Unstoppable Black Flame

“Hey, get up, I’ve to show you something,” Seraph said as she pulled my arm. The abominable taste of alcohol reminded me of its presence in my mouth once more. Those days, all I did was drink. I was trying to kill myself like that. Attempting to drown myself in spirits. I swear I was so close, but eventually she pulled me out of that pit. I had a good reason to drink. I had a good reason to not want to live. I had a good reason to hate myself. My life was hell for the longest time. She has been the only bright spot in my life for the longest time. A fiery ball of warm and welcoming light in an otherwise colorless and cold world. Hence the nickname.

“Can’t it wait until the morning, Seraph?” I mumbled as she yanked my body, forcing me to get up. My head spun, and I felt my stomach twist into a knot.

“No. Come on, I've got to show you something.” She said, apathetic to my pathetic drunken state.

I clumsily followed her out into the barn of the farm she used as a summer cottage. For a summer night, the air was chilly. My brain was swimming in whiskey and so I thought I was just imagining things. Something felt off that night, like a black hole had formed in the middle of that farm and sucked the life out of everything. The world seemed to be coated in a supernatural darkness. The usually lively locale was eerily silent. Dead, in fact. I wasn’t imagining things. It was, in fact, dead. Something was indeed wrong, or rather, something turned right that one night. Seraph led me by the arm to the barn. A wide and almost malicious smile adorned her face and her blue eyes shone with a glimmer I hadn’t seen in years under the silver light of the moon.

To my inebriated self, she seemed almost like an actual angel.

That night, she played the role of one. Perhaps the universe aligned with her – our desires that night.

Seraph pushed the barn door open and gestured for me to walk inside. It was dark and damp. We didn’t use the barn for God knows how long. The smell of piss and shit assaulted my nostrils, forcing my brain to stir my guts once more. Seraph walked in behind me, turning the lights on. An ugly yellow light showered the building, exposing the nightmarish interior that violated my vision thoughtlessly. Hundreds, if not thousands, of little human bones covered the floor. The whole place looked like something out of Milton’s Hell.

My head went into a dark place, one that I was so desperately trying to forget. The tension in the air was palpable. Seraph stood beside me, silently. I was going to ask her if this was some kind of sick joke but then I heard her heartbeat - she wasn’t enjoying herself.

My eyes darted left and right around the room, with the metaphorical poisonous fumes of hell all around me slowly sucking the air out of my lungs. Blood and shit covering the walls. Intricate drawings, symbols, and inactions drawn in bodily fluids covered the whole barn. My sister pointed at something, unmoving, her gaze transfixed on that something as if it was the worst thing she had ever seen. As if she was staring at the face of death itself. Our heartbeats flooded my ears. The tension was ever-increasing violently. Almost as if the building was trying to give me a heart attack. Everything started spinning and turning. The color of the light started turning into a disgusting orange as my eyes slowly toward what she was pointing at.

It’s like I knew what I was going to witness and my mind was struggling with my body. It was trying to keep me away from seeing whatever this thing was, but I had the upper hand. My subconscious mind had no say. I was going to follow with my sister’s silent request to look at whatever lay or rather sat, ahead of us.

A twisted parody of the passions of Christ unfolded itself before me. An old man with long white hair and a long beard to match nailed to a wooden cross in a seated position. A circle of human skulls surrounded this effigy of the divine. Tiny human skulls. Children’s skulls. Too many to count. My heart sank. Seraph stopped, pointing. Her hand slowly dropped in the periphery of my vision as she remained silent and statuesque.

The crucified man was enormous. He was a tall man, his long legs pressed to the floor as his lower back was bent awkwardly against the wooden beam behind him. He was naked, bloodied, and bruised. His body was malnourished and skeletal. The bones under his skin were trying to push their way out of his tortured body. The most striking feature of this man is his lack of junk. As I scanned his decrepit old body, I met his nearly lifeless gaze and my urge to hurl my stomach's contents finally broke through my mind’s defenses against it.

I threw up all over the floor, fighting the urge to collapse to my knees. I wish I could avert my gaze away from his half-decayed gaze, but I could not. I could not turn away the eyes from my father’s seemingly mummified, yet still living carcass.

Meeting his eyes, the floodgates of my psyche cracked open, and all hell broke loose. This one moment, one gaze, had undone years and years of suppressed memories. Then I was back in that hell. I felt the hot tears stream down my face as I stormed out of the barn. Leaving my sister alone with that monster in there.

