Hellucination (Wrath Limited Edition)

by Stephen Biro

  Let me try to explain it to you like this: It was as if I was suddenly transported to the middle of a giant desert that was totally flat. Everything was gone except for the people, doing what they were doing. Living life, watching TV, making love or sleeping in their beds—but there wasn’t anything I could see that was material. Walls, everything that was a solid I could see through. Every soul, on the other hand, I could see perfectly.

  All the people I saw were wrapped in the slime I had just broken out of, and no one seemed to know any better. I was looking at my neighbors when the Entity moved into my sight. His long psychedelic coat pulsed to the beat, and my mind drank it all in.

  “You can see all the people around you who are asleep,” he said. “None of them has been able to break through their own conscious shells. If they’re lucky, they’ll break through the second seal. Everyone has four barriers to break through to get where you are now. They may be ignorant to all universal truths and perceive themselves as completely separate and totally independent individuals in this cosmos.”

  My mind tried to grasp what he was saying.

  “At the second level, they do have some logical perception of cosmic truths, but they don’t have enough prescience or inspiration to do anything about it.”

  All around me, I saw friends, neighbors and strangers encased in something horrible, as if the slimy shell fed off the host. I turned to look back into the Entity’s eyes and actually caught them, staring into him this time. I was amazed when we locked eyes and he stared back into me, allowing me to see into him and even past him. I forgot at this time, that when you look into something, it looks back into you. His eyes swirled and pulsated with eyes of untold authority. I could only stare and listen to its words as his eyes swirled into my own self.

  He said, “You are now at the top of the human curve. You are now able to control people by influence.”

  I sat back on my couch. I looked right and saw my neighbor, Jimmy. He seemed to be watching TV. It’s hard to say; he was floating about fifteen feet away from me, staring at a spot in space for a long time. I figured it was his TV since I’d been to his house before and knew the layout.

  The entity looked at me, with blazing eyes and said, “Give it a try.”

  I looked at Jimmy and wanted him to stand and change the channel on the TV.

  Jimmy stood and walked to where his TV should have been and reached out his hand. He began pushing something unseen. I laughed and looked over to my other neighbor and thought he should go for a ride.

  Jose stood up out of what was probably his bed (he was laying down, floating in the air) and moved his arms around as if getting dressed. He walked towards his front door, meandering his way through invisible hallways and rooms. He walked out through the parking lot, opened something, and sat down in midair.

  He started up the invisible car, which I could hear, as it turned out. He backed up then drove away, although it really looked more like flying.

  “It’s not going to be that easy in what you would call real life,” the entity said. “You will have to use superiority, confidence and guile to persuade them as you just did.”

  “You were doing it already,” it continued, “But you were never actually taught.”

  “I can understand now.”

  He turned to me and waved his coat. He flung it over me, saying, “Then let’s open the next door. Your lessons are truly beginning.”

  The dreamcoat lay over my face as I was whisked away to someplace new.

  I found myself driving a convertible in the middle of a psychedelic city. Buildings grew, streets shrank and the entity (God?) was on the hood of the car, screaming at me the whole time.

  Every imaginable color erupted all around me, as people’s souls zoomed past me, leaving wakes I could feel.

  He yelled, “Do it! Show me your power!”

  I lifted my hand and power began to form out of nothingness. It turned into a ball of liquid energy, and I let it build strength until I felt it hit critical mass. The car barreled down the road as I got ready to throw it. God was grabbing onto the windshield while kneeling on the hood.

  “Do it!”

  I held the steering wheel with my left hand, and my right hand threw the energy ball. It grew and flashed in flight. I grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and watched my energy ball devastate everything in its path. I was enraptured at the destruction.

  The ball quickly left my sight, and although I could no longer see it, there was devastation as far as my mind could see. It apparently wasn’t done, and God said, “Wait for it.”

  I slowed the convertible to a crawl and looked at the destruction. I heard the screams of the innocent as fire and flames continued to char everything that had been in its way. I began to hear chaos rumbling behind me.

  The ball of psychic energy I created was actually coming around again. “Did it just go all around the world?”

  Apparently, it did. As it came closer, buildings shattered into dust, roads were ripped apart and people disintegrated. The ball of energy plowed ahead of me, continuing to annihilate everything. I could feel it begin to break apart and slowly lose its power. I saw it hit a skyscraper and dissipate. The building was hit hard enough to crack and begin to fall. It took out all the other buildings as it slammed against the city blocks. Dust and debris scattered everywhere.

  God was just smiling. Then he was gone. I sat alone in the car, amazed, when I began to hear it.

  Sirens wailed and people ran all over the city, trying to rescue those left alive. I turned around and saw the same devastation behind me. Then I felt it:

  The souls cried out in pain and with fear. The souls’ outpouring shocked my nervous system as the realization of what I had done finally hit home.

  My psychic energy not only devastated this city but went around the earth, carving out a swath of devastation until it returned. Who knows how many cities or people it hurt? I didn’t know or realize what was happening but my soul felt it in an unimaginable wave of guilt and horror.

  Tears ran down my face, and the guilt of killing on this magnitude was more than my mind could handle.

