by Jacob Spadt
An image appeared in my mind of a cave entrance; it was giving off a faint light as if I was in the cave and the outside awaited me, beckoning me forward. I could hear strange cries in some language that were calling to me, almost taunting me to come out. I heard a sound like scissors opening and closing in rapid succession, like a child furiously going at a news paper. I imagined making snowflakes with folded paper and a large pair of shears. The shears dripped with blood, and the paper was actully leather hide of some creature in the process of evisceration. I fixated on this image of these shears in my hand and was furiously carving on this leathery hide. Droplets of blood flung everywhere as the shears tore into the material. A sick sort of satisfaction surprised me as blood splattered all over my skin.
The leathery hide began changing shape and started to grow larger but had no form yet. It grew taller and taller by the second. In mere moments, it was taller than I was. My hands slowly stopped the scissoring on the shears. It simply kept growing and forming some hideous shape that was not recognizable. My fear started to rise. I could not identify my enemy. Logic hit me. I have fought things larger and meaner in my dreams.
In previous dreams, there was always a distinct feeling of overwhelming or over bearing by multiple enemies. They surrounded and outnumbered me by such odds that any normal warrior would have either perished or fled. Even a seasoned warrior would have counted the odds and decided whether an engagement was fool hardy. This time it was different. It was only one daemon and I was unarmed. In part, the surrealism of this dream was really starting to gain momentum, yet the logic side of it made no sense that I would be attacking a daemon with large shears. No matter how effective the tactic might be it made me laugh at the thought of it.
I watched in sheer horror as it grew taller and was now at least a hundred feet tall, towering over me. The shape began to form itself into a humanoid mass, but the surface of it was almost bubbling and boiling on its surface. Faces coalesced in the skin. They would scream out in pain then dissipate as fast as they formed. These sounds created in me fear and anger. I was not sure. They grated my hearing and caused me pain. Something popped in my ears and fluid began to spill out...running down my face. It dripped onto my shoulders. Anger and fear turned to rage as I started to back up, and the sheers fell from my hands and clattered on the cave floor.
Moments passed. My feet retreated from this enemy that defeated me without even attacking physically. I finally understood the concept of chess and the psychological aspect of defeating your opponent with your mind. I fell back in fear and watched the shapes continue to form on the surface of the skin as the whole mass started to solidify in a final state. Looking up, the face of this monster stared back at me. We locked eyes. To my horror...it was my own face. In its largeness, my mind failed to recognize that I was looking at a demonstrated evil version of me with thousands of daemon faces imbedded in its skin. Each face cried out to me in a chorus of voices in different pitches and tones. Some of them I actually recognized as foes I had faced in my dreams at one point or another. It was as though their very essence was a part of me now, writhing below the surface of my skin, and trying to exude influence over me.
My skin suddenly itched and then I felt pain. To my own horror, I looked down to see that a face was splitting my skin slowly as it was pushing its way through on my forearm. It began to shriek at me as it tore its way through my flesh. I felt a burning feeling as its teeth broke the skin and started to eat my flesh. Tearing at my own skin, I found myself screaming at the top of my lungs. The tall form in front of me was laughing in a deep guttural tone. I could hear and feel its mockery as the fight with this aberration forming on my arm continued. Tears formed in my eyes and began to run down my cheeks as my panic grew. I knew it was only a matter of time before this thing spread and infected another part of me.
Despair formed in the back of my mind and crept forward like some sort of sludge in a gutter filling with rain. Slowly it moved consuming my thoughts and I felt myself getting weaker by the minute. The strength in my hand began to fail as I started to lose control of the motor functions of my fingers. My heart pounded in my chest and the pressure drove up into my skull like a water hose spraying at full capacity at a fire that it could not put out. The strength in my hand waned, and I sank to my knees caving to the despair of failure. Eye sockets with malformed daemon eyes stared at me. Drool flowed out of its disgusting maw. The spittle ran of my forearm in a viscous blob that fell to the ground with a terrific splat. The large form in front of me faded from view, and I was on my knees looking into the eyes of this disgusting face on my arm.
No sound came from anywhere. Total silence enveloped me so my location faded from concern for a moment. The face coughed and showered me with its drool, creating irritation from the saliva that started to eat my flesh. Then it spoke but not in a guttural voice. It was clear as I could speak...and sounded like me.
“You think you have problems, wait till you’re growing out of someone’s arm.” The look on my face must have been one of disbelief because it started to cackle a bit as it choked on more of its own drool. “What, you’re too good to talk to me? Idiot, I am you or what you will become if you stay on this path of anger.” My arm was speaking to me!
“You are not me,” I said. “This is just a bad dream.”
“Am I now?” I felt a stabbing pain in my arm and opened my eyes. The face rose out of my arm and sunk its teeth into my forearm to its gum line, if it actually had one. Instinctively I smacked it in the face.
“Hey, that hurt!” it yelled as it let go of the meat on my arm. “Do that again and I won’t let go. I’ll swallow it and you can feel what it is like to eat yourself for a change.” The very thought made me ill.
