To Light up the Dark
Chapter 3
I closed my eyes as I continued to bleed, I felt Karen come and hug me. She was shivering in fear, not knowing what to do.
"Karen, keep calm. Press down on my wound, help me keep pressure on it." I grunted.
"Okay." she told me as she placed both of her tiny, thirteen year old hands onto my gunshot wound.
"You're doing fine, just keep calm." I told her to calm her down as I heard sirens approaching. If anything I needed to be the one freaking out right now, but still.
"I'm sorry Kenny." Karen told me in a trembling voice.
"You don't have to, ugh, be sorry for anything."
The paramedics arrived shortly after and loaded me onto a stretcher. They put an oxygen mask over my mouth and started to act like this was a lot more serious than this actually was.
They picked and prodded at me for a bit before one pulled out a syringe. I looked over to see a paramedic with a head of a panther, its teeth long and stained pink from blood. Its eyes were golden and kept eyeing me up and down.
"Keep the fuck away from me!" I yelled as it injected me with a syringe.
I blinked and then the panther head was gone. I heard a skittering across the rooftop and felt as the paramedics were routing around inside me to pull the bullet out. Right now I was in a daze. That kind where nothing in your head will come together and everything seems to be moving in slow motion as your mind focuses to feel every bead of sweat running down your forehead.
"Karen?" I called out. "Where's Karen?"
There was a bunch of whomping as a reply, like they were censoring their speech out so I couldn't hear it. I saw Karen's face out of the corner of my eye and I calmed down a little. A bump on the road caused me to wince as I felt myself move around when I needed to be still.
I watched as I was pulled up to the hospital and wheeled in. The smell of cleaner and sick people assaulted me as my senses focused on something other than anything that was relevant. The white halls and doctors passed me in a blur as I was wheeled into the O.R where green scrubbed surgeons awaited me.
I tried to call out for Karen but my chest felt like there was a four-ton weight on it. The surgeons slipped my oxygen mask off of me and then hooked me up to the anesthetic. I felt myself start to slip and lose consciousness. One of the last things that I saw was the panther head standing over me with a malicious grin as I faded out completely.
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I was walking in a city in which angles were a suggestion instead of a reality. Standing in front of a gate that was caked in algae and dark souls I walked forward. The gate creaked open and I proceeded into the sunken and risen city of R'lyeh.
I stepped in cautiously; this city drove those who went too far and saw too much mad. Things that should make sense didn't, doors existed that were either a horizontal doorway or a vertical trapdoor, I couldn't be sure.
There was the sound of skittering that I had been hearing for the past few days; there it was again, what was it? I turned around but quickly grew lost even though I could still see the front gate. I was tempted to go back, and I acted upon that temptation but as I grew nearer to the gates they closed with a creak and hissed at me to go forward. Unable to go back I went forward into the city of insanity.
A shadow walked out in front of me, it was about the size of a house cat. It came forward and I realized that there was no body to it. All it was made of was a shadow that two dimensionally walked along the ground. It came up next to me and snuggled against my leg before pissing all over my leg.
A breeze that felt blue, I don't know how it did it but I felt the color blue, swirled across my face and dropped off down a drain and back into the air. I continued to walk forward, as I did I could hear the sound of my sisters name being called. I could not tell if this was to drive me mad quicker or if this was some unholy wail to breach the sanctity of her purity.
R'lyeh began to pull me closer to its unimaginable core. The twists and turns picked at my brain and threatened again and again to drive me insane. Towards the center of the core was a tall spiral, a spiral that housed the one thing I never wanted to see ever again.
Finally I stumbled into its home the sanctity of the Dark One, the god Cthulhu. In the middle of the circular, or perhaps a triangle, room there was the beginning of a spiral staircase.
Every inch of me was screaming to move back and attempt to climb the unholy gate and swim back to civilization. But something possessed me to keep walking forward.
As the fool I was I mounted the first step and slowly began to take a step in what felt like an eternity to take the next step up to the nexus of the spire. My feet felt like lead, no wait steel. Heavy blocks that can only be made of some metal, which can explain why every step I take I feel like I weigh ten pounds more.
After two eons I arrive at the gate, from within I can hear the dark king slumber. Every breath is a cacophony of sorrow and madness. I slumped to my knees, seeing before my eyes a key to the doorway. Unlocking it would awaken him. I know now I have but one choice.
