and makes noise. It's too heavy to be able to let it down without being heard by all the dead people in here, and I wouldn't be able to get it up afterwards. I grab it again by the sides, and try to balance it on the left corner then on the right one, enough to make some space between the door and the wall.

After the heavy lifting is done, I take a pause and lean it back on the wall. I look at the entrance, there's a small gap, enough for me to squeeze myself through. I put my head through the opening, check the interior, it's empty, then my body follows on the side, it's tight but I get it through, I'm inside the tomb.

The instant I get in, I see a human figure out of the corner of my eye, lying on the ground, not moving at all. Heart bursts in me, pounding like it'll die if dares slow down. All walls shake with me. I feel my head exploding, this heavy, enormous pressure in my body. Blood covers my sight.

I can't see. I can't hear. Something chokes me, like a rope strangling my neck. I can't breathe. My muscles spasm out of control and I fall. I can't move at all. Lay I on the floor, dust covering my face, dirt setting onto me, trying to catch a glimpse at lady death. I am, really dying. Why?

Everything stops. I'm relieved of all, that. Body becomes soft again and I can move. I raise my head and turn it quickly towards where I saw the body. Everything is normal, again. I start to come back to my senses. And there's no body here.

It was just the shadow of a pile of trash bags, the way light, coming through the small windows near the ceiling, hit those bags, and the dust, made it look like a man was there. I get up, keeping my eyes on that spot, and go there to check the bags. Just to be sure no one was behind them. Nobody could be, but I wouldn't have had peace until I checked.

My head hurts. These, these fits, these sudden episodes of hallucinations, I'm sick of them. Everything that's happening… Maybe, I really need to go to a doctor. I try to shake all these feelings off, but I just keep going on. I start looking throughout this tomb.

The room is big, and square, I think around 7 meters on 7 meters or so, and like 3 or 4 meters to the ceiling. In the middle of the room, it's a huge stone sarcophagus, of cuboid form with rough edges. It looks ancient, everything looks so. The sarcophagus has the same height as me, with 3 meters length and half of it in width.

On right and left, the walls are covered in marble grave plaques, with graves behind them. On the marble stones I see embossed the names and the years of the ones behind them.

To the right of the door, on the same wall, there's another marble plaque, bigger than the door, and also filled with names and years. A quick check and I see that there are the same names and years from the grave plaques. The big list of dead people starts with Ognian, and just the numbers 520 - 583. If those are the years of the first human buried here that means that whoever owns this tomb, built it, and the cemetery around it, and maybe even the city. I don't even think Brasov existed between those years.

Next one, Scorilo, has lived between 583 - 631. And it goes on like this, no family names that ever repeat, and only men for what I can see. Each one born a few months after the last one died. The list continues like this until the last two, those are odd.

18.09.1889 - 12.09.1910, Andrei Mureşan. Younger than most of the ones on the list. And the last name on the list. Petruţ. 25.04.1911 - 1.05.1911. Just a few days… That's sad.

The last two on the list are too young. Something must've happened with this group of people in that period. And with the death of Petruţ, it all ended. Or maybe the next person hasn't died yet. But that seems impossible, he should have over, 100 years now. 105 precisely. It's impossible. But I shouldn't beat my head, I don't know who these people on the list are, and what I have to do with them. I don't think it matters to me. I better keep looking around. But I can't stay much longer, I have to take the car back home, where I think my father is already awake. I should check my phone, but I'm too afraid.

I walk around the sarcophagus, with my hand hovering over the engravings. Exactly like in the dream, or at least freakishly similar. I still haven't finished recalling all my dreams, but I know, this one, somehow involves Sarah. I put my hands over the top of the sarcophagus and rise myself up to see what's on top. Fortunately, there is no drawing on the lid of the sarcophagus. But I don't think it's a Sarcophagus. Looks more like a memorial stone, or something similar, that has engraved on it the story of the people buried here.

I go around the stone and find at the other end, a tree. A tree that sprouted through the base of the stone. It penetrated from the base to the top, the stone, and grew half in half out of the stone. It didn't want to grow around the wall, or along the wall, it grew in the wall. The stone and the tree bark merge into one object. A new material, a combination of both. The tree grows above the stone and ends in a beautiful, crown, full of leaves. In the middle of the tree, at around my belly button height, there's a hollow.

