Young Writers Society

I Am the Damned

Serenity… Absolute stillness of all concerning matter. This perfect arrest of movement was conceived in a portion of a second, a very crucial second, in which an obvious mistake was made. Was I dead? It seemed that I was not; my soul felt no detention, for there was a vast spacious valley of pure and perfect white beheld in my eyes. Had I perhaps swooned and been made unconscious? No. This was all very real. I could feel with the tips of my fingers my face. This was no sleep induced vision, though highly peculiar. Eerie that in one blink of my eyes, the white valley could be brought before me in a mind-boggling manner, no doubt. But, no dream was this. Although, by my spectacle it was as close as one got to dream whilst remaining conscious. Neither sound passed by me, nor any sort of movement detectable.

In any instance of absolute uncertainty of the retention of ones own senses, one tests this sense in any easily accessible way possible. My thought was that I had become deaf, so in test of this hypothesis, a certain unthreatening muttering of the word “hello.” At this point an event happened that I had never forthright experienced. The oddity of it caused my mind to un-focus in swooning. At the utterance of the word, an immediate audible recognition was not made by my ears. Instead, the vocalization took a substantially lengthier amount of time to reach my ears, as if some one had called to me. I looked about and saw not one movement in the landscape; which, it seemed was an endless desert of perfect white. In retrying my previous test I found the result to be in almost every way the same except for this time, even though my projection was the exact same as the former, the way in which it reached my ears was differing in that I heard it to be twice as loud and in the same multiple long. By which I mean that the time in which it reached my ears was doubled. A note to be made of this is that, although my experience in this matter has until now been nil, I could tell when my vocalization was reaching my ear, as both times I anticipated it with precision. The seconds before it reached my ears, being roughly 2 the first and 4 the second, I could sense it’s rapid movement toward me, like I felt the sound waves advancement. This anticipation was not differing from the first or second test, as it seemed to remain constant.

Oh! Remorse, as I am now recollecting the events which befell in the former to this increasingly bazaar experience. “You’re just a notch in my blade’s handle, bitch!” I recited to the bound and bawling girl. And oh! Regretful me, my words were of a weak man, but my actions of an outright evil one. The blade, my blade, with twelve notches, and she being the thirteenth, I was a pig rapist and a black hearted killer. My adrenaline rushed and my heart fluttered and pounded in my chest as I studied the motion and effect of a thrusting penetrating blade. I was sick, and I loved the sound of muffled screams because of their moan like quality. But, now, my stomach sinks at remembrance of my volatile actions toward my now deceased captives.

But, now, my thoughts extend to examine the events that succeeded my new found place of existence. In an odd position of vulnerability, I was placed here naked and unaccompanied. It’s apparent that I had died and become unto this eerie place, and my apathy in this matter surprised me. I can only assume the careless feeling I have for my own death is caused by my realization of how absolutely hateful a man I was in life. The matter of my death is a confusing one. My assumption is that I had been killed, but if this is the case, by who was I lead to my demise? It seemed that no amount of strain exerted by my mind devoted to the remembrance of my own death could lead to its recollection. And my search through memory was diluted by the distracting thoughts of my life’s pathetic and disgusting hobby.

As my mind tore itself apart looking for answers and finding only sick thoughts, it brought me to utter dismay. My eyes welled up with tears and I descended upon my knees. In my realizing that I was an irretrievable and lost soul I began to weep. The pain that befell me at an instant after the first tears poured from my ducts was excruciating. The flesh began to burn and itch, and it peeled from my face and left a line from the bottom of my eyes down to the point that it dripped from my chin. The line was a raw and bleeding gash. My tears had the effects observed of the strongest acid! Before my mind grasped this horror I clasped my hands to my face and cried out in pain. When I pulled my hands away they too were raw, and as I watched in absolute terror and awe, the flesh peeled to the bone. Then, interrupting the awful display of grotesque horror was a familiar anticipation. It had at that point, been roughly eight seconds since I cried out, and my cry then reached my ears and it was startlingly loud and frightened me, causing me to fall from my knees onto my back. I threw my hands instinctively backward to stay my fall and in an instant I realized that the white granules of this dessert were not, like I once thought, sand, but a huge amount of a salt-like substance. It burned thick and deep in my wounds. Again, as this pain was terrible, I cried out a long, loud expression of my agony. Immediately, I brought my hands up from the salty ground. It was then I realized that steadfast and vigilant, my scream was approaching twice as loud as the preceding yell that knocked me from kneeling erect.

I sat in silence for some moments, I don’t know how long, and it was to my surprise and joy that after a good amount of time, exceeding that of sixteen seconds, the possibly deafening scream never reached my ears. I rejoiced for this happening for a few splendid seconds, before turning my attention back to the wounds and giving thought toward what I could do to relieve the pain they caused me. At the exact moment that I ceased to rejoice for my previous and unexplained blessing, I anticipated the arrival of the lost sound. My heart fluttered and my eyes widened, I brought my wrists, at once, over my ears, as my hands were too pained. But when the, now positively deafening scream reached my ears, my covering of them did nothing to dampen its effect. I felt my ear drums burst, and it gave me a feeling like liquid filling my ear canals. I squeezed shut my eyes and held my tongue between my teeth to prevent screaming again in the nearly intolerable pain.