I fell to the ground and screamed at the top of my lungs. I didn’t intend to do all of that, but my body and mind were two separate entities at that moment. Mentally, I was a child again. Reliving my worst days, repeatedly. I was born to this giant piece of shit and an unknown mother. We never formally met, her and I. We never knew each other as a parent and child should. I never bothered looking for her. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was dead not long after I was born. He had a tendency to do that to the girls he slept with.

My father and his friends ran a local religious community. A strict little sect where they preached the values and laws of Christ and the Lord while indulging in their abhorrent sins behind everyone’s backs. Little old me knew what they were doing all along. I knew about it all. I knew about how he’d bring home a girl every other day. They were never much older than myself. His friends would come along and they’d perform what they called a ritual with, or rather on, that girl.

Most of these girls never came out of my father’s bedroom. Not in one piece at least.

He kept saying they had sent them to a better place. At first, I was too young to know what he meant or what went down there. As the years rolled on and I grew older, however, I came to understand the meaning of his words and actions.

Those who came out of that room were never the same. They broke these children. Dead inside, devoid of all light. A Cabal of sick, sadistic individuals who sucked out the lives of these girls. A ministry of devils leaving behind nothing short of lifeless walking husks. Unfortunately, my father had friends in high places, and he got away scot-free with whatever he wanted.

Nobody could stop this antichrist.

When I was twelve, he and his adult girlfriend adopted Seraph. She was an eight-year-old who lost her parents a few years before that in a vehicular accident. She quickly became the light of my life. The only bright spot in this hell we were living in.

When I turned thirteen, it was my turn to take part in the so-called ritual. My father’s girlfriend. She’d sneak up at night to my room and do things… She’d do things you’re not supposed to do with a child to me. It felt wrong - it felt awful. I hated it, but I couldn’t do anything about it. She kept telling me to stay quiet about it or else both God and my father would punish me. This went on for nearly a year until I buckled. I went and told my father about what his girlfriend was doing to me.

His response? He beat me senselessly. Nearly killed me. During the entire ordeal, I prayed silently, begging God to end my suffering. I begged the Almighty to either stop the monster or snuff out my life. Anything to end this torture. I begged and I cried and I… It just seemed to enrage the sick bastard even more because he kept landing more and more shots across my body. Broke a few of my ribs, my nose. My leg. Nearly cracked my spine. I’m lucky I didn’t have any lasting damage.

After that his girlfriend stopped bothering me, it was like I’ve never existed to her.

It’s one thing to have sex. It’s whole another thing to have your father nearly kill you for begging him to act like an actual father. Living through this, I realized God probably doesn’t care if we live or die. He doesn’t care if someone suffers or not. He doesn’t fucking care if monsters use his name to get by. To manipulate and then abuse and torture children. He doesn’t care if pedophiles use him to lure in little girls and end up fucking them to death. That kind of God doesn’t deserve any worship or admiration or even recognition. He is worse than dead to me.

That wasn’t the end for me. While my physical abuse was short-lived and the mental torture was mostly self-inflicted. My suffering didn’t end. I had to live through knowing my father treated his own child the same way he did the other girls. When she turned ten the day after, he took her to his bedroom. His friends came to visit him that day. I was fourteen. I understood what they were doing, and I felt hopeless knowing I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

Many hours later, after all the demons disguised as men left the house. Seraph came out. She was a ghost of her former self. Her blue eyes were almost black. They were painfully empty. There was no pain, no joy, no fear, no excitement, no nothing. Just two orbs directed into the emptiness of space. She wouldn’t speak and wouldn’t look anyone in the eyes for days. Merely wobbling around in the house, acting like an automaton. She seemed so unalive at that point.

But she “made it through the ritual” as the monster put it. He insisted the child in her had died to give rise to a fully fledged woman. I hated those words. I’m sure she did, too. From that point onwards, he kept us apart. Implanting seeds of hatred and distrust between the two of us. We would have spells of not talking with each other for weeks before making up again. All because he’d whisper lies in our ears. Telling us one said or did something that would upset the other.

Seraph had it worse than me. As she would later tell me, he’d frequent her bedroom for many nights. Indulging in “cleansing” her and “giving her the warmth of the holy father” and various other disgusting euphemisms.