Reaching into my belt I pull out the handgun that I always keep on me. I bring the barrel up to my mouth, whispering a last good bye before I pull the trigger.
"Karen, keep calm. Press down on my wound, help me keep pressure on it." I grunted.
"Okay." she told me as she placed both of her tiny, thirteen year old hands onto my gunshot wound.
"You're doing fine, just keep calm." I told her to calm her down as I heard sirens approaching. If anything I needed to be the one freaking out right now, but still.
"I'm sorry Kenny." Karen told me in a trembling voice.
"You don't have to, ugh, be sorry for anything."
The paramedics arrived shortly after and loaded me onto a stretcher. They put an oxygen mask over my mouth and started to act like this was a lot more serious than this actually was.
They picked and prodded at me for a bit before one pulled out a syringe. I looked over to see a paramedic with a head of a panther, its teeth long and stained pink from blood. Its eyes were golden and kept eyeing me up and down.
"Keep the fuck away from me!" I yelled as it injected me with a syringe.
I blinked and then the panther head was gone. I heard a skittering across the rooftop and felt as the paramedics were routing around inside me to pull the bullet out. Right now I was in a daze. That kind where nothing in your head will come together and everything seems to be moving in slow motion as your mind focuses to feel every bead of sweat running down your forehead.
"Karen?" I called out. "Where's Karen?"
There was a bunch of whomping as a reply, like they were censoring their speech out so I couldn't hear it. I saw Karen's face out of the corner of my eye and I calmed down a little. A bump on the road caused me to wince as I felt myself move around when I needed to be still.
I watched as I was pulled up to the hospital and wheeled in. The smell of cleaner and sick people assaulted me as my senses focused on something other than anything that was relevant. The white halls and doctors passed me in a blur as I was wheeled into the O.R where green scrubbed surgeons awaited me.
I tried to call out for Karen but my chest felt like there was a four-ton weight on it. The surgeons slipped my oxygen mask off of me and then hooked me up to the anesthetic. I felt myself start to slip and lose consciousness. One of the last things that I saw was the panther head standing over me with a malicious grin as I faded out completely.
#####
I was walking in a city in which angles were a suggestion instead of a reality. Standing in front of a gate that was caked in algae and dark souls I walked forward. The gate creaked open and I proceeded into the sunken and risen city of R'lyeh.
I stepped in cautiously; this city drove those who went too far and saw too much mad. Things that should make sense didn't, doors existed that were either a horizontal doorway or a vertical trapdoor, I couldn't be sure.
There was the sound of skittering that I had been hearing for the past few days; there it was again, what was it? I turned around but quickly grew lost even though I could still see the front gate. I was tempted to go back, and I acted upon that temptation but as I grew nearer to the gates they closed with a creak and hissed at me to go forward. Unable to go back I went forward into the city of insanity.
A shadow walked out in front of me, it was about the size of a house cat. It came forward and I realized that there was no body to it. All it was made of was a shadow that two dimensionally walked along the ground. It came up next to me and snuggled against my leg before pissing all over my leg.
A breeze that felt blue, I don't know how it did it but I felt the color blue, swirled across my face and dropped off down a drain and back into the air. I continued to walk forward, as I did I could hear the sound of my sisters name being called. I could not tell if this was to drive me mad quicker or if this was some unholy wail to breach the sanctity of her purity.
R'lyeh began to pull me closer to its unimaginable core. The twists and turns picked at my brain and threatened again and again to drive me insane. Towards the center of the core was a tall spiral, a spiral that housed the one thing I never wanted to see ever again.
Finally I stumbled into its home the sanctity of the Dark One, the god Cthulhu. In the middle of the circular, or perhaps a triangle, room there was the beginning of a spiral staircase.
Every inch of me was screaming to move back and attempt to climb the unholy gate and swim back to civilization. But something possessed me to keep walking forward.
As the fool I was I mounted the first step and slowly began to take a step in what felt like an eternity to take the next step up to the nexus of the spire. My feet felt like lead, no wait steel. Heavy blocks that can only be made of some metal, which can explain why every step I take I feel like I weigh ten pounds more.
After two eons I arrive at the gate, from within I can hear the dark king slumber. Every breath is a cacophony of sorrow and madness. I slumped to my knees, seeing before my eyes a key to the doorway. Unlocking it would awaken him. I know now I have but one choice.
Reaching into my belt I pull out the handgun that I always keep on me. I bring the barrel up to my mouth, whispering a last good bye before I pull the trigger.