by Sasha Pruett
Chapter Twenty Three
who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Romans 7:24
“Michael! Turn down that racket! Michael, do you hear me? I can’t even hear myself think! Your father is TRYING to watch TV! Michael... Michael... do you hear me? MIIICHAEEEL!!! Good for nothing little punk, I swear that kid gets worse every day.”
The muffled sounds of his mother’s voice could not be heard over the blaring alternative metal pouring from Michael’s stereo, his desperate attempt to down the horrific thoughts racing through his mind. His next attempt lie on his bed in front of him. The pile of pills from his mother’s private medicine cabinet held more colors than the rainbow, and he hoped that they would soon send him over it; permanently. Many of the tiny narcotics shown phosphorescently under the glow of his black light, while 3-D gargoyle, reaper, and dragon pictures silently watched over him.
His way out, his painless way out lay in front of him. He couldn’t live with the truth; he couldn’t live with what he saw, with what he... was. The cop had been his breaking point. He knew where the remains were, he knew when the man was killed, and he knew how, but worst of all he knew who had done it. The moment the call had come into the house and his mother’s gossiping jaw went to work it was confirmed. He had had to dash for his bathroom to keep from vomiting all over himself. For almost two hours his head hung over the toilet as his stomach ejected its contents over and over again. The guilt was more than he could bear. The knowledge was more than he could live with. Still, with all the evidence he had, with all of his recent experiences, he had a difficult time believing that any of it could possibly be true.
Things like this were impossible; wasn’t all that stuff about demons and monsters made up, but now it was smack dab in his face, the reality and his answer. Only it was an answer, and not the right one. He didn’t want to die, all his talk about death and darkness was just his way of dealing, or not dealing, with his problems.
He thought he’d be better off dead than to have to go through life rejected, unloved, unwanted, his hand trembled as he picked up a small handful of luminescent caplets, swirling them around in his clammy palm with his finger. Tears began welling in Michael’s eyes as he lifted the drugs to his mouth, preparing himself for what, if anything lay beyond; but now with death sitting on his bed with him and so much riding on his life; he realized that he truly wanted to live.
A surge of energy flooded throughout his mind and body as he flung his legs off the bed and the pills into the trash. He flipped on his light and took a good look at his room. A new spirit flowed within him, giving him the strength to change his life and his situation. He switched off the violently blaring music; throwing the disc into the garbage then turned to his music collection, thinning them out as well till only a few were left. His paraphernalia and anything else dark and sinister went into the trash right next to the drugs. He tore the cult posters from his walls and stuffed them in next. The black make up followed soon after, while his chains, body piercings, and other jewelry that wasn’t of a satanic, demonic, occult, or drug related went into his small keepsake chest, the rest took their final resting place in the trashcan with the rest of his past.
If he truly was... what he was, then all those stories weren’t just make-believe. That would mean that Satan wasn’t just a bedtime tale to make children behave either, he or it or whatever Satan was; was real too. Though that thought chilled Michael’s heart the fact that there was a real devil meant that there truly was a God as well. A true, for real, loving and forgiving God that sent His own son Jesus Christ to earth to be beaten into a bloody pulp then hung on a cross so that He could take away our sins then rise again three days later, all so that we could once again be with Him, and if there was a God like that out there looking over him, then there had to be another way. He would have made sure of that. Yes, there had to be another way, a better way, and he was going to find it. Michael may not have known exactly what he had to do or would have to do to free himself from this thing inside him, but he knew that the church was the place to start. They would at least have a Bible; that was more than he had at that moment, and from what he understood the Bible was the one book in the world that had all the answers. Even the answer to something as bizarre as this, and answers were what he needed.
He rummaged through his dresser and hamper, before grabbing the only clean, and decent, shirt he could find in his closet, turned for the door, and hit the floor... completely unconscious.