I.
I’d finally freed my eyes from the blind fold. There was a hole in the box in which I’d been placed. A dim, flickering beam of dark amber light filtered in through the gap, illuminating the inside of the chest. There were a few lines of cryptic symbols engraved into the rough, unfinished wood, and nothing more. I found that I’d been changed into a different pair of clothes, all black wool. It was torture. The heat was stifling. My sweat was running in tiny streams into my eyes, into my mouth. It tasted funny, but I couldn’t quite tell why. The box was snug, I couldn’t move a limb, except to turn my head, which I did, and peeked out of the tiny opening to the outside world.
I saw a table with a candle on it. Beside it stood a glass of chilled red wine, the glass was sweating more than I was. The surrounding room was very dim, I couldn’t really make it all out, but I could tell that it was huge. Everything looked very expensive – fine wood, gold-plated metal surfaces, antique furniture, and leather jacketed books in wall to wall bookcases – very elegant. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man enter the room with a tray of ice. He walked up to the table in front of me and placed two cubes of ice in the glass of wine. The wine splashed into the air and fell back down to the snow-white table cloth below, leaving small, circular red stains where they had landed. The cubes appeared to be melting rather quickly in the glass, almost as if they had been dropped into a glass of warm water. I could see the melted water swirling in the wine; it looked very thick. My mind was wondering, “What exactly is that stuff?” Then the smell hit me full force, the smell of fresh blood. I closed my eyes and backed my head away. I became more acutely aware of the taste of my own sweat. It tasted too salty. I wondered who the blood donor was, but wasn’t it obvious?
Damn, I felt hot. My mind was melting in the shell of my skull and running down my face in tiny rivulets. My consciousness drifted like a butterfly in a spring breeze… farther… and farther still. I passed over the top of a row of tall, conical cedar privacy hedges. I saw two children blowing bubbles, which they then ran after trying to catch the bubbles as they floated away on the gentle mid-summer’s zephyr, out of the backyard, and into the park across the street. I ran into more trees and easily floated over and above them. I saw another child, fast asleep, at the side of a stick with an attached line running up, up, up… into the sky – almost right into the sun. I fluttered up vertically along the length of the cord to see what was holding it in place. Suddenly, the wind gusted and pushed me up at a blinding pace. In front of me I saw a brightly colored diamond, and I was heading straight into it and couldn’t stop!
I impacted, and jolted myself “awake” once again. Sweat poured down my face. I felt quite disoriented. Then, it struck me, “I’m sitting bolt-upright, aren’t I?” I didn’t immediately notice this due to the fact that the numerous candles that had previously lit the enormous room were now completely snuffed out. As I sat there waiting for my senses to come back to me entirely – I tried desperately to hash-out the events of the past… (How long have I been here exactly?) My eyes adjusted themselves sufficiently enough to make out my surroundings, which were illuminated from the outside by an eerie, strangely hued glow of unknown origin. I assumed this to be moonlight cast over the flickering remains of the few candles in which the last remnants of wicks had yet to be completely burned away. At first, with the aid of this dim light, I could make out the dimensions of the room. It looked exactly the same as it did before. As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I noticed that the ornate wine glass, which I assumed had been previously brimming with my own fresh blood, lay shattered in the ashes of the long extinguished fire place. Additionally, as the resolution with which my eyes could detect detail increased further, I noticed cobwebs in places where they had not been previously. There were lots of them, in fact; so many, that I began to wonder if I had been moved to an identical room somewhere else within this place (wherever it was). After sitting silently for a while in this (as I soon noted) very expensive coffin, I mustered the courage and strength to get up and step slowly out of it and onto the creaky, old hardwood floor below. As though it weren’t enough that the floor groaned quite sonorously under my feet, my foot unfixed itself from the floor with a “snap” as if I were walking on gum or rubber cement. However, as I had secretly feared, it was apparent, upon close examination, that it was dried splotches of blood upon which I had trodden. This and the putrescent smell that accompanied my preexisting nausea made me feel the overwhelming urge to heave and wretch what little remained in my stomach onto this already delightful collage of wood, dust, and lead crystal shards. Unable to deny myself any longer of this perverse pleasure, I relieved my gut in a revolting gush of steaming bile which splashed down in front of me, and bespeckled my shoes with minuscule droplets of the vile potion. What did it matter anyway? Didn’t I have blood already dried and flaking off my head? Wasn’t I already drenched in my own cold, musky perspiration? (I swear, if this wasn’t some drunkard’s phantasmagoria…)