And from the hollow starts dripping a red fluid. Blood. And lots and lots of blood starts flowing out of the tree's hollow. I reach with my hand to touch it, but it starts dripping on my hand too. From above. I look above me, and the leaves aren't green anymore, they are red and dripping blood. It drips and flows in small rivers of blood on me. It's cold, it's cloggy, and it runs down slow on my clothes and on my skin. It seems coagulated, old. It's a blood of a darkest red. It's gone.

The blood… Everything goes back to how it was. Another vision. Hallucination. I don't know. Under the tree's hollow, there's still red marks. The bark there is of an old red colour, as if it was tainted with blood so long ago, but on top of that there's another shade of red, this one a bit more bright, this one seems fresh. In the hollow I see a small glint, something shining, and I put my hand forward and into the dark hollow and grab. The hollow lights up, weak, but enough to cast away its shades. I pull out the object I grabbed. The hollow remains as dark as it was. It was this object that lit it up.

A compass. Incredibly old, seems older than the tomb. The needle isn't moving, no matter how I move or shake it, the needle doesn't move from its original position. It's stuck. On the edge of the compass dial, there's just a triangle, and the compass dial is segmented in 23 lines. 24 segments with the triangle, which must be the north. I try to shake the compass, to hit it on my hand, maybe I unstuck the needle, but it stays stuck. As I look at the compass, my eyes fall just a little below, on the drawings on the memorial stone, the ones to the right of the tree.

Especially one caught my attention. There's a drawing with an executioner that beheads someone, and places the body so the neck's in the hollow. Pumping blood and filling the hollow until it overflows and drips over the tree, right where I just saw the old blood. Immediately after, there's another drawing with three people entering in the stone, through a hole that appeared afterwards. The three go down the stairs under the memorial stone with lit torches in their hands. And the engraving continues in the same style, with different ritual drawings.

I look at the compass, how it's lighting, it seems odd. I throw it not far up in the air, and then catch it back. For a moment, while it didn't make contact with my hand, the compass wasn't lighting anymore. I put my shirt cloth on the hand and grab the compass, it still lights, without skin touch. I can't see what actually lights inside it, but it looks so old, that it can't be made of electronics or other technologies that appeared in the last, at least three or four hundred years. But then, how it's lighting?

I put the compass in my pocket and keep looking around the tomb. I can't stay any longer, said I more than a few minutes ago. But I'll stay just a few more. It seems like if I leave now, I'll never find it again, and everything that happened today, it will be left behind. Which doesn't sound so bad the more I think about it.

There's nothing else to see in this tomb. As I walk around the memorial stone, I stop in front of the wall of graves. The second wall, with the latter years. I look at the marble plaques, perfect squares, and they look like lids. Like I could easily take them off. The names and years on the plaques are the same as the ones on the big marble list near the entrance. But the last three plaques are not engraved, probably empty. And the last engraved plaque has just the year 1912, professionally engraved. The rest of the numbers to the left and right are carelessly carved, with some other tool. The carved numbers say: 15.01… - 7.08.1996. It looks like it was done in a hurry, carelessly.

I lean forward, close to the plaque. It was the second from the bottom up, and it was like 1.5 meters from the ground. It was the only one without dust on it, this one and the next one to the right. But the one to the right had no engraving. Otherwise, all the other plaques are covered in dust, even the last two that aren't engraved. All of them are covered in dust, spider webs and dirt.

I make a step to the right, to get in front of the first of the three plaques that aren't engraved. It's something odd about it, besides the cleanliness. It seems a little tilted, towards me, and I check and there's a little opening on the top side of it. I put my fingers on the edge of the plaque and feel the opening on the top side. I try to slip my fingers through that opening and pull the plaque towards me.

What have I done!? For a second, as it took this long for the heavy plaque to fall, I questioned my actions. What pushed me to do that? And what would I find behind that plaque? I'm realizing, I'm the stupid horror film character, the one that does exactly what you desperately yell at the screen to specifically not do, as you long before knew what stupid thought came to his mind. But this isn't a horror film. This is reality.

And the plaque fell, broke into many pieces of marble. The noise was loud, and the fall spread dust everywhere, filled the whole tomb with it. I put my hand under the shirt and cover my nose with it. The noise really was very loud. I get to the door and look through the opening to see if someone heard. There was no one close, and the ones I see far away are doing their things, undistracted, like they hadn't heard it.

I turn back to the now open grave, I still can't see anything from all this dust hovering just in front of the hole. So I start waving through the air, trying to spread it out with my palm. The shirt material is not enough to stop the dust from entering my nose. I start coughing and sneezing. After I calm down and dust settles, I lean forward and get my head into the grave that I just opened. It's empty. No body.