  I was thrust back into my living room with a dread of reality that shook my whole apartment.

  I really don’t know why I was shown that, or even why I did it. Why would it make me feel the death of over a hundred thousand beings, all across the world? Why would a person need to know that kind of anguish? Why?

  If it was just a lesson about how the things we do can destroy others, it didn’t make any sense. Was it just to show me I had a power but had to use it responsibly? I really didn’t know and didn’t care at this point. I knew I had to continue.

  So I opened another door and walked through to the other side.

  I found myself alone in a void of nothingness, floating in the darkness of space. I was left alone to ponder my existence. Fear crept up on me until I saw a speck of white light in the distance. It slowly came into better view. I paid attention to what I felt emanating from it.

  I felt a previously unknown joy and happiness coming from the white light. I began to sense it was a city, a glorious metropolis that shimmered as pure light in the darkness. I felt the beautiful souls of that city. I felt the wonder and gratitude of those who resided there.

  It was enough to make me cry, but I didn’t. This is where my soul began to turn. I began to feel bitterness towards those in the city before me. Resentment turned to anger and anger turned to wrath. It bubbled within me like a seething cauldron of hate that began to spill into this reality.

  I knew they were blessed even before they were born and I hated them for it. I have never felt the hate of the damned until that moment. I seethed and felt that the damned should have justice. We needed justice if we were damned before we were even born.

  I became aware that my skin was peeling away from the muscles of my legs. Bright golden metal began to rip out from under my skin, covering my legs, morphing my hatred into a physical reality. I
screamed as muscle turned to metal, metal to weaponry. My arms split up the middle, and my bones multiplied. Skin tissue spasmed and became various electrical components. My blood seized up, turning into black oil to lubricate my new form.

  My forearms tore apart, and in their place, cannons assembled out of skin and bone. The pain was off the charts, but I screamed with delight as my body became the ultimate weapon for retribution.

  I laughed as my wrath was made whole. That is, until it crept up to my face.

  When the armor hit my neck, the flesh slowed its transformation. I knew I couldn’t stop it, so I said, “Yes!”

  Golden cables tore out from the back of my head, piercing my skull from the inside. They pulled to each side of my head and crawled to my temples. More cables slashed out of my skin, darting about, looking to strike into the windows of my soul.

  I knew then I needed to kill all of those whom I could never be. I said, “Do it!”

  The cables plunged into the sides of my eyes and buried themselves deep into my sockets. I felt them turn behind my retinas, and offshoots of cables dug everywhere into my vision. My head split open and the golden alloy emerged from my skull, covering what was left of me. My suit of armor was complete.

  Still floating in space, my body was now a weapon whose power has only been seen by the likes of God and the Devil. I felt cannons and guns whirring around, connected to me. A small plasma cannon was at my wrist, and as I considered it, it became bigger. All the weapons began to twist and grow into stronger, more sophisticated weaponry brought into existence by my mind.

  There was no fear, just a need for death and destruction. I flew towards the pure white light with amazing speed. The closer I got, the more magnificent it became. The white purity of the city would dazzle your eyes with columns stretching to eternity. Walls raced to everywhere and doorways opened to everything. The souls there were happy and they marveled at their own existence.

  That is, until I flew in, discharging weapons of destruction everywhere around me. The people began to scatter as blasts from my shoulders curved in deadly nets of electrified death. Those caught in it were cut to pieces. Other lasers widened their streams, taking out more people in an inescapable wave of mortality they didn’t know of or even understand.

  Sharp metallic tentacles erupted from my back, taking out the souls I didn’t shoot. Blood and gore ran through the streets as a torrential flood of death overcame everyone.

  Missiles fired out of my back towards buildings around me. The devastation was becoming more apparent.

  There wasn’t any resistance. It was just a slaughter. I fired wave after wave of mortars and rockets at everything around me. I wanted to raze this place to the ground and I wanted those pure white streets to run red with the blood of the innocent.

  After it was, I stopped, hovering in the middle of the square. My anger hadn’t subsided and I still wanted death. I looked below me and saw the limbs and bodies of those I had killed. I relished it. The bloodlust within me was indescribable as I continued to kill, slaughter and maim anything I could see. I felt that they deserved it. I felt anger, wrath for being brought into this world without a chance. Being created and left with fucked-up people as my guides. Being left with my society; not giving me any hope. And I had done the right thing and lost every time.

  Then I had found these souls, these far too wonderful souls. Souls who were jubilant and carefree, actually thankful for every breath they took, happy to find themselves alive. Not struggling to survive or hoping for the quickness of death, with whatever they worked for ready to disappear.

  I floated there for another moment and looked at my destruction.

  “Why would I do this after feeling the heart-wrenching sadness of what I experienced before?”

  With this thought, I opened the last door.

  I found myself in an ancient cathedral. Its wood, marble and stone was glistening from the light coming through the stained-glass windows. I was standing in the middle of the pews, looking at the cross and the altar at the end of it. I marveled at the wonder and sanctity of the church when He came in.

  It was God, but this time He was pissed. His colorful coat whisked behind Him as He strode to the middle of the church. He stopped 20 feet away from me and looked me straight in the eyes.

