Nihility

The last thing I can remember before passing out is the whole congregation dancing. While these people were all unknown to me, I felt some kind of kinship with them. We were all dancing as part of our attempt to unite with God. I don’t remember how all of that ended. I remember the room twisting and turning; the loud, cheerful music. Limbs moved in all directions as bodies twisted and contorted under the influence of wine and divine flesh. The whole universe began spinning around me. No, I spun at its center; uncontrollably at the whim of sinister gravitational forces. The warmth I initially felt quickly dissipated, leaving a nauseating vertigo in its place.

Instead of ascending into the bosom of the Lord, I think I might’ve fallen into the ninth circle of the abyss. Colors and sounds began to lose their essence as everything turned so suddenly, so cold and black. There was no pain, no fear, no feeling at all - rather, a sudden and yet gradual disappearance of the world; of the self, my… self.

I woke up once the ground beneath started stirring my body up and down, irritating the fragile composition of this flesh prison. As soon as I opened my eyes, the vertigo threatened to cripple my still-intoxicated mind. I didn’t feel any fear as everything around me moved. The walls, the furniture, the floor. The danger of being in the epicenter of an earthquake hadn’t sunk in quite yet. As I was struggling to pull myself upright, I finally noticed the ground wasn’t really shaking. It was swaying back and forth, like waves in the ocean. Everything was swaying.

The outline of everything around me rippled and gently danced to an inconceivable rhythm. Only when I noticed my own skin ripple, in the same manner, did I finally register the full scope of the cataclysm I was caught up in.

The animal inside finally awoke, stumbling over the swaying floor and the limitations of the human body. I crawled as fast as I could out of there. The chorea of the world around me prevented me from making much progress at first as I fell face first in my first few attempts to reach open space.

After what seemed like an hour, I finally pulled myself outside, my vision obscured by the downpour of blood masking my busted-open visage.

The heat outside was unbearable. It felt like hell on earth. The iridescence and sound of the sun pounded across my already battered form mercilessly. Beating me down as I stumbled onward, trying to get further away from the epicenter of the strange disaster plaguing this place.

Each step felt like an arduous journey across mountain ranges as the light emanating from the firmament weight down on me growing infinitely heavier with each passing moment. Slowly grinding my consciousness into dust. Everything started turning dim again, dim and distant.

My clarity returned to me when the popping and clanking melody broke through the songs of Sol overhead. I wish I’d died then and there. I instinctively turned to the source of the sound and the scream of bloody murder erupted in my ears. My own scream, closing in on me, were the partially scorched bodies of my brothers and sisters. Locked in a manic dance that further broke and mutilated their already lifeless bodies.

I tried to run, but the treacherous Telus wouldn’t let me get far ahead before I fell down again.

Finally, overcome with fear and anxiety, I could simply stare at the sun as it moved back and forth; up and down and side to side in the sky. Singing in the highest and lowest of tones imaginable.

The surrounding heat increased. I could feel sweat rolling down my skin. Its salty composition scorched my open wounds. The air in my lungs became hotter and hotter; beginning to tear through the viscous fabric. I could feel the star above me slowly drawing near.

We were on a collision course - The star and I.

I was falling down into the ravenous maw of the sun.

A sacrifice to Molech, placed within his smoldering hot bowels by the hands of the fire-kissed skeletons those same bowels had birthed prior.

And yet, in those final moments of inescapable doom, I finally found peace.

In those brain-melting moments when I was dragged about into oblivion by the red-hot bones of the dead who had risen from within the void beyond their poisonous grave to tear me apart into tiny pieces to be fed to the Ignis Dei I finally felt at home, I finally felt loved…

The God of Fire decided to break my heart instead, however, as he rejected me. His kiss poisoned my body, but it wouldn’t take me to spend the rest of eternity to spend with him in the wonderful land hidden deep within the mushroom cloud.

A paralyzing thunderbolt burned through my spine, twisting and stretching it from the core of the earth and into the stratosphere, into the realm of the gods themselves. It left behind nothing but pain, terrifying and suffocating pain as it made me watch the dead slowly dance away into the mists of Abaddon, leaving me on my own.

Trapped within this body of mine, trapped within this skull.

My attempt to escape this false world had failed. Leaving me was once again faced with the ugly face of the false prophet as its oversized jaw filled with jagged teeth and bloodshot eyes shook from side to side in disapproval.

Once more, I woke up; undoubtedly alive. Alive and crucified to this feeble form that wouldn’t move nor let me breathe under the immense weight of the cancerous growth that continues to bloom inside my chest.

I lay in bed, paralyzed with fear and grief yet unable to scream due to the suffocating hand of apathy wrapped around my throat. All the while, the Great Pan screams violently and ever so gleefully into my ear, turning my blood cold as it pushes me to drown in ice-cold rivers of dread. At the same time, the insufferable rays of the sun crawl against my skin, torturing me mercilessly with the prospect of having to spend yet another day in the clutches of this sadistic reality.

In moments like this, I can only think about how nothing is more horrifying than the idea that without the pills on my nightstand, I am nothing more than a lost child trapped in the cold void of a dead body.