“Why are you torturing me?” I asked, not expecting an answer.
“And here I thought I was smart back when I was you. I let hate consume me and I started enjoying the people around me getting hurt since I had endured so much. I got my wish, consumed by my own pain. It was only a matter of time before they killed me in battle after I failed to stop a breach.”
“What are you talking about? This is a dream and you are not here. This is all in my own head.” I closed my eyes and repeated these thoughts again and again.
“Stay on this path of self-destruction and you will find out soon enough, Tathlyn.” It spat vileness at me as it choked my name out. I could not believe what I was hearing. As much as this cave brought its own disparity, seeing this thing growing out of my own arm was more than I could handle. Something inside my mind burst and tears flowed freely. I wept.
“I refuse to give into my own self-doubt now,” I sobbed. “There are too many questions unanswered.” I managed to choke out the words in between swells of emotions. I did not think I could feel any worse in a dream than I felt at that moment. My face tightened up so much that the muscles began to cramp up. I could not imagine my life going so wrong that my lack of faith would consume me. A maze of darkness seemed to surround me. A deadly circular cycle of self-doubt and fear trapped me.
Something pressed on my cheek; warmth. I opened my eyes and saw the floor below me. It was close so I must have been sitting down. I could still feel warmth on my cheek, and I noticed tiny feet in white shoes in front of me and looked up. Eryn stood with moist eyes and a solemn look. She had her hand on my face and was gently rubbing my cheek. I looked her in the eyes and saw more tenderness than I could imagine. She had a softness about her that could calm the strongest storm yet strength to take it head on if she had to. Something told me she had wells of untapped energy.
“Hey you, I came to check on you,” she said.
“Hey,” I echoed.
“Why are you sitting like that?” she asked.
“Like what?” I looked down and noticed I was on my knees in a meditative pose. I shook my head, still feeling fuzzy from waking up. I suddenly realized that I had not been asleep.
Eryn gasped! “What did you do to your arm? Let me see it!�
� She grabbed my right arm. I looked down. My forearm was rather stiff and felt numb. The shape of a skull was now a scar carved so perfectly it was as though someone had used a scalpel like a detail knife. Its shape had a sunken eyes version of my face, but there was no color or ink. Simply a face representing mine in some twisted fashion. She was tracing over it with her fingers and I could feel the warmth of her touch transferring into me. The glow of her spirit as if it moved within me now became apparent. Such tenderness commanded my attention.
How could I sense this?
I sat there soaking in her attention but feeling confused by my growing affection for her. Meanwhile, my mind tried to imagine the ghastly image on my arm and where it came from; when suddenly chills ran down my back. An image popped into my head of a daemonic face that spoke to me.
“Do not forget. If you hold onto your past, those you love will die!” it said. It vanished as fast as it popped up. I shuddered head to toe and jumped to my feet.
Eryn stepped back. “What’s wrong Dieter?”
“Dieter is no more, my name is Tathlyn!” I said.
“Okay, Tathlyn, what’s going on?” she said, noticing a touch of the strange.
“I had a really messed up dream, better yet, call it a waking nightmare. It was so real and I cannot even begin to explain it. It was surreal, almost too surreal.” Her hand found my cheek. She felt like home, unlike any other feeling I had felt about living somewhere.
A very concerned look crossed her face.
“You do not have to tell me if you do not want to,” she reassured.
“Or cannot,” I interjected. She smiled at me, reflecting that everything was going to be all right. Part of me wanted to believe her. The other part knew something was terribly wrong. Something was so wrong that I could not explain the foreboding feeling inside me. I tried to fake a smile, but it turned into more of a grimace. I knew I was in trouble because I could not hide my feeling from her any longer.
"I have not forgotten about those words you spoke to me. They are part of me now.” she said.
Hearing her say that felt like a punch on the chin from a dragon. I had no response. What I felt inside did not compare to how I was feeling that day. Things escalated quickly amidst the chaos of my life. My focus right now needed to be on figuring this out, but my heart would not let it go so easily.
“Eryn, there is something,” I paused. “I do have something to tell you.”
She locked eyes with me.
XXVII
Confessions
“So what exactly did that Sergeant say that got you so upset?” Eryn asked, looking intently into my eyes.
I could not help but get lost in her eyes for a moment. She had this ability to calm me down when she started talking to me like this. It was hard to stay frustrated. She soothes me.
“The room surveillance, are they listening to us right now and watching us?” I asked.
“No,” came her reply with her very gentle voice. “They turn off the cameras and listening when officers show up to speak to a patient and since this is not an interrogation cell, they do not want their methods recorded. I don’t like it, but today I don’t mind.”
That was kind of strange that they would not want their questioning recorded, but then again this was not the police station either. It made a little sense that they would not want to have things recorded of the premises and out of their control. I cannot imagine the lunacy the officers must deal with on the day-to-day dealings with the public. Then again, now that I was on their radar, they had plenty to talk about even though my situation was unlike any they had ever dealt with. I hoped this was the case. If my new life was a day-to-day routine, the world is in for a rude awakening.