It's also clean, no dust, no other thing than immaculate nothingness. And a shadow, or an object of sorts. But I can't make it out, it's further back, at the other end. I try to reach it, but I have to get in. I get my hand from my nose and hold my breath to enter the grave entirely. I start crawling towards the end and grab the object. It's a handle of something, I can't see too well but I grab the other end and pull. It's a dagger that I just pulled from its sheath. Just by the sound it made I instantly knew.

The blade is reflecting the light that is passing from between my legs. I sheathe the dagger and put it in my pocket. I start pushing myself against the end wall to move back, but while moving, a little more light comes in and I notice that something is written on that wall. I stop. I pull myself back closer to the end wall and try to read what it says, but no matter how much I try to move my body, not enough light comes in so I could read. I remember the compass and take it out of my pocket, it lights, and the light hits the wall.

It's the same kind of carving I saw on the last plaque that's written. It's done in haste and without care about aesthetics. Even though the compass is barely lighting, I put it closer to the wall and moving the compass to the right, I start revealing to myself what is written. 10.04.1997 - 21.08.2016. It's the date I was born and…

I hear noise coming from my feet. What's happening? I roll on my back and try to tilt my head to see down my feet. There are people outside.

"Who's there!?"

"That's just sad. Young boy. I have a girl, just two years older. I don't even want to think…"

"Too young, poor boy."

"Wait! Stooop! No! I'm still alive! I'm here, I'm still breathing, I'm still moving. I'm here. Just stop!"

I try to push in my hands, but it's too late. I see them rising the marble plaque I just broke into pieces, place it to cover the hole, entirely. Light becomes dimmer until complete darkness drowns me.

"Help! I'm alive! Get me out of here!"

I push with my hand against the end wall and try to kick the plaque, but I don't have enough space to bend the knee properly, so my kick has barely any power. I hear a noise. I stop kicking, to hear low bangs, on the plaque. They're fixing it with a hammer. I don't hear it anymore. It's done. It's quiet. Darkness. No voice. No sound. I start hitting again, the plaque with my leg. It doesn't budge at all.

"Help! I'm in here! It's there anybody? Is somebody hear…?"

Drops. I hear drops. Like those shy few that you can hear before the rain starts. One after the other, hitting the stone. I can hear them clearly, it's dripping inside this coffin. I start looking, touching with my hands all the edges and the corners I can reach. Until I find the source. It's dripping on my hand, water I think. It's cold. And it's starting to drip more and more frequent. Then I hear other drops hitting the stone in other places. Then I hear more and more drops, dripping more and more frequent until it starts flowing. Half rain half small cascades coming down from different spots.

I feeling my body getting wet. The coffin starts filling with water as the drops sound different now, some don't hit stone anymore, they hit the puddle that is slowly forming beneath me. I start touching around and feeling everywhere for my compass, I dropped it when they put the plaque on. I find it and hold it tightly, and when it lights, I'm holding even tighter.

It's blood. It's raining blood from everywhere. It's flowing from the edges and the corners; it's dripping from the ceiling. And it's flowing fast. The compass light starts flickering, like a neon. I put it back in my pocket. Darkness. But now I know it's blood, and it doesn't feel so black, I somehow notice a reddish tint.

I kick the plaque. Nothing. I hit it again, harder, pushing with both my hands against the end wall, and bending my knee enough to get a good kick. I hit it even harder. And harder. And…the blood almost filled half of the coffin. I have to keep my head tilted up to breathe. I push myself again towards the plaque and kick it with both my feet. I'm using all my strength, and it already feels on the muscles of my legs and hands, like I'm at the end of my strength. I try to push in my hands and feet, but I'm not tall enough to touch both ends of the coffin.

Blood starts getting into my mouth. And my head is already hitting the ceiling, my body is floating in the blood pool, and I try to keep my face as close to the ceiling I can. Lips open and stuck to the ceiling with enough opening to let air in. I feel the blood reaching my lips. And then coming into my mouth through that opening. I push even harder and try to get a last big breath, half filled with blood, and close my mouth. It's filled to the top. I hear muffled noises of movement. I hear the bubbles moving, blood still is pumped in, it didn't stop. It's useless to try and kick the plaque now, I can't get enough force in this state.

I pull out the compass from my pocket and look around. Maybe, I'll find something, some miracle to get me out. I don't want to die yet. The compass was still lighting up, with flickers, but useless as I can't see too far in this sea of blood. I try to turn around, to get my head to the plaque and feet to the end wall, but I can't, the space is too tight. I take the compass to a corner where the blood was flowing from and see small bubbles of air coming in and small streams of blood pushing in. It's still pumping up blood, that's not good.