By the time I turned sixteen, I had had it with his madness. I had it with seeing him bring these children home. My eyes were growing tired of the sight of his friends who took on the shape of long-tongued satyrs covered in blood and cut in my eyes. I’ve had enough of all of it. I took up the bottle when I was fifteen. That was my best friend for the longest time. I was trying to kill myself, and I had a good reason to. I couldn’t live much longer knowing my sister was being abused. I couldn’t live much longer knowing I co-existed in the same space with a man who commits unimaginable crimes against children. I tried to die so badly, but I guess genetics prevented me from dying due to liver damage or alcohol poisoning. The boogeyman could drink like ten normal-sized men and not pass out. Some days I wished liver cancer would tear him apart from the inside out.

After turning sixteen I got myself and Seraph drunk – He had left for one of his trips out of town. That night we promised to each other to always have each other’s backs and even made a permanent mark on our arms using a hot knife. That night was the worst night of my life. Seraph fell asleep before me.

At first, she was sleeping so soundly. She seemed so calm and peaceful. I just sat there beside her bed, watching her sleep, feeling happy for her being so peaceful. Soon enough, she started tossing and turning in her bed. Nightmares had plagued her sleep. The tossing and turning turned to moaning and gritting of teeth, she was fighting with her covers. I was dozing off when the screams of my younger sister jolted me awake.

“Daddy, stop

“Daddy, please no”

Half-awake, thinking he was back at it, right in front of me, I shot up. Screaming like a wounded animal, I tossed the chair I sat on. I chucked the damned thing at the invisible abomination that took up imaginary space in the darkness that covered Seraph's room.

The nightmares are the sole reason she won’t ever drink.

A few months after that, I finally snapped during one of his many trips. I packed my things, forced Seraph to do the same, and we just ran out of the house. Stole the money we could find and drove across the country to our grandparents. He never came looking for us, as far as I know.

His parents had heard about what he did but couldn’t bring themselves to do anything about it. They were good people; they just couldn’t go against their own child. I never faulted them for this. They took us in and took good care of us. Life was infinitely better off living with my grandparents. We could finally live like normal children. I never got to attend school. Seraph had it better. She was younger. Her life seemed to get back on track. Having it far worse than me, she seemed to cope way better. Good on her. I could never shake off that disgusting feeling of a part of him crawling under my skin. My reflection is a reminder of his vile existence. For the longest time, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I shouldn’t exist, fearing I might end up like him.

I have lived a life filled with self-hatred and self-inflicted pain.

All of those dark and painful memories were ravaging through my mind until the voice of my sister woke me out of my misery-fueled trance.

“Come back, I need some help here.” I couldn’t resist the urge to help her. It was just instinctual at that point. It’s like her voice just washed away everything, even if just momentarily. I got back up and walked into the barn, dusting myself off as I walked through the door.

Seraph was holding a gasoline canister in her arms, pouring the flammable liquid all over the dying old man. His eyes darted back and forth, the fear crystal clear in them. For the first time, I saw fear in those inhuman eyes. At that moment, he finally seemed human.

It felt good. It felt so good seeing this man so powerless.

“Help me douse this place,” Seraph remarked, gesturing to another canister. Realizing what she had in mind, I quietly obliged. We doused the barn thoroughly. I exchanged glances with the skeletal giant from time to time. His eyes were watering, and he tried mouthing words, but nothing but garbled sounds came out. The crown of phalluses on his head shook amusingly as he tossed his head left and right.

Once we finished dousing the barn, we exited, and Seraph handed me a lighter as we lit our father’s funeral pyre. She looked at me with her shining blue eyes as the flames caught on. A wide, smug smile stretched across her face. She also asked me to stop drinking, saying that she needed me around for as long as possible, which I did. We stood there watching it all burn down. She prayed to the devil, asking him to skewer this monster on his cock.

I never took my sister for the Satanic type.

I could hear my worst nightmares scream in agony as the flames licked and bit into chunks of their cadaverous form.

At that moment, when we metaphorically cut off our ancestral family tree, Seraph stopped being a mere fiery ball of warm and welcoming light. Instead, she turned into something much more refined, something much more beautiful and serenading. She became an unstoppable black flame, consuming everything in its path. I suppose she didn’t cope as well as I thought she would. That’s okay, though. I’m here to help her manage through the pain and anger.