It was at this point in my misadventure that it occurred to me that, despite my previous thoughts on the matter, Hell did exist, and thus so did Heaven. I immediately re-elevated myself to my knees from the salty ground I lied upon, and began to pray to God for my denying of his existence. I knelt, pressed my wounded hands together, bowed my head, closed my eyes, and began to pray. Of a sudden, my eyes were open again, against my own volition, and I felt a force on my body like it was no longer in my control. To my confusion, my head began to bend back as if my neck was forcing my head to look to the sky. At the same instance my hands were forced from their current prayer position. Slowly, they made their way from near my chest with their palms together, down to rest behind my back, with the knuckles of them pressed together, almost as if I had been handcuffed. Also at this time my knees were forced to unbend and I stood fully erect. My thoughts were that in moments after these happenings I would retain my control over my body and be able to move from the near painful position I was being forced into. This, however, was not the case. After the feeling of arrest left my body I tried to move my head from looking straight up, as this was most uncomforting in this positively hostile territory, to have my throat so bear and presented. But even in the hardest driven efforts I could not move my neck back to its usual position. I also gave a good deal of effort to moving my hands, to see if they could help me in my objective of moving my head, but they too were stuck in their position. I realized then that my previous act of praying had caused an outside force to bend my body into the exact opposite of the position of prayer. To make sure of this theory I tried to bend my knees and to my horror they would not be bent. I took a few steps and even then could not bend my knees, my steps were big and awkward much like a robot might walk, and I was hard-pressed not to stumble and fall. And after walking those few steps, a more serious matter arrested my attention. What of my eyes?! If I cannot close my eyelids, my eyes will surely dry, and I will be blinded! The thought of having to watch as, slowly but surely, my eyes dry and fall from sitting comfortably in their sockets caused me the highest feeling of anxiety. I immediately set my mind to finding a solution to this problem. I could possibly wet them by crying, but as I remembered the pain of the deep gashes in my face and hand from my acidic tears I ruled out this solution. I realized that the only way to wet my eyes was to submerge myself in a body of water. And I had a very short amount of time to do so, as I could already feel the strong urge to blink.

I began walking in the aforementioned fashion, by tipping my body side to side. No doubt this, combined with the fact that I could not see ahead of me but only straight up, slowed my search for a body of water. But still I pressed on with the thought that trying couldn’t hurt my chances. I wandered aimlessly for several minutes, all the while feeling my eyes dry out. In any normal instance my tears would come from their sockets to wet my eyes as a natural reaction to their becoming too dry, but in this truly Godforsaken place things are strange, and nothing will ease your suffering. So my tear ducts did not permit the passing of tears, and even if they had, while my eyes would be wet, my skin would be peeled away, and it is hard to say which of the pains I would rather have to endure. At these thoughts, I realized that even in the extremely improbable chance that I did find water there would be some struggle worse than that of losing your eyes in this terrible way if I was to jump into the water. I stopped hobbling along the endless dessert of salt, and pondered how I could ever save my eyes. It was then that a smell occurred to me, one that I was so overjoyed to sense. The scent was that same one you smell before a rain storm. As I forcibly watched the sky I could see that it was very grey, I had paid no attention to this before, as it didn’t concern me then. I was overjoyed to sense the rain coming. For many more minutes I watched the clouds accumulate and darken. As I watched however, my sight began to blur and black spots began to swirl in my field of vision. I knew this was because of my eyes shriveling up. The pain of my eyeballs was as if someone had poked holes with a sewing needle all around the outer area of my eye sockets. The kind of pressure-like pain one would get if they stayed awake for too long or stared at an electronic device for too long. I so longed to blink or rub my eyes and the ever approaching gift of rain soothed my thoughts but also left me an immense amount anxiety. I wondered if perhaps the clouds were just teasing me, or if the rain would be worse than the torture I was currently going through. I pondered as if I had a choice in the matter though I knew I did not.

My eyesight grew more dim and blurred with each passing second, and the pain was near intolerable. I winced and cringed as the pain concentrated in the area of my eyes seemed to spread throughout my entire body. I noticed also that my neck was beginning to hurt and ache from being in this arched position for as long as it had been. Of a sudden I felt on my naked legs the moisture from splashing rain. But the moisture was only to be felt on my legs. My sight was at this point all but gone. I could see a blurred mess of white and grey in the focal point of my eyes, but my peripherals were now fully covered in black spots and the spots now began to move continually inward. I walked awkwardly about to see if I could catch some rain on my eyes, but it seemed that wherever I moved the rain would simply stop falling. It was teasing me! I stumbled about on my locked knees, staggered, and fell forward to meet the ground with my chin. I fell so hard as to get my tongue stuck between my teeth and nearly bite it off. Surely I screamed but did not worry of its re-deliverance to my ears, as I had already lost my sense to hear. I then witnessed the rain before my now almost fully dry eyes. I saw it splashing as it fell to the ground, teasing me. I wanted so badly to cry but this place, this terrible, evil place would not allow it. And I watched as the last bits of my vision were covered in blackness and my eyes failed me.

Now, I lay on the salty ground, unable to regain an erect position, as my body is in a unique form of paralysis. And I ponder in my own thoughts about everything, as now I cannot see or hear or move far from my position, and moreover for what point? I have already realized that I will become hungry and thirsty and waste away. But I know that I am already dead and thus cannot die again, and will simply lie staving and parched for eternity. I now lie, among whatever other beings may be near, in this useless shell of a body, as just a mind, left to ponder and wonder and venture inside its own psychosis. Surely I will go mad. And now I am the lived, I am the remorseful, I am the saddened, and I am the pained. I am the damned.