And I'm already starting to feel it. I feel everything getting heavier. I can't hold my breath anymore, I'm at the end. And my lungs, being pressed by the blood that's filling the coffin even more… The pressure…

I feel, exactly how I felt once, when I was little. I remember that day, it was something shocking. When I went at a firemen training polygon. I was with a friend of mine, and we jumped in their deep pool, over 5 meters deep, and we swam straight to the bottom of it.

And now I'm feeling what I felt then. My ears are clicking and hurting, my eyes burn, by body feels tight and crushed, my head also. And as more time passes by, the more damaging these sensations become. Much stronger than in that pool. But it doesn't matter, I'll die from the lack of air before being crushed by the pressure. I voluntarily open my mouth and exhale. Bubbles get out of my mouth and all the air and blood starts flowing in. It's useless to try and resist not breathing in. I breathe, deep. I'm drowning. I try coughing and pushing back but it's impossible. My whole body spasms out of control, trying to survive.

Waiting, with my mouth open, even if I gave up, my lungs still fight and try to get some air. I feel the pressure around my head…it hurts. My head is crushed, and crushed harder, until I hear a crack… That's it, the sound, it scares me, but it tells me what I'm just now fully realising. I'm dying. Really dying. Forever. I didn't give up something hard, or something that I'll get another chance to do sometime in the future. I gave up life. This is…was…my last chance.

Another crack, stronger, louder. Suddenly I see, all the blood around me. My eyes filled with red. The blood turns from a dark burgundy to a bright red in less than a second. Light. And it's coming from my legs. My body is suddenly dragged out, along with the blood, and I fall on the ground. Outside the wall grave, the coffin, the death box. The plaque broke from the pressure of the blood. I'm lying on my back, in a huge puddle of blood and look up, towards the opening of the grave from which blood still flows out, pouring on my face.

I can't look any other way, I can't move yet, or breathe. But I can't feel anything either, my body, pain, the need to breathe. I just feel a numbness like I never felt before. I start coughing, throw air out, but I can't, there's no more air to push out of my lungs. My sight gets darker, distant objects, the ceiling, the graves on the walls, all I see is murky shapes. I can barely see in front of my eyes, my hand that I think I'm holding up right now. My eyes close.

I feel my body again. Ah! What a feeling. It's like when you wake up with a numb foot from a bad sleep position and feel nothing, but then it all comes back, and you feel it fully. My body. I open my eyes and quickly get up on my ass. I cough, I cough as hard as I can, but it's useless. Nothing comes out of my mouth, my lungs, but air. I can breathe, normally, easily. Around me there's blood no more, not even a drop. On me there's also no blood. I get on my knees, and when I try to look in the grave I escaped from, I'm greeted by the plaque. It's back there, untouched, covering the death box I was in… As if I never opened it. As if it never happened.

I think I passed out, but I still feel my body wet. Especially my feet… I feel my skin wet. I look down. All my clothes are normal, less some drops of blood. It comes from my wrist. I'm cut. I feel weak. I can't feel my left hand, my left arm entirely. Blood flowing out of it, a lot. And then this deafening noise. Head hurts. Skull feels like it's compressing itself. Brain's crushed. Is like some self-destruct system inside myself, keeps activating itself over and over again, and tries to kill my body just through internal ways.

Blood starts gushing out of my wrist. I can't look anymore. I can't handle the pain anymore. It's quiet. It's gone. Noise. Pain. Even the blood, once again is gone, and the wound, also. I had another episode. Another hallucination. They come so frequent, I don't even know if I'm waking from one, up in reality or just back into another. I get up on my feet. I'm dizzy but I can keep my balance.

Was all that a hallucination? I touch my pockets and pull out what's in the left one. It's the dagger, I still have it. How? The plaque is in its place, and it was never moved. Ah, it feels so…I don't know, but it makes me tremble. All these…give me a sensation of complete lack of control, such a lack, that I could die the very next second just because I forgot to breathe.

The plaq… Maybe I didn't pass out. Maybe everything was real. Not everything. Just… I don't know what's real and not. I pinch myself. It hurts, but why would this work, in all my hallucinations I was hurt, and each pain was felt to its fullest, not faked.

It would be so great if everything was a dream. A long dream. More like an interminable nightmare. I shove the dagger back in my pocket and pull out the compass from the other one. It's cracked, the dial, and I can see a little blood through the cracks, both of which weren't there before this so-called hallucination. I put it back in my pocket.