  “This is what people are worshipping!” he said. “This is what people think God is. This ends up sending more people to Hell than you can believe.”

  I stared at Him. I didn’t know what to do since I had been searching for God, and now I knew I’d found Him. I found this entity while searching for God, and He was teaching me, showing me that my reality isn’t true, that I am capable of severe destruction, that I can know unforgettable remorse.

  I experienced so much on my search for God that I trusted in Him. So I stood and listened.

  He said, “Witness what people believe in their hearts and what they worship. It’s not God, it’s something else!”

  With that, He waved His hand and showed me what was behind the altar. A face emerged and slowly became real. It was the face of an old man. It was our common image of God—a bearded, angry old man. Its eyes were downcast. A frown was on his face. In this face, the power of God was wrath and not love. It was the face of people threatening others for committing sin. It was the God who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. It was the God who cursed Moses for saying a miracle was his doing. I could see this God abandoning those before me and kicking my kind out of Eden and into the cruel, hard world. To work, suffer, and die. I saw the angry God who just wanted to punish, torture and damn the people whom He had created.

  I saw the God that some parents threaten their kids with. I saw the God that will torture, for all eternity anyone born of a different faith. I saw anger, hate and pain, in the God I saw on that pedestal in that wondrous church.

  God said, “I need your help, destroying this false idol of God!”

  With that, He fired multicolored blasts from his hands, towards the face of God. His lightning hit its mark, and it pushed to its limit, but it couldn’t destroy the face. I knew what it was doing because I did it earlier.

  I raised my hand and felt my energized soul begin to charge. It was as if every part of my life was coalescing in my hand. I felt the power build up towards its critical mass. As soon as it hit, I threw it towards the false figurehead of God.

  I didn’t let go like before. It was a steady stream of destruction. I was not going to let up since my God counted on me. Together, we worked on destroying the false figurehead, towards the goal of destroying the fictitious God of everyone’s mind.

  The face bruised and withered and finally imploded with a scream. Anger and hate emanated in its final moments. Its bellow withdrew as it folded inside of itself. It flowed backwards into an abyss of darkness, disappearing.

  The church glowed and hummed. I slumped towards the floor but caught myself on a pew. I steadied myself and lifted my eyes toward my God, but He was gone.

  I looked around the church and noticed everything in it: The collection plate on the seat next to me. A piece of gum under a pew. The smell of dust on one of the Bibles in a cubbyhole. I took a deep breath and stood there. And then I was gone.

  ANOTHER DREAM COME TRUE, PARANOIA AND POSSESSION BY GOD

  I woke at 8 a.m. the next day. I never wake up in the morning. I usually sleep until afternoon. I’ve always enjoyed the night. The night was the time when magic happened. The night was when the darkness kept you from being seen.

  I stretched and looked at the sun through the blinds. A thought struck me. I suddenly felt the urge to open a video store. Not just any video store but a cult video store. When I say “cult,” I mean kung fu, gore, anime, and everything in between. Not a single mainstream film in the house. Just the crazy shit I’ve been selling that I can find from all over the world.

  I had dreamed of having a cool video store since I was twelve. I got out of bed and shuffled towards the shower. I turned on the water and let it get warm,
and I was actually at peace for the first time in a long time. My personal angel and demon were giving me a temporary reprieve.

  So my mind was free to race at two hundred miles an hour. Had I really met God? Was he really showing me all this? Why am I thinking about trying to open a video store without any money? Why do I have this urge?

  The water was hot so I climbed in. While scrubbing myself clean, I knew I had the power to get off my ass and do something I’d always wanted to do. Even though I was making great money, I knew it couldn’t last for long. DVD had just premiered a year ago, and lots of the films I was copying were coming out. So I knew I couldn’t bootleg VCR tapes forever.

  I wanted a stable life, and opening up a store would take a great investment on my part, but I felt as if I could take on the world. I toweled myself off, brushed my teeth and found some clothes. I put them on and walked out another door.

  Now, I lived in Tampa, FL, US of A. There were a lot of potential places to set up a video store, but Blockbuster and Hollywood Video chain locations were everywhere. I didn’t want to be in any competition, just to find a place where cool, hip, “now”-type people would enjoy a store of this kind.

  The obvious choice seemed an area called Ybor City. It’s Florida’s version of Bourbon Street, just not as big or jazzy. It had clubs, bars, cigars, and upscale (and downscale) restaurants for the hipsters and tourists. A party place where they closed the streets every night because so many people got drunk, fought, and partied their asses off.

  I drove to Ybor, wondering how I might be able to afford it. The place was always full and real estate was at a total premium since Game Works and Victoria Secret moved in. Waiting lists must be by the hundreds at the time. I knew I would be terribly lucky to find a store.

  You’d think my mind would be on other things, like the events of a few hours ago. But I was instead looking for retail space. I didn’t know what to think about the night’s events, but it felt like God was throwing me a bone. That’s how it felt. Since the voices inside my head subsided—or maybe they were just pretending to be me!—I don’t know but I went with it. I always just go with it.