Twisted Returns

It's everywhere.

The funny thing is, I don't even know what 'it' is. Could it be a rock? Some sand? The warm scent of cinnamon?

Maybe it's a butterfly, coming to fly me away on delicate wings. Or maybe it's Grant, coming to steal my girlfriend. Or perhaps some strawberry leaves, rustling in the breeze.

Could it be the smell of Lorraine's hair burning? Or the taste of whipped cream on a tree. Something tells me I'll never know.

Then I figure it out. It's pain.

Except not in any worldly form. It takes on a new substance, one does that not consume. Slicing, maybe, but light and bubbly at the same time. Rather like soda in your veins.

Is this death? Am I dead? I don't remember. Who am I? Did I want to die? I want to sleep. I try to close my eyes, but then realize I have none. What am I?

Why am I not dead yet?

Maybe I am. Is this what death is? Where am I? This can't be Heaven. If that even exists.

What's the alternative? Hell? Maybe that's where I am. It's where I belong, anyways. Though I can't remember what I did to deserve this.

Time ticks on into eternity. There is no telling where I am in the fourth dimension.

Here I am, not a live but not dead. Maybe somewhere in the middle. Existing but nonexistent. Do I exist at all, really? I think, therefore I am. But that doesn't cut it. I need to know that I'm real.

I'm taken away. I don't know what takes me, but it takes me to a beach. Although I have no eyes with which to see, the picture is right there before me. I want to reach out to touch the pink sand, but I have nothing to touch it with.

And just like that, it's taken away. Instead I'm transported somewhere cold. I can't tell if it's rough or smooth. This place tastes like rust. I'm trying to get over the texture when I notice something. There are voices speaking here.

I don't know what they're saying. Perhaps they're telling me what to do. How to get out of this floating. I have no ears, but I hear them.

"...time." One says this. Something tells me that the frequency of the vibrations is fast. High pitched, but not too high.

"Have to..." another says. The vibrations are slower. Low pitched?

It's hard to tell. The words are muffled and I'm not sure if words have meaning anymore. The voices sound like they're coming from behind a wall, shielding them from me. With this cold, I decide that it's a sheet of ice.

I try to listen harder, but I don't know how to. Yet slowly, the words come more into focus. I feel like I should be listening, like they're telling me how to pass on.

"...one thing to do. Time..." There's the word time again. The higher pitched voice says this. Is it telling me that I have to do something, and that something has to do with this 'time'?

"...screws over the whole thing?" What? Am I screwed for... life? If that word is even relevant anymore.

"We have to take that chance."

"I was about to say the same thing."

----

It has been so long since the voices have spoken. I don't know if they'll ever return. There are no blurred words to guide me now.

Sometimes there's blankness. Sometimes I can feel again. Sometimes, I'm back on that beach, there a wind blows against... me. Not against my face or through my hair, like it should be. Just me.

Sometimes I'm drowning in icy water, the cold paralyzing me. Sometimes, I go far, far under. And I don't come back up.

It is the voices that draw me back up. I wonder if they are back to tell me how to end this.

"Do it."

"It's going to destroy..."

"This is what she wanted."

"I don't... can't lose..."

The missing parts of the conversation drive me crazy. It now ocfurs to me that they aren't telling me what to do. They're talking to each other.

The higher pitched voice speaks a long chain of blurry words that make no sense whatsoever. She seems to speak forever. When her speech finally stops, there is a silence. I wonder if they're gone again, leaving me in loneliness.

But then the other voice speaks one word. Just a simple word that I strain to hear. Except I never grasp it. Because the pain comes.

Splitting, piercing, stabbing, white hot. This is worse than before, a pain that should kill me. Why am I not dead yet? But I know the answer.

Because this is my true fate. And I deserve every last bit of it.

----

This will never end.

This is the way I'm bound to spend eternity. I want to beg my way out, but there's no one to beg to. It wouldn't work, because I am in Hell. And this is where I belong.

The torture drags on and on. The pain sharpens my mind but jumbles my thoughts. There's no way to win. It gets to the point where I don't know who I am anymore, or how I got here. Now, all I know is pain.

Voices begin speaking. Something tells me I should know them, that I've heard them before. But at this point, I don't know anything anymore.

I don't know what they're saying. The pain consumes me, burning. And outside, I'm shrouded in a layer of ice.

I can't tell if this is all real or not. But slowly, the fire burns away. I am almost disappointed to see it go. It was the only thing that bound me to existence.

All I have is the ice, which numbs. But perhaps that is a good thing. I begin to embrace the cold, my final escape. Yet it starts thinning as soon as I want it. I know I will never have anything I want again. I feel myself slipping. The voices get louder. There are cracks forming everywhere.

And then, with the sound of shattering crystals, the ice breaks.