My attention was drawn to the window just then, and I saw, finally, what lay outside. At once my relief turned to trembling, petrified tension, and I relieved myself once more. However, it mattered not the slightest to me at that moment because I saw outside the window exactly what I saw on the inside, only on a much larger scale. It appeared to me as if I were in a doll house-sized replica of the actual house I was inside! In a senseless rage of all my conflicting emotions I desperately swung one of the heavy, old Victorian-era seats around the table and into the antique diamond-shaped panes of glass in that porthole to insanity in a vain attempt that I might shatter that illusion. Otherwise, if fate held it that I were, indeed, quite insane, I could’ve stripped myself barren of all my soiled clothes, leaped out of that window, and run around screaming obscenities in the hope that someone seeing what’s really out there would see me running around like the drunken loony I hoped to God I was and bring me to someplace where I would be saved from myself.
Oh! But to my dismay, it appeared as though there were nothing more beyond that illusion than a dark, silently whispering thicket of lichen draped old firs. I was still not beyond the belief that I could very well have been hallucinating all this somehow, but I had to trust as best I could, what little remaining sense I had left. So, with that thought set firmly in place, I determinedly barged my way through doors, into darkened corridors, down rickety old steps, and finally
to my freedom (I hoped) outside that horrible abode. I came down the cracked walkway which led to an old stretch of deserted highway that I recognized immediately from my childhood memories as the back road on which was located that old, creepy, ill-kept and long abandoned “haunted” house. The place is a favorite destination for underage drinking parties, prowling kids, and, as one rude frat boy once perilously discovered, a family of skunks. However, I was in no mood at that point for musing nostalgically over old memories. I was simply relieved that I finally knew where I was and was all too happy to run frantically back to my home – to fall blissfully and comfortably asleep in my own bed. My slumber that evening was anything but [sleep], as I was kept awake most of the night haplessly pouring over all the details I could remember about the events that transpired in the past… “How long was it?” I’d completely lost all sense of time and distance; for example, the run from the house to my apartment building was over ten miles long, but it seemed to go by comparatively fast when juxtaposed against the lapse of time it appeared to take just to find my way out of that ominous residence.
I decided to call-in sick the next morning. I spent my time slowly taking a long, hot shower, downing numerous cups of strongly-brewed coffee and catching up on all the events of days missed. I had been gone, in fact, only a few days. I wasn’t missed at all, except for my angry boss, who had left several long, irate messages on my answering machine. I also made an afternoon appointment to see a doctor, just as a precautionary measure to check for infections and to help me clear my mind of the sickening tribulation which had enveloped my thoughts since the “event”.
A frightful thing occurred on my drive to the doctor’s that afternoon. I was on a busy highway in the middle of the mid-afternoon rush hour when, suddenly, I felt the traffic speeding up all around me. Behind me, people were honking their horns. I glanced down at my dashboard; I was already going five miles-per-hour over the limit, no slower than what most of the cars usually travel. The other cars around me, however, must have been going at least eighty-ninety miles-an-hour! Then, just as if I was dreaming, the road – both in front of me and in back of me – began to buckle and roll itself into enormous hills. Then I noticed I had tunnel vision; it blocked out all that surrounded me in a dark-gray haze, and allowed me to focus only on what lay directly ahead of me. The odd thing about it was, I couldn’t feel myself going up and down the slopes. As far as my other senses were concerned, if I were to have closed my eyes, I’d still be traveling over flat roads at a regular speed. Cars began bleating their horns all around me and it was at this point that I closed my eyes for a few seconds in agonized confusion. Upon reopening my eyes, I discovered myself going five miles-per-hour in the middle of the same level, normal looking highway on which I’d been. In fact, I was not too far from the exit I wanted to take. So, wearily, I got up to speed and traveled the rest of the distance to the doctor’s office without any further incident.
