Paralyzed. Degraded. Stripped and deprived of my own freewill. Thrown back and forth into the throes of excruciation. Scrutinised. Incapacitated. Cut. Stretched. Torn apart.
Something keen and incomprehensible is worming around in my stomach. Sliding between my entrails. Numerous, unidentifiable shadows come forth from the peripheral darkness and encircle the slab as a collective whirlwind.
Who are they?
Why are they here?
Seeing them again takes me back to those nights I had spent alone in that neglected council house when I was homeless, and my faith in god was broken. They were always there. Visiting me at dead hour. Watching me. Keeping me company in times of hardship, as though they were conscious of my situation.
They were attentive in their own way.
I catch the mantis lurking in the corner of my eye, but I sense another presence approaching my side. In comparison to my tormentor, it feels distinctive yet familiar. Through the torture, I am somewhat able to discern an imposing and tall silhouette beside the mantis. Multiple horns. Bright and radiant, ensanguined eyes; the same ones reflected in my dream. Then, the figure slips out of sight and vanishes, leaving me behind to suffer this miserable nightmare in agonising bondage. Forced to anticipate my next affliction and to tolerate the sheer anguish.
I am regretful to say, as god as my witness, whether I am conscious or not, I will make you answer me.
The mantis recaptures my divided concentration and drags me back with possessive force, so that my thoughts may only consist of her.
"Listen to me very carefully." Her tone is flat and apathetic.
"Up until your usefulness expires, your life still belongs to me. Conditionally."
I channel all of my anguish and muster what little remains of my strength to lift my head up off the slab. Stiffly bringing my shoulders forward. I feel the invisible pressure pushing against my chest. I gnash my teeth.
"I BELONG TO NO ONE." Unapologetically, spouting blood and saliva from my mouth. Then my head slams back down on the slab, resulting in a loud resonating bang upon the suspended operating tabletop. The impact of the cold, solid collision releases a splitting pang from the back of my skull. My throat is rendered sore and parched. I am unable to swallow or cry out to the detached halos suspended above me.
The pain never falters - or ends.
My last reserve of vitality has been completely sapped from my body, as I am overwhelmed by a ravenous fatigue - my final retort.
"Abandon all foolish notions of resistance. Surrendering to your fate is your only option."
My mind is drained and exhausted from the stress of the ongoing torment. This is insanity. Madness. How much more of this can I possibly take?
"Relinquish all self-made promises of salvation and liberation, because delusion is the true definition of hope."
Those very words linger and echo into the depths of my mind as I can feel myself drifting away again into the darkness. The same ever-watchful eyes enlighten within the incalculable depths of my internal abyss.
Does morality exist, or is it purely subjective? Is she amoral or immoral? Or is there a morality spectrum at all? If the roles were reversed, and I was the one in her stead, my actions would have been considered pivotal – excusable. To them, it's just an insect.
Regardless of the species, the action and the intent are still the same. I am the same – and so is she. One inflicts, as the other suffers total anguish and degradation.
Humanity doesn't get to choose what is right and wrong.
Sullen rays of light penetrate through the undrawn aqueous curtains above me. I swim upwards. Performing a breaststroke. Pushing through the void's slow and dense inner currents. I advance to the surface – and hastily find my feet. Standing on the endless imaginal expanse of dismal blue. Hundreds of gargantuan-sized corpses lie face down, floating in the water. Their skin is discolored. Paled to an ivory yellow. Clumps of hair waver in the swaying motion of the tidal waves. Pieces of bark, plantation, and earth drift among the drowned.
Strangely enough, there is no foul stench or wind here.
I wonder if my inner domain is a metaphoric interpretation – or just a reimagined distortion of what had transpired in reality? The possible conclusion of the nephilim's inescapable fate is being shown to me through my subconscious. The unfortunate and condemned souls whose names were never recorded or learned in history remain forgotten.
Faces and identities of the past are abandoned by the cruel passage of time.
The great biblical flood and those who had a grander role to play during the cataclysm were documented. Remembered and revered by future generations. Minor details of the event, and the era, which existed before the global deluge, suffered a vast oversight; overshadowed by the disaster.
Effaced in god's name.
Beholding this colossal parade of carcasses does not bother or unsettle me, because I am already there myself. I'll be joining them soon enough.
I have received my lifetime's worth of bloodshed and violence. I don't need anymore.
The suffering - I just want it to end.
The bloody eyes of the oceanic void beneath the placid waves continue to stare at me in silence.
"What the hell are you gawking at?" I kick the water, and a faint projection of a frail human physique manifests, standing in place of the spraying saltwater spatter. Strengthening its opacity and vividness. Overcoming transparency. Gradually solidifying. It has an overall sickly and unnaturally pale complexion. Shins sliced open, and bleeding down to the toes. Multiple surgical incisions are visibly located around the pelvic area and the thighs. Flesh has been sliced and peeled back. Enfolded outwardly and pinned against the sides of the gaping, surgical wound.
Blood-soaked.
Oozing with crimson.
Revealing the raw and sanguinary abdominal anterior underneath. Displaying the organs as they move and rearrange themselves. Placed and displaced by an invisible force. Triggering a bloody waterfall, dyeing below the waist, and past the knees.
