Prologue
Fall came in haste that year. Whenever I close my eyes I can feel it again, it comes flashing through my body and soul like a Demon, reaching out in perpetual despondency from a world beneath Hell; the feeling of being slowly but inescapably cornered off from life, feeling as had the sky itself converted the air into a compact mass of impenetrable pallid suffocation. It was summer, people were strolling carelessly in light summer clothes, laughing, talking, passing slowly; it seemed they just followed whatever whim danced through their minds. The next day a wind blew, bitter and fierce. It ripped the leaves off the trees, like it wanted to strip them of every fragile hope they still held on to, in a coat of leaves turned autumn-coloured without anyone noticing, or realizing it was that time of the year already. A wind was rising, in rage and despair, as if, I thought, it wanted to reveal a long hidden fury, breaking free by ruthlessly tearing apart and strip naked the unsuspecting and unprepared trees standing in its way. The sky loomed low overhead.
The world turned cold, as if touched by the hand of Death. People who were forced to go outside walked with fast, goal-oriented steps, leaning forward against the wind, trying to get wherever they were heading as swiftly as they could. But if someone had paused, even for just a brief second, and if that someone then had, perhaps by accident, looked around, he would've noticed a glow in the air, a spectre in crimson, gold and amber whirling chaotically in the wind. A luminous glow in bright sunbathed colours. That glow came from the leaves, who had encapsulated the warmth and beauty of sunbeams previously caressing their surfaces, and now, as they whirled away to meet their death, they let that warm light shine on through in a breathtaking intensity.
Yes, Fall came in haste that year, overnight it changed everything. And it brought with it another kind of fall, a soul nightfall. It hit me as hastily and unsuspectingly as the wind hit the naive trees standing outside my window. When I look back at it now, in the rear-view mirror of life, it feels like it all happened aeons ago and yet it is so close in my mind, as were it still ongoing in the centre of my brain. --- You see, it has all happened before, I recognize the pattern. If I try to tell you about it, as truthfully, systematically and in as many details as I can recall, will you understand me? Will you understand what happened that unblessed, ghastly fall, when God Himself seemed to look the other way?
Intro: Mayhem Begins
As holds true for so much in this life it all began with a dream. I can still recall its every detail more clearly than had the events occurred for real. I believe it will always stay with me just like that. I would like that. Because the first dream was so nice, so good and happy, so full of Faith. How strange a dream like that initiated the coming of such diabolic horror. --- What I saw took place in the past, I could tell because B had that outfit and long hair he had back in the 80's and early 90's. When the dream began, B had flopped himself down in a couch, totally exhausted.
There was another guy with him, B told him he was totally worn out with the life he was leading; the drugs, the never ending conflicts, the spot-lights prowling his every movement. The thrill he had first experienced with this kind of life had subsequently altered into its opposite, the excitement turned into an empty void sucking the living daylight out of him. He wanted to leave, leave all of it and do his own thing. The guy answered: "Well, you can do it you know you sure have the talent for it, fuck, yeah, you have what it takes!"
B looked at him with a thoughtful glimpse in his eye, and he said "Yeah man, you're right! I can do it... Hell yeah, I will do it! I'll leave this whole fucking mess!"
As I watched this I understood I'd just witnessed history being written, because I knew B would do just that. Then, the other guy left the room and as he did I entered, became visible. I went over to B, leaned over him, he looked up into my eyes and said: "You come from the future, don't you?"
"Yes, I do", I said, "and I know that everything you'll do from this time forth will be so fucking great, you'll bring so much into so many peoples lives, including your own.". I smiled as I said this, happy and grateful for everything he had brought into my own life since that decision was made. Happy and grateful to be there with him in that crucial moment of time and space, confirming his decision. ---
Chapter 1. (excerpt ) Haunted
I'm afraid to go to sleep. I have these nightmares you see, they keep coming back, night after night, haunting me. I'm dreaming about trains from a world beneath, where I have no place and still I have to get on it, not knowing where it will take me and what will happen to me during the journey. And I'm dreaming about sitting in a sauna-like room, naked, together with other naked people, we belong together somehow. A man enters. He guns us down with an automatic rifle and a millisecond later there's just naked flesh and blood and bodily substances, all smeared together in such gore, it masks any resemblance with human remains. What meets the eye is just a violent explosion of white skin, red flesh, bones, blood, and a strange greyish-white substance, like a mixture of brain matter and floating fat. The absence of clothes or any kind of fabric means there's nothing there that can absorb the liquids. Some of them blend together, some of them pour down and pool up oddly separated from each other. Together they're generating a wholeness, that, if you could watch it out of context, creates an image that is stunningly beautiful in its colours and structure, still, as you can't watch it out of context, it is a horrific sight.
The man with the rifle approaches me. As he reach the bench where I lay, he sits down right next to me, he lifts me up and he holds me. He lets his fingers run down my arm, touching it in a way that reminds me of how a loving parent can touch its child, to comfort it and make it feel safe and secure. My arm is covered in blood and other bodily fluids. That makes his touch feel even smoother, more pleasurable amiable somehow. So kind. ‘Almost’, I find myself thinking, ‘almost satisfying, in an asexualised way.’ Yes I'm alive still, I don't know how, I should've been dead, dissolved beyond recognition like all the others, but I'm not. I'm just badly wounded and I have problems breathing, due to all the blood and fluids pouring down my throat. I try to lift my head, carefully, just a tiny bit to get some air. I have to be very careful now with every movement I make, because I know if the man realises I'm not dead he will throw me down and execute me. ---
--- Something has awoken me. At first I don't know what it is, but then I sense a presence in the room next to my bedroom. It's dark so I can't see what it is but I can feel it, and, I can hear it. It's demons, hundreds of them, crawling all over the walls like cockroaches. Their presence shouldn't be so terrifying were it not for the noise they're making. I've never heard anything like it before, and yet I know that it's the silent screams of souls entrapped in-between worlds.
I try to lift my hand to touch the Cross on my necklace, I focus all my energy into performing this one movement, but the fear, the absolute fear, is so overwhelming I can't move a muscle. So I just lie there, all still and quiet, listening to their screams, sensing their constant crawling up and down the walls, hoping, praying they won't enter my bedroom. Their screams are of a frequency beyond measure, like their voices lie on a level much higher and at the same time much lower than any living being is able to utter, or should be able to hear.
But I hear them, I wish to God I didn't, but I do. And I'm thinking it's like their screams aren't just random, it's like they're communicating with each other. And it's like they're so absorbed by this internal interaction they aren't aware of anything else. I'm grateful for this because I know, I don't know how I can know this, I just do, that if they should hear me, or sense me somehow, they would come for me, to feed off my soul in some kind of desperate hope that such an attachment with the living can help ease their own agony, even if it's just for the brief while my soul is still alive...
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