To make that matter brief, I went into the office, had a thorough examination of all my senses (all in perfect working order), and my body (also in good condition). However, it was upon my explaining to the physician the many visions I’d had recently – including that last episode in the car – that he, as a precaution, decided to run numerous blood and urine tests on me. He also made an appointment for me to see a highly recommended psychologist sometime later that week. In the meantime, he suggested, again – for safety’s sake – to take a cab home, to leave my car there, and to get some rest. He also ordered a prescription of sleeping pills to be delivered to me later that day, should I find myself going through any more hallucinogenic pangs. The pills did help, and I slept soundly until the day the tests came back.
The tests taken earlier came back positive for numerous rare and chemically altered hallucinogenic substances, which, he said, randomly distort any number of the senses while they remain in the blood stream. However, interestingly enough, these same substances are supposed to be almost completely flushed out of the system within a day, at most. It’d already been at least a day since my visit to the little “house of horrors” (or whatever it’s called these days), so – if what the doctor had said about the nature of my condition were true – then there must be something inside of me infrequently releasing these things into my blood stream. On an interesting side note, although my blood tested positive for these drugs, my urine came out completely negative; not even trace amounts were found. This itself suggested that whatever was inside of me wasn’t leaving anytime soon. Due to the rather inconclusive information given by the results from that batch of tests, the doctor decided that he would draw more blood and perform a more detailed analysis on it. He scheduled the appointment for the next week, as he was busy for the remainder of that one. In the meantime, he told me to stay at home and get some rest.
However, sleep wasn’t coming to me that easily anymore: I was in my bathroom, as if I had just gotten out of bed in the middle of the cold, winter night to use it. The wood stove was blazing, the floor around it was hot, and the air was stifling. Unfortunately, my bathroom’s right next to the stove.
I walked in and found I was drenched in sweat. My hair was damp and matted, and I felt cold, weak, and hungry. My bowels felt completely empty. In the light of the softly glowing plug-in light next to the sink, I turned on the faucet and flushed my face with the cool water. It felt like I was splashing cold grease onto my face, except it had the viscosity of regular tap water. I stood at the sink and stared at my face in the mirror for a seemingly long, yet, uncertain amount of time. All the while I was staring myself in the eye, unblinking, until I became dizzy – burning the image into my retina. My eyes started to tear, I didn’t know why. Probably, I assumed, because I was not blinking, and because the air was dry, hot, and somewhat smoky. However, I soon found out why my eyes were so sore. I felt very sad and started sobbing and banging my head hard against the mirror. Then, as I was still looking at the distorted image of my face in the mirror, I screamed in terror. I saw that I was no longer looking at an image of myself, but a sardonically grotesque characature of myself. As I screamed, my eyes squinted and I blinked a tear out. When I looked at the mirror again, all I saw was my pathetic, little face sobbing and dripping wax-like tears out of my swollen, reddened eyes. Out of nowhere, I heard an ethereal voice whispering to me – a beckoning voice that drew me into a cloudy room. (Or was it a tunnel?) Then, quietly overlaying the sound of that fuzzy, hushed whispering was the voice of my mother and father. They were yelling, and it felt like I was in my old house again.
