Don't Follow Me

It's all in the writing.

I remember. I remember it all. I haven’t forgotten, and as long as I live I never will, though that won’t be much longer. I wish it wasn’t just a memory. I was alive, I had a heart, and I knew others who did as well. I had happiness, I had a soul. I could breathe, I knew peace, and I could see light. Now all I can do is hurt, all I know is failure and pain, all I see is the darkness that shrouds my vision and fills my mind. I see shadowy clouds that dive down to impale me and skewer my heart, leaving me helpless, dead, and without hope. I lie on the ground, sinking into my grave, and all I can say is “help,” even though I know that my pleading voice can’t be heard, that no one can do anything to save me, and that no one would help anyway. The ground around me is soaked red with my blood, and my gravestone towers above me, the ominous words scratched on its surface glaring down at me with nothing but insults for my dying eyes and dimming sight. The swamp separates me from those who I used to know, the ones who know the way, who have a heart, who can see more than darkness and the death that marches toward them. I’ve fallen short again, I give up. I’m already sinking into the muck of my grave. My failures are too many to count, they come too fast for me to recover from. All I could possibly be is a disappointment to anyone who believed in me, a painful memory for anyone who knew me, a hindrance to anyone who relied on me. My body is filled more with knives than blood. I can’t even recognize myself. My indifference to death has faded, tears stream down my contorted, bruised, cut face, and I scream with what strength I have left, but all I hear in return is laughter. “Does no one love me!? Someone! I need help, NOOOOOOW!” Another spear suddenly bursts straight through my forehead and out the back of my head. I gasp and my terrified, bloodshot and near-blind eyes frantically search for the spear’s owner. I find a tall, shadowy, powerful figure standing over me, clothed in a shredded black cloak. Merely looking at him brings me searing pain and overwhelming torture. “Death,” I manage to croak out, my mind and heart obliterated, my eyes unable to produce the ocean of tears that my body tries to expel. The shadow replies, in a deep, sinister voice, “No,” Then gins with an evil expression that suggests that worse is to come, “I am death’s father, pain. And here is death’s mother, fear.” The shadow gestures to its right and a figure emerges from the murky darkness beyond into my blurry vision, a female with tattered hair, ragged clothing, and an insane expression of delight displayed across her dirty, disturbingly contorted face. Her very appearance brings terror crashing down onto me and into me like a tsunami. Fear cackles in an insane, disturbingly overjoyed shriek, “And we’re here to visit you one last time before you meet our child!” upon hearing this, overwhelmed by fear, I die. But I’m still here. Then, out of pure pain, I die again. But it is not real death, I am not allowed to leave the horrific torment they have for me. I am ravaged by pain and fear, my body convulses, blood bursts out and all I know is that I cannot wait for their child to arrive. They torment me for centuries, for millennium, then, finally, it’s over. But then they start again!! “AAAAAIIIIIIII!!!!” I hear the laughter of my tormentors as I die repeatedly. They cease, and I can feel as their presence leaves. My eyes no longer work, but somehow, as clear as crystal, I can see death. In a soft, echoing voice, the little girl in a flowery dress before me giggles, “Hahaha, happy to see me?” I am shocked that this little girl, who looks about seven, is death, but nonetheless I am eager for her to end my agony. The girl giggles again, then continues, “You don’t get to go yet, my family isn’t done with you.” A crowd of menacing figures arrive, and with horror in my face I die again, thousands of times, before they even begin to torture me. With my last moment before they begin to eradicate me, I recall my time living for God, the time when I had a heart, purpose, and hope. A time when I knew more than pain, fear, sin, and all of death’s relatives. I remember my fall from light into darkness, all because I wanted things my way, all because I wanted something I couldn’t have while living for my holy father. I remember all these things, and, as my persecutors begin to devastate me, I breathe out to anyone who will hear me, though I know no one will, “Don’t follow me.”

Author's Note

Reviews and comments very much appreciated, as always, thank you.