Short, mangled black hair frames their heart-shaped face, with split ends evanescently stroking against their soft, rounded jawline. Their brownish amber, doe-like eyes are lackluster, dispirited, and wearisome.
It can't be.
"This – this isn't me." I refuse to believe it so. Then a hard, bitter coldness grips my jaw and forces me to stare into the dejected eyes of death itself.
What have I become?
"Words will not save you, so listen well, and listen good. The chances of us reclaiming the normality we once knew and lived by is dead. Our past is dead. Our state of mind is too far gone. There is no hope for peace. Not for us. Not in this life."
I pry their hand from my face and take a hasty step back.
"Get away from me!" I grit and bare my teeth with a throaty growl. I've had enough. Enough of being carried, grabbed, and tossed around as though I am some sort of plaything; used at my expense.
Used and hurt.
Even if this is the true representation of myself reflected from the outside world, I don't want to see what she has done to me.
No more afflictions.
No more subjugation.
Just - no more.
Please.
The apparition steps towards me, closing the gap between us, reinserting itself into my personal space again. It cracks an awful sneer of a smile, showcasing their bloodstained teeth; a few are missing. I wince and divert my gaze.
She keeps taking, and taking.
How much more of me does she plan to use?
"Look at me." It demands, but I abstain.
"I said, look at me!"
With fleeting reluctance, I give in to its insistence and force myself to look at my own apparition – the horror reflected back at me.
My mirrored self, illustrated within my subconscious.
"Do you remember the promise we made?"
"Of course I do!" I snap. Biting back.
"I wouldn't dare to forget my own failure."I should have kept my mouth shut and not said anything at all.
"Besides, what good can an empty promise do for him now?"
"There is still time to save him."
"Still time? He was murdered for fuck sake! Or have you forgotten that we both have the same pair of eyes?" I know what I saw; so don't you dare start playing mind games with me. This isn't some fantasy novel.
This is reality.
"We can't bring back the dead."
How can I hope to save him when there is no hope in saving myself? He's gone, and there is nothing we can do about it, nor is there any escape from this detestable nightmare. All I can do is hang helplessly from the precipice of failure until my grip slips, and I fall to my untimely death.
This fate has unfortunately become my one and only ticket to salvation.
My surrender.
"Sometimes, our introspection can deceive the best of us and lead us astray. Our telepathic and empathic interlink to our companion was disbanded; our soul connection, however, was not. The connection between our souls is permanent. A bond, which was formed in a previous lifetime."
This bullshit again.
Haven't we discussed this subject already?
Either that – or they're joking. Between the two options, I'm hoping for the latter.
"We only have one life."
They smirk.
"Still clinging onto that same old belief, are we? Amnesia does wonders, doesn't it?"
"But I'm not suffering from amnesia."
"Yes, you are. You're just none the wiser to it."
Then they tap the side of their head with their index finger.
"The brain is the last organ she will vivisect."
"What?"
Noticing my dumbfounded expression, they elaborate.
"That sadist wants to learn about our thoughts, our emotions, and more importantly – examine our memories; to gain invaluable insight from our perspective."
A hint of silver begins to gleam within the swirling overcast above.
"To know how and what makes humanity tick." They murmur. Relaying a grave solemnity.
Then a reverberant hum of sickening contentment traverses my inner realm of dream - exciting the once settled waters.
"But, what if she discovers something unexpected. A questionable memory that will turn her fear into a reality." It said. Their smug smirk spreads wide, into something maniacal. It becomes warped. Outstretched to unnatural proportions, almost appearing demonic.
"Why would she fear me? I'm just a lab rat to her."
"No, you're not. You are so much more. More than you could ever imagine."
They glance at the silent and observant shadow residing in the abyss below us.
"There are times when we become our worst enemy. That is why it's important to acknowledge and to accept the darkest parts of ourselves so we can move forward." Then a straight, impeccable red line is drawn horizontally underneath the fore of their hairline. Blood trickles down their forehead.
I touch my temples to discover red coating my fingertips.
A giant blade plunges down from the circulating heavens and slices through its clouded coverture. Then a spill of diluted pink pollutes the cleaved atmosphere, as if a small drop of paint were mixed in with filthy water and swirled around by a paintbrush. Then veins begin to creep out from the cut spiral and branch across the horizon - spreading throughout.
I double-take, and my mirrored self is gone.
"Hurry; we don't have much time."
I crouch down and examine the seismic shadow beneath me. My darkest self is represented by the recurring guise of the horned entity.
Why?
Why that murderer?
Welling with anger. I clench my teeth and snarl.
"Tell me who you are!
It was more of a demand than an inquiry, but even so...
"I want answers. And you will give them to me!"
The eight-eyed specter tilts its head to the side in question and moves graciously within the infinite blackness. Then a hunched silhouette arises in full emergence from the deepest parts of the ocean, with its arms dangling loose at its side, and ink pouring from its monstrous frame.
It stands at the full height of twelve feet. The creature turns around in a slow and nonchalant manner, facing its broad back to me as it begins to walk in the opposite direction - across the oceanic expanse.