The noise slowly faded out and as it resumed slowly back to it’s original volume, I was whisked away to my room. I saw myself sitting on the edge of my bed, next to my nightstand, with only the black light and a small candle dimly illuminating the tiny room. I slumped down into my bed and curled up into a tight fetal position. I felt dizzy and nauseous. I sank farther into my bed sheets and farther into my delirium. I couldn’t tell what was up or down. I got up and tried to walk. Then the power went out and I was left the wreck that I was on the floor. My world – all my thoughts, all my worries, and all my fears – rushed about maddeningly around my head – taunting me, teasing me! I heard crickets being amplified and distorted as if through a wall of speaker cabinets, rattling my brains. I found that I couldn’t move a muscle, literally. I tried to look around, but my eyes wouldn’t move, focus, open, or shut. They were stuck wide open. They were so red, burning, bone dry! They glazed over. It felt as if I had been there for an hour or two. I wasn’t even breathing. My heart wasn’t beating. Was I not living? Was this death? How long, exactly, does the brain retain conscious thought after one’s body ceases to live? Or did I already see the proverbial light? Perhaps it was the “tunnel”.
I then found myself falling into a seemingly endless abyss, with random screams bouncing off the walls at odd angles and a dim, eerie glow of randomly varying hues illuminating my very slow descent. Then my eyes shut. (Finally!) I opened them up again because I suddenly felt a very cold draft against my clammy skin, and my side hurt. I awoke to find myself lying on my stomach, my head where my feet should’ve been. When I got up to turn on the light, I noticed in my reflection on my long closet mirror, illuminated by the phosphorescent radiance of the moon, that I had cut my forehead. I must have cut it on my nightstand, on the sharp corner edge.
After caring for my wounds, I ingested a warm glass of milk, and sniffed a bit more clary sage. I then clicked off the light and nestled back into my unmade bed. I tossed and turned for the remainder of that night, sleep not finding my mind a suitable place to
relax so soon after such a confrontation with my subconsciousness.
I had several more hallucinations, each one seeming to be increasingly suggestive of something – it was almost as if they were manifesting themselves within my mind, trying to take over. I felt that it was only a matter of time before they eventually would – and what would I become? Was I to be sent away for something which I might senselessly do? It was making me nervous. Sweating, my heart was pounding within my chest; reverberating throughout the whole of my body as I sat on the bare floor, deep in my troubled thoughts; staring at the corner of the wall where the ceiling met the two sides of my living-room. Adrenaline pumped through my veins. I was slowly going crazy, wasn’t I!? I blacked out again, or rather – to describe it as best as I can – it was more like looking at a television set up close through a magnifying glass. The pattern exploded outward in the middle and inward at the sides, leading onto blackness, followed by a new and much more intense vision, coupled with an indescribable urge to do something! I felt hot and bothered – angry at something. I saw all of the people who I have ever known; all of their faces flashing in front of me; all my friends, all my acquaintances, both the well known and the barely recognized. I saw all those whom I loved – family, close friends, past crushes – past lovers. For some unexplainable reason, at that moment – I hated them all. It seemed the more I knew them, the better I could see their faces; the more I hated them. I hated most those who loved me the most. It was gruesomely agonizing and at the same time… I… don’t know. My memory fades just then, but what few images I can recall from that point on were horrifying to me. I saw those select few I knew all too well turn on me and then face me once again, their faces contorted into evil grins, a gun cocked and ready in each of their hands – and they shot me! Each one, too many countless wounds… I don’t want to remember.
The next thing I knew, I’m in that same “haunted” house where I found myself before. Blood was smeared all over my face once again, but I felt nothing; there was no evidence of any bodily wounds of any sort that I could feel or see on my skin. The window I had smashed was fixed; the chair was back in the same place where it had been before I swung it. In the corner, I saw that same coffin I had been in the week before, and from inside of it hung someone’s limp and bloodied arm. On a table before me sat a small wineglass with a ring of red around the area where someone had apparently sipped of it, and on the very bottom of the glass were a few tiny drops of blood. Curious at this strange turn of events, I licked my lips, and found they tasted of blood.
II.
I began to shake violently; the confusion was maddening and my mind was at its wit’s end… Moreover, I though that I too would soon come to an end if I didn’t try to make a concerted effort to find out what was wrong with my brain! It’d gone too far now, there was no turning back, no running for help – I had just murdered someone – and for that, I knew I would pay – sane or not.