I was not sure what I could tell her. There was so much that I knew was real and just as much confusion that I did not know where to start. So many un-answered questions remained; more than I could count. What was happening now? What happened then? Where to start was even tougher than imagined.
“You don’t have to tell me anything you do not want to. Take your time. We have time.” Her words rang true. I loved how she used the word we. I liked the sound of that. It made me feel good that someone seemed to have my best interest in mind since the doctors were trying to make life study cases out of me. This woman seemed to really care. I did not know how to respond.
A large part of me wanted to trust her with the truth...with everything. The other part wanted to not say anything at all and see where this led. I just did not know what to do or say, or if saying anything at all would be detrimental. My current situation was that I was getting closer to this woman to the point of having feelings for her. I had never really had a girlfriend. The girl at the lake the day that my life changed was the closest ever. A few childhood crushes happened, but nothing was ever serious. This feeling could be anything. It just felt good to feel it.
I gazed at her. She stood in front of me staring me down with a faint smile and accepting eyes. Her hair was out of her ponytail a bit; the part that would be the bangs was barely long enough to be in her ponytail, and she was always adjusting it. Boldly, my hand went to her face. She closed her eyes while my monstrous palm cupped her cheek. It was so small against my hand to the point of freakishness, but that did not stop me. I knew this woman cared for me. I leaned forward and gave her a gentle kiss on the lips. To my pleasant surprise, she responded and kissed me back.
I experienced something that I had never felt before in the excitement of my first kiss with the girl at the lake. It was a sinking yet lifting sensation...giddiness. Fear gripped me. How to respond to this feeling? Anxiety pulled me back. I did not know what to say and found my lips moving. “Sorry, Eryn, I…” Her finger found my lips and she pressed it ever so gently to them. Next thing I knew she was kissing me again.
It was classic to compare kissing to losing track of time, but it happened. I felt silly while my brain processed what happened. A kiss could say a thousand words but at this moment I think my brain processed about ten thousand in the blink of an eye. I could not imagine something so simple feeling so good. Time passed. Eryn was now holding onto me and her head was on my shoulder. We sat in silence for a few minutes... with me smiling like a schoolboy. I could not help it. My life had hope for the first time since waking. For this to work, taking a chance in telling her everything was paramount. If she did not receive it well, I would deal with it.
“What do you know about how I ended up in the hospital?” I began, not sure of how to approach what I was about to say.
“I know that you were on your bike riding home and that a car hit you and put you in a coma.”
“A car actually hit both Jason and me. He ended up underneath the car.” I paused, waiting for her to say what I knew she would.
“How did you end up here without him? Your wounds were so severe that I cannot imagine how he walked away without a scratch.”
“Well, both of us were hit. I flew into a tree from the impact, which put me in the coma. Jason stayed on the hood of the car and rolled with it while it went off the road and turned on its roof. The driver took a leaning tree through the face, killing him instantly. That tree kept the car from crushing Jason.” I felt her expression on her face change with her face firm against my body. It was a frown of some sort, but definitely not a smile.
“Here is the part you are not going to believe. We saw something that day that defied all logic and brought myth to reality.” I paused, waiting for her to become unsettled or get nervous. She did not move. “It was a Sasquatch. Jason and I were so surprised to see it that we made jokes about it.”
Her head came away from my chest and she looked me square in the eyes. I could see there was a sense of awe on her face. She stared at me for a few moments. Part of me felt like she was analyzing me while I watched her watching me. She expected a flinch or a blink, maybe even smile to show I was kidding. When my face did not change and I did not reveal any “tells” her face got serious real fast. Like a mi
me waving his hand in front of his face and changing his expressions with each pass, only there was no hand waving. I smiled nervously. She just stared at me.
“You are serious? You saw Bigfoot! A Sasquatch! Do you know how huge that is?” She turned her head shaking it in disbelief. “Man, what I would give to have seen that.” I was rather surprised at the use of her words. She had never used the word man when talking to me let alone in this context. Then I reminded myself she did just kiss me.
She was overwhelmed as she began to babble about how amazing that was and how lucky I am to have been there to see it. It took her few minutes for to realize I was not saying anything. She paused and looked back at me with a snap of her head to where she was now making eye contact again.
“Was it scary?” she said, almost mocking me and must have caught that I was not kidding still. “Are you sure you didn’t just hit your head?” Her smile quickly faded when she saw I was not amused.
“There is more; a lot more.” I took a deep breath, tried to calm my nerves, and started again. “He, it, is the reason we got hit by the car. The car swerved to miss the creature and hit Jason and me. I blacked out because when I came to, it was lifting the car off Jason. It then brought him over to me while I was passing out from blood loss and going into a coma. I remember this all clear as it happened, just like it was yesterday. Then I blacked out again.”
Eryn was staring at me with a look of shock. I could see that her eyes were moistening a bit. Her shock turned to sorrow and a single tear flowed from her left eye. The moisture reached its brimming point and overflowed the lower lid, allowing the tear to run free making a streak down her cheek. She smiled slightly. The sight of the smile returned warmed my soul again.