Sognore 2.0

Cool water lapped at his back and his body was supported by a light nothingness. A dim light ushered his eyes to open. A stream dotted with the light of stars stretched out beyond his feet. Beds of green, fluid plants swayed under his body. He could hear a soft hum that came from all directions. Mateo’s heart swelled. There was a profuse, universal feeling of peace that cradled his weak body.

This must be Heaven.

He looked over to see a little boy’s face. His blue skin and pure eyes didn’t startle him at all. A nest of black hair and two small horns adorned his head. The boy’s eyes drew him in like quicksand. He had no pupils; only seas of bright blue. Kaleidoscopic flowers danced languidly behind the little boy. He watched in wonder as the symbol on the boy's forehead lit up a bright blue. It was a geometrical shape of overlapping circles and flowers.

The green plants untangled from the alien's hands and attached to Mateo's back. They felt spongy yet warm on his bare skin. The boy’s mouth curled into a joyous, excited smile. As his body slumped, the child’s arms wrapped around Mateo. He felt so tired, so awfully tired. Yet his dry mouth and sore muscles didn’t matter anymore. Mateo’s lips began to quiver. The boy's touch felt like the embrace of an angel. A serenity he never felt before nestled in his tired heart. Mateo's eyes drooped as tears ran down his cheeks.

As the plants retreated back into the water, the alien child released his embrace. Mateo drew back a bit, opening his eyes to stare back into two vacuums of space. His heart dropped down to his gut as he stared at a mirror image of himself. His eyes looked cold and dead. Or rather, mine? The thought made his skin squirm with discomfort.

The eyes were vacant. Dried blood coated his clone's lips and trailed down to his throat and collarbone. His once curly and bouncy hair lay slicked back to the nape of his neck. It was freakish to be so close to what seemed to be his body and yet not recognize it at all. The more he looked into those eyes, the more Mateo felt like he was melting away. Predatory discomfort circled Mateo's mind.

His mirror image leaned forward so slowly it was as though he had no backbone. Not one single muscle moved in his clone's face as it slammed Mateo into the water. His hands clenched around Mateo's neck as he bucked and thrashed in desperation. No! No! I won’t be killed by you! The water rushed eagerly down his throat, flooding his airways and stomach. The last thing Mateo saw was his own eyes melting into the pitch-black blanket of unconsciousness.

His own breath which rose and fell in short, shaky gasps was the only notion he was alive. He awaited an ethereal being to appear in front of him, though, nothing showed. He had no idea if something lingered in the shadows, waiting to devour him alive. Even now he was his own enemy.

He could feel he was lying down, though he didn't know what on.

Maybe I'm dreaming, he thought. Foreboding squeezed his heart as he dared to move his finger. He felt nothing. He tried to vocalize his thoughts aloud and yet nothing but a strained rasp escaped from his throat.

The blackness around him became blurry and unfocused. It were as though a glass wall had separated his brain from his body. He could stare at the mannequin of himself, yet not interact with it. The disconnection was both comforting and terrifying.

Mateo watched in an apathetic daze as a figure manifested before him. He could almost make out its outline in the shadows. It had a feminine chest, arms, and neck though its torso and below were that of a man. One gold, liquid eye peered at him through two long, black fingers. Light emanated from the eye like a light bulb. He faced it in silence despite its probing glare.

"Be not afraid.” Its words were like a needle that pricked and threaded foreign feelings into his skin. The fingers dropped off its face as though they were never attached. There was no white in its eye, only a mural of gold and a black hole that sat in its center.

“Something has been forced to blossom within you. Too early, yet…”

It was useless to try to even look away from the thing's eye. The more it looked into him, the more he felt the metaphorical gelatin encasing his brain slide off.

“Earth has always been a planet excluded and differing from the rest of the universe. Our souls become human to experience the meaning of suffering, and then to choose between a duality of right and wrong. Shared by both new and old, by high and low. A constant struggle.”

Mateo's eyes widened with fright and wonder. He was certain that it was too vivid and real to be a dream.

Is it...a god of some sort? Or God, even?

A translucent cord of energy slithered around his waist and secured itself to his skin like a belt. His chest tightened and his breath became shallow. Is it gonna attack me?

"I should have known you would mistrust me. It is a human response to the unknown." The voice was monotone. Mateo quieted his thoughts. He already bared his soul and body to the entity, though not of his own choice. At least he could try his best to hush his mind. The cord wrapped around his body now lassoed him forward and pulled him through the dark.

“You’ll abandon your ego when you know you must.”

The being still stood in front of him, seemingly not moving at all. Its gold eye was still fixated on him. Mateo had crossed his arms over his chest, gripping his shoulders. He had no safety belt to keep him in place. It was only the eye, the lasso, and his body. In a perfect scenario, he would be confident and devoid of fear.