I don't understand. But it's no use to ask myself anything now. There seem to be no answers. I wonder through the tomb, again, around the memorial stone in the middle, again thinking what am I to do. A path can already be seen, made by my interminable walking in circles. I go home, or stay here to look around even more? I really need to get…

I stop in front of the tree. I notice the trembling of the leaves. I get closer and the whole upper tree is moving so hard, as if someone is up there shaking it. I try to balance on my tiptoes and raise myself up, to move the branches so I can see, maybe it's an animal or… A red drop drips. Another. Leaves shake intensely. I move back.

Blood flows again in small cascades and a hand. A human hand hangs from the tree's crown of red leaves. The hand rests right above the hollow. Its wrist is cut and blood flows out of the hand, down the tree and right into the hollow. The stone starts shaking, the hollow grows bigger. The dark hole inside is also getting bigger, filling my sight with blackness. I cover my eyes. No. I don't want to see anymore. It can't be real! I'm hallucinating again.

I open my eyes. It's gone, all like before. I don't understand what's going on. I keep having these visions, with blood and…

My eyes fall once again on the stone engravings, on the drawing of the executioner beheading someone and putting its neck to bleed in the hollow. And then they enter through a secret passage that shows itself to them, under the stone. The secret passage that looks like a huge hollow. In my vision, the hollow of the tree grew bigger. I need to put blood inside. For me, to enter as those in the drawings did.

I take out the dagger from my pocket, unsheathe it and look closely at the blade. The blade, is chipped, only half of it still there. And what's left is almost entirely rusted, old and soiled in old blood. And the edges feel blunt.

I look at the hollow. I don't see other solution. If the drawings are right, then only with blood I can go further. And I don't want to leave here without answers. I'm not crazy, I'm not hallucinating, and I'm not dreaming. This is real, everything is. Must be! I place the blade on my hand to cut myself. I'm reluctant in doing it. I'm scared, not only to cut myself, but of what I could find down there. And I'm more scared of what I wouldn't find down there. If I'm crazy. I don't want to be, but if…

I take a deep breath. Before I went to sleep, I was normal. Until now, I was normal. But I don't know now… I haven't had a hallucination in my entire life, they didn't just start raining heavily on me now, right? I'm not suddenly crazy… I'm not accepting to go back home with this conclusion. I'm not crazy. I just have to…

A quick move, from up to down. To do it before courage is needed, before mind knows what have I done and fills me with fear.

Before me even knowing it. Like when I first jumped in the pool, when I was a kid, I stayed more than an hour, fear ridden, on the edge of the pool, wanting really hard to jump in. My first time. And I couldn't bring up my courage to be bigger than my fear. So I just waited for the moment when I didn't want to do it anymore, when both fear and courage disappeared. And then, empty minded, I just did the action like it was the body deciding, without letting the mind know. Before I got to be afraid and courageous again, I was already in the water, and my mind knew what just happened but long after I jumped. And then it became so easy to do it again. Just the first time is…

The same as when I was a kid, I did it when my mind wasn't ready and aware of it. The blade went from up to down, on my skin, piercing hard and deep. I've cut myself, then follows pain, then the realization and the fear. Fear came this time in huge bursts, as I've cut myself really bad. I don't understand how. I was holding the blade above my open palm, but the wound is starting from the middle of the palm and ends after going over the wrist. Part of my wrist is cut, and a lot of blood is pouring out. My hand is shaking. That's part of the risk of doing things empty minded, your actions lack precision and control, and things can get messy, like this one, horrible cut.

But, after all, it's the same blood pouring out, and I already did it, so I stick my hand in the hollow. How stupid I am… I am just now realizing that I cut my hand, and wrist, with an old, rusty, blunt dagger, that I found in a grave, in a tomb, in a graveyard. You can't get more stupid than this… I don't know why, I just forced myself to push forward and find out already what is going on, but it's getting deadly, this pushing forward that I'm enforcing onto myself.

Oh, and I'll get a nasty infection if I don't clean the wound and disinfect it. I probably already got something… I just feel already tainted, poisoned beyond salvation. But I have to fill the hollow first, and deal with this after. And strangely, after the first gush of blood, it stopped. Now nothing flows out of my wound. I squeeze my fist hard. It flows again. The hollow continues filling. But nothing is happening.