"Hey! Wait a minute!" I chase after it, although I am at a disadvantage compared to its quick, strident pace.
The shadow is already ten steps ahead of me.
"I'm not done with you yet!" I stumble, almost tripping over my own feet as the surrounding buoyant carcasses huddle together, putting my pursuit on hold, and delaying haste. Bones snap. Cartilage pops. Skin sunders. Tissue tears, ending in tatters. Blood escapes and flows, tainting the cerulean ocean. Spines slither. Corpses of the drowned fuse together through the act of bodily unification as a collective mergence undergoing a graphic metamorphosis. Suturing the torn. Amending the broken. Recycling the inanimate. Remolding them into a new yet conjunct, existential design.
Constructing a macabre maze of bookshelves.
A library made from the damned and the innocent.
Deformed and grotesque faces surface, screaming soundlessly into the sanguineous skin of the towering bookshelves. The construct is exhibiting their contorted expressions in their final moments of drowning - before taking their last breath. Making them relive their harrowing experience in a continuous loop, like a broken record. Webbed hands are outstretched, pleading, and trembling with undeniable desperation. Ravenously clawing outward, with nothing in their reach. Imprisoned behind a suffocating entrapment of skin.
They hunger for relinquishment. Desiring to be released from their eternal suffering.
"Hurry." The disembodied voice of the apparition urges me. I burst into a sprint, steering myself straight and down the middle of the aisle. Staying clear of their eager hands, itching to spirit me away to the afterlife.
Limbo's relentless ensnare.
"Right." My other self instructs - acting as my source of navigation through the maze.
I heed their guidance and swivel around the first right-hand corner, turning into the next row. I sight the ink silhouette ahead from afar.
I continue running. Avoiding the zealous grasps. Trying to refrain from looking at their ghoulish expressions stretching and convoluting underneath the layers of flesh, as their dying wails fall on deaf ears. I narrow my sense of heedfulness until I start seeing tunnel vision. Concentrating solely on my intended path, and my aloof guide, who is apparently the darkest aspect of my ego. Then all of a sudden the void's begotten specter merges with a standalone detached bookcase positioned at a dead-end.
I stop and stand before the infected fixture. Ink cascades from the top, pouring down from shelf to shelf like an obsidian waterfall, and pools into the ocean. Polluting it. Mixing black, blue, and red - creating almost a purple dye. There are no clawing hands or mute screaming faces coming from within the bookcase, but there is a black book lying flat on the middle shelf, whereas the rest are empty.
I grab the ink-coated novella. Retrieving it from its lonesome placement. The spine is toothed and ridged. Comprised of miniature segments of bone and cartilage. I grimace at the wet, bloodstained flaps of squared, hybridised skin of angel and human, used as pages.
The title reads: The Guide to Unemployment and Existential Misery.
Great. Just great. Now my subconscious is ridiculing me.
It couldn't have chosen a more perfect time to be obnoxious, and of course, develop a sudden sense of humor through my personal expense while I'm sitting on death's welcome mat.
I huff and look at the title again in annoyance, then it reads: Resurrection.
I frown, feeling perplexed.
It changed?
Or did I misread it the first time?
No.
That's impossible.
I blink, and the title stays the same. It has the number one engraved into one of the lower miniature vertebral columns of the book's spine.
Indicating the first of a possible series?
Volume one?
Or a one-hit wonder?
I turn over the front cover and skip straight to the contents page. Disregarding the disgusting feel of the page's smooth and lubricated texture.
Pushing my emotions aside for a moment, I scan the listed chapters handwritten in blood.
Chapter One: Resurrection.
Chapter two: The founder.
Chapter three: Blood.
Chapter four: The foul courtesy of the Mal.
Chapter five: Tainted
I have to admit, when I was working full-time at my dead-end job at a fast food restaurant, I never had the time outside of my horrendous work schedule to sit down and read a book. Such simplistic privileges were easily forgotten and unentertained. My spare time was primarily used to eat, sleep, and take the occasional shit.
Looking back on my former life now, I was nothing more than a workaholic, through and through. A slave to the system, made to repeat a vicious cycle of spending and accumulating debt.
Back then, I lived to work, not the other way around. Even after all of the hours and months I had worked, including holidays, it still wasn't enough. Despite my consistent efforts to keep up with the prices of living and not drown in debt, I became homeless.
Forgotten by everyone.
Overlooked and judged by passing faces. Strangers. Bystanders.
They didn't know who I was, nor cared to.
Even former friends and acquaintances did not recognise me. They just walked straight past me and simply didn't care enough to look in my general direction. Each day was a mental struggle, as I tried to hold onto my faith and keep my dignity intact.
Questioning what went wrong.
Suffering from insomnia.
Visited by shadows every night. And now I'm here inside my subconscious – with a book in my hand.
Whether my mirrored self was bullshitting me or not regarding the subject of my darker counterpart remains to be seen. Then again, I would be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued by it.
Either that, or I have truly gone mad from the torture.
I snicker to myself. Oh well.
I hope it's not too late to make up for lost ground. And with that exact thought in mind, I flip through to the first page of chapter one.
Resurrection