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For now, know that when I read those words, I was convinced that something was watching me. A dark, unseen entity that seemed to waft through the air like a stench. The lights were so dim that I could barely see in front of my face, and I thought I was going to pass out. In my mind, all of this was actually happening now. No more denial.
When I was a kid, sometimes when it was dark, I would get this feeling like something was about to just pounce on me. It didn’t matter if I was inside or outside, it happened anywhere. A sudden feeling of impending doom and despair, as if I had no chance of saving myself.
I would run for my mom. Or behind a locked door, and I would turn on the light, thinking that was going to save me. Truly, it’s something I believed; that the light can save you. As long as it isn’t dark, you’ll be okay.
That is how I felt. That I was in the dark, and it was going to get me.
Running for my bedroom, I threw a bunch of clothes into my backpack, grabbed my pills, charger, wallet, and keys, and made a beeline for the front door. The second I stepped out of my bedroom, I felt two hands on my back, and I was thrown across the room, back into the kitchen. Sliding on my stomach, my groin was crushed in the process. Pain shot through my body like liquid lightning. I cried out, begging for it to stop.
The hands. God, they were powerful. They flipped me over like a hamburger patty, leaving me looking at the ceiling. I sat up, disoriented and dazed. My shoulder had dislocated when I landed.
Yelling out to whatever was assaulting me, I said:
“All in good time? No, tell me now, demon! Who are you?”
It was like the air turned to sludge, and the wind was knocked out of me. The floor seemed to be shaking, and I fell on my knees in front of the refrigerator door, holding my hands out to brace myself. Everything was rattling in the kitchen, and I thought it was an earthquake, but I couldn’t move. The air was being siphoned out of my lungs, somehow.
The shaking continued for a moment, and then, as if something slammed the door really hard, the fridge rocked back and forth. The magnets flew off and landed on the hard wood floor, all around me.
All but six letters. Where it did say,
All in Good time, it now said,
i Am Go d
Flying to my feet in seconds, I shot up to a standing position, but before I could take a step, the freezer door opened really fast, and smashed my face. Falling backward, before everything got dark, I heard loud footsteps approaching me, then a humanoid shadow appeared. Towering above me, minaciously, it leaned in close to my face and--
There really is something to be said about the power of God. Yes, I know that I said I was an atheist, but at this point I believe I had changed my mind. Who or whatever it was that had taken total control over me, had power that surpasses anything I could imagine. Darkness, in its encompassing grip, had come for me, and I was being cast away, far from anything I had ever known. I saw my own dead body, and my loved ones grieving. If I think really hard, I can conjure up bits and pieces of what I saw when I blacked out. But for the sake of this story, I will be brief, and tell you of the Gauntlet, and my first time in the land of death.
My first sensation was the cold, because I was numb from head to toe. It was an uncomfortable feeling, like when your arm goes to sleep and when you try to move it, it stays lifeless. I’m talking before the pins and needles stage. There was no sensation in my body at all. In fact, all of my senses seemed dulled, and blunted.
Like a bad dream, I was falling long and far, through the cold, night air. Opening my mouth to scream, the air was stolen from my throat as I descended. The wind ripped at my clothing, and slashed at my face. Toppling and turning, round and round, through the black and gray sky, the lights from the ground got larger and larger. The dim wisps drawing near that speckled the ground were throbbing in sick timing, all seeming to be chanting my name.
“Jim-my, Jim-my, Jim-my, Jim-my...” over and over again, louder and louder. The treeline broke my fall, and I crashed through countless branches before I hit the forest floor. Strangely, I didn’t feel anything from it, like I was impervious to damage.
Laying in the soft soil, covered in leaves and branches, I sat up and surveyed my surroundings.
The sky was a billion shades of blue and purple unlike anything I’d ever seen or imagined. It lit up the forest before me in a unusual tint of violet that seemed dark, and sinister. Standing upright, I then assessed the trees.
They were the by far the largest Japanese maples I’d ever seen. Lined up in perfect, neat rows, it dawned on me that this was no forest.
It was an orchard. Or a grove, on a slight incline.
Standing in the open area between the trees, I could see the orderly files of maples stretching as far as the eye can see, downhill. Their branches hanging low to the earth, bearing red leaves, like dark, thick blood. Never have my eyes laid upon such a place in my whole life, and the sense that this whole place was in a way sacred, was undeniable. It was dead silent, like a church, except for the sound of leaves moving. The way they rub together delicately, and create an eerie background noise when the wind caresses them. But there was no wind. None. But the branches were waving slightly, like a parade wave.
I thought I heard someone calling my name...
I did, but it was quiet now. Quiet like how prey fall silent when a predator is near. As if sound itself was afraid to make a peep.
I looked both ways, up and down the hill, and decided to head uphill, figuring that high ground was better than low. As I climbed, I noticed that the bark on the trees as I went further up was peeling more, and more. After a good half and hour of walking, the trees were stripped completely of it, and the branches were more twisted. The wood underneath They seemed to reach for me as I passed them, one by one, hopelessly clawing at my body, as if they longed to touch something not rooted in the dark soil. Then I looked again up the path, and saw her.
The Evil Woman. Standing not a hundred feet in front of me, she was still too close.
I don’t know how I knew that she was evil, other than the horror that she invoked in my bones. The numbness became me as my eyes danced over her skeletal frame. Her skin was so white. Her eyes were so dark, and when I looked into them, I saw all the things I have ever feared in my whole life, in an instant.
Spiders and bats, and everything like that. Losing my mom; and the funeral song.
The apparition cocked her head to the side, as if she heard a sound that she didn’t like, then strode toward me. Her feet didn’t move, she just slid; keeping her head cocked to the left. All the while staring into my eyes. Into my heart.
She walked the gauntlet of barkless trees; they held their skinny, branch arms out, and bowed as she passed them. Worshiping her.
I stood aghast before the Lady of Death. She stopped and seemed to measure me; her eyes darting here and there all over my body; her gaze hurting my flesh, until she found my eyes again. The only thing I had left was to run in the opposite direction, but I was frozen in place. She had me. This was it. Her purse, tight lips formed a smirk, as the acknowledgment flowed over my face like honey.
I was dead, and I belonged to her.
Her hands beckoned for me slowly. So slow, that the anticipation threatened to tear me asunder. Time seemed to slow to a halt, and she was like stone; her arms extended forward as if she was picking up a child. Her face a mixture of divine serenity, and cold indifference. It was over for me.
Suddenly, everything seemed to flash white. Once, very quickly. Then, again. Time was speeding up now, and the Goddess of Death had me in her embrace. She leaned close to kiss me, and I felt my insides becoming my outsides.
As I felt my soul being ripped apart, I was surrounded by the light. Then, totally out of place, I heard a young woman's voice:
"Clear!"
Submitted November 02, 2014 at 03:11AM by jwwmaster http://ift.tt/1qhsxMu nosleep
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