Instead he shut his eyes. The pocket of darkness they traversed through became tighter and thinner. He could feel his body folding into itself like origami and his bones crunching together. As the pain became too much to bear, the cord threw him forward and out of the closing tunnel. He had hoped to feel the ground planted beneath his feet. Instead, it was quite the opposite.

Seemingly, he no longer had a physical body. Nor did he have a name. The gold eye had disappeared.

I. They. She. He. Them. We.

The words had no meaning. The consciousness would have laughed, yet had gotten familiar to having no mouth. No thoughts ruled the soul’s domain. It was pure freedom. A current of air lightly shoved the flying consciousness as its vision expanded. The construct of time slowed and calmed.

The soul could see the world. An organ of human thought, human love, and human loneliness thrummed through this planet. Moving images aglow with a twinkling light flashed in its sight. A little girl with messy, blonde hair struggles to hold in her laugh as a blue butterfly rests on her temple. A woman’s gentle smile fades into the comfort of sleep under her lover’s arm. The rigid mouth of an old woman breaks into a childlike grin in the embrace of a past friend. Simple moments cause happiness.

A chill splits the warm memories apart. A visage of an angelic white lily blooms from the darkness. The hand of a child reaches to pluck it from the great, old tree. Before the boy even had a chance to smell it, the white lily dissipated into mist. The five kids in front of him smell the lilies in delight as they walk home. The lone boy pulls out grey tacks lodged in the webs of his fingers. The boy sniffles and cries as blood spurts from his hands. Disappointment. Isolation. We don’t always get what we want.

A man holds a blue urn to his chest, close to the beat of his heart. The woman by him rests her head on his shoulder. A flat body of water lays below the bridge they stand on. Tenderly he removes the lid and holds the urn out as an offering to the great, old sea. Tears well in his eyes as the ashes scatter into the wind and into the waters below. The woman and man grieve together. Acceptance. Letting go. This is what it means to become comfortable with sadness.

The wise old sea morphs into the blue, tired eyes of a young woman. The door shuts behind her as she lifts two brown bags onto a kitchen counter. Two young children, one female and one male, rush up to her. They bustle about and jump around their mother as prepackaged food is opened. Her knuckles are red and her hands are bruised. The aroma of vegetables and chicken wafts through the small apartment. The redness of sunset floods through an open window and onto the floors. Sacrifice. Family. Love and sacrifice are often intertwined.

The color of blood is unlike any other shade. It runs down the faces of desperate men, knowing that they are not enemies to the soldiers on the other side. Both are pawns to their government, and all have a family hoping they make it back alive. Too many images of war the soul can see. From the bodies that littered the ground grow hatred and contempt. It wasn’t flesh that the vultures of darkness fed on. It was the human emotion of horror and loathing. Their forms were fluid and black, yet possessed no face. In the midst of shouting and gunfire, sweat and loss, they feasted. Hate. Fear. This darkness must have been created by us.

“Without a body and brain you can identify the feelings of all humans. It came easily. This can be learned within the body, too.”

The eye’s voice played incredibly slow in his head as the soul returned to its body. Instinctively he gasped for air to fill his lungs and flexed his fingers. The weight of his muscles felt so burdensome. A blinding overhead light seeped into the darkness of Mateo’s closed eyes. Once again his feet were not touching the ground. Blood rushed to his head as his eyes shot open.

In the sun’s place sat the eye. It looked down upon him in its heavenly throne and heat and warmth emanated from its center. The sky was a plain blue and devoid, desert land stretched for miles beyond his vision. Vines encircled his ankles to the wood he was bound to. His arms were stretched onto two sides of the wood. A cross. Why am I on a cross? Mateo squinted, turning his head away from the impenetrable gaze of the golden eye. It all felt like a horrible hangover mixed with a strange fever dream.

“Why am I here? Here, tied to this cross...” His words came out hoarse and cracked.

A face appeared above Mateo’s upside down head. A bolt of fear cracked through his body at the sight of his own face. It could’ve been the same one that had drowned him earlier, yet it didn’t feel the same. An iridescent shimmer surrounded the clone’s body and his eyes shone with something Mateo couldn’t comprehend. His faint smile was warm, though Mateo doubted if it were real or not.

His clone bent down, his hands grasping both sides of Mateo’s head. The feeling of being unable to do anything, forced to stare into a copy of his own eyes, felt unnerving. His clone’s black swathe of hair crowded his eyes as he spoke.

“You can cleanse the badness now. You can make it go away. Or you can sit as a sacrifice to them, waiting to be devoured.” His voice was soft and quiet; Mateo couldn’t even register if it were his or not.

The clone’s smile grew.

“You can choose. Why’s it all matter? Why is it happening?” Gold liquid surged from his black eyes and oozed down his cheeks. Mateo’s heart beat faster as his body braced for the worst.

“I don’t know. I won’t know until you do.”

Mateo could begin to feel himself slipping away. The clone’s voice became distant.

“Bye bye,” whispered Mateo’s clone.