I pull my hand out, blood now flows constantly out from my wound, but slower. Hand is trembling hard. Nothing happened. How much more blood must flow? I put my hand back in, and squeeze and push against the inside walls of the hollow, hard, until the last drop squeezes out. I don't feel it pouring anymore. And the hollow already got filled up to the brim. Blood now flows on the bark, putting a new, young, fresh blood, over the old, darker one bellow the hollow. Nothing happened.

I stop. I pull out my hand and just wait. I don't know what to do, just to stand there and look at the hollow not doing anything. I look at the drawings, try to remember my visions. But I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. More blood is hard and dangerous for me to get out, and even then, more blood doesn't fit in the hollow, it already spilled out some of it. What am I supposed to do now?

"Go on no more. Nothing from what you've s…"

I hear the voice, again, the same one from the college. It's coming from nowhere, but inside, and it suddenly stops, just in the middle of the sentence.

"Why?! Why shouldn't I continue?"

I feel goosebumps again. The air gets colder and rare. I'm breathing hard, like it's an effort to just…

"Ahead awaits you a fate more cruel than death, and more painful than life. You'd better go dead, than go on, or just live, without going on. Follow the path of light, OR DIE!"

It's not the same voice now. They're too different, in every aspect, but both come from inside me. One wants bad for me, and the other…the other wants something even worse. The wound from the wrist is still bleeding, I forgot about it. I pull out the dagger and cut a piece of clothing from my shirt and tie a bandage around my wrist to stop the bleeding. The cut doesn't seem so deep, this bandage should do until I get home. I put the dagger back in my pocket and wait. But I hear nothing.

"I can't leave it this way. I won't leave. And in no way I'm going to die."

No answer.

"Do you hear me?! What's there to do now?!"

I look at the drawing. The man that's beheaded and used to fill the hollow is dead, his head is on the ground. Maybe the tree or hollow doesn't require blood sacrifice. But life sacrifice. If I die, I can't continue, but I can't continue without dying. Wait. In the first drawing there's an executioner, a man that waits bent in front of the tree, and another that holds him. But he's not holding him, it looks like he's supporting him, with his hand on his back.

Because, in the next image, after the one in which he fills the hollow with blood and has his head on the ground, the next one shows no blood splattered like in the previous one, no head on the ground, or body without head. And three men, like before, enter the big hollow that leads under the stone. All three of them, so the one that was sacrificed didn't die, or at least didn't die forever. He didn't die an irreversible death, maybe.

I can't do things half measure, and I won't leave this place until I found what's happening to me. So I have to die, and hope I won't be dying after all.

Ok, I know how to do this. I crouch and get out both shoelaces from my shoes. I get close to the hollow and on the upper edge of it I carve with the dagger a space big enough for the dagger's handle to fit in. After finishing the hole, I shove the dagger in with the blade out pointing at me. I touch it, wiggle it to be sure that hitting it won't shift away, but penetrate what struck. I get my belt out and take it through the buckle around my neck, like a noose. A little loose, but no more than two fingers. I take the end of the belt and put a shoelace through the last hole, then the shoelace I tie well around the tree, above the stone.

I check the measures by lowering my body, it's perfect, my neck is at the same level with the blade. I take the other shoelace and tie it around my neck, really tight, so the blood doesn't flow to my head. And then I position my body, crouching, and having my neck on the trajectory to hit the blade. So unpleasant, that the hollow and the blade are so high that I can't just prop on my knees, but have to crouch just a little higher.

I don't want to fight for it, I don't want to feel pain anymore, and if I die, I don't want to do it suffering and holding my neck from spilling out all my blood. I do this full measure, no going back.

Everything should go this way: shoelace that's tight on my neck should stop blood circulation, I should pass out and my body should go numb, leading to me falling neck first into the blade, everything being positioned so that the blood gushes out in the hollow. If everything works well, it will be painless and I'll wake up still here, alive, with no wound on my neck. If it won't, still painless, I will never know.

Muscles start going numb, but from the body position, is not quite comfortable. Anyway, I'm going to die, comfort shouldn't worry me right now but this thing going well. I try to hold my position until I finally pass out. It's not going to be any longer now. I already feel my head turning red, very warm. I feel the blood pressure increasing, heartbeat accelerating, and consciousness starting to wonder off. I look down, it's the blade pointed at me. It awaits me. Waiting for me to fall and puncture my neck. Any time now. It's not going to take any l… Sarah's looking at me, disappointed, sad, devastated…what have I don…

I hear the blade penetrating my skin. I hear the blood gushing out with pressure. And hear the blood hitting the bark. I hear nothing.