Based on I dream I had in November 2019. TW for body horror.
The pathway is lined with stained glass, blue tinted light covering my shaking hands as I continue to walk down that spiral staircase, around, and around, and around. It has been years of walking, long enough that my stomach has adjusted to the overwhelming nausea from spinning down down down. At first the stained glass seemed beautiful, but when I looked, really looked, it became horrific. Because it was me. Over and over again it was my image. I was being, stabbed, strangled, torn from my children, suffocated underneath stone boulders. I was being hated. Each design brought a new horror and that painted version of me arched and cried out for help, her eyes staring directly into mine as I watched. What could I do? She was colored glass, just art, but her pain looked so real, it was almost tangible.
When I started this journey it seemed simple, just walk through and you’ll be free.
But I never imagined what truth I would find in that stairwell, trapped with a thousand versions of myself.
As I walked, trying not to slip on the wet patches on the floor, I tried not to think about what was becoming apparent. Would this be it? Was this my fate? To be resigned to walk meaninglessly around this swirling stone staircase, alone except for my mind and the thousands of tortured versions of myself. Was I also a stained glass picture, stuck up onto the wall for another version of myself to walk past for a fleeting moment? Nothing made sense, and although I sensed that maybe that was the cruel point of all this, my mind ran rampant with the notion that if I could just understand, could just know, I would be free of this place.
After another few months I stopped and looked deeper into the stained glass.
This version of me was being forced to dip her limbs in acid, a neon green substance bubbling and swirling around her raw flesh. Her face and chest were unharmed, dripping with sweat and bile from her trying to bear the pain. She should be dead, I thought, how much could a human really withstand before the heart just gives up trying to beat? Her eyes were open, scrunched slightly but still staring directly at me and, as I stared at her face, I noticed for the first time that her mouth was moving. She was speaking, saying something to me and I pressed my face up against the glass to try and hear it. It was soft at first, so quiet that I was sure I must be imagining it, but slowly I began to hear her words.
Our Father, Who art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy Name;
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen
I jolt back from the glass. Her mouth is frozen again, eyes squeezed shut in agony, and I stared at her. Had she spoken? Had I been walking for so long in this place that it had ruined my mind so that even glass was starting to speak. I wanted to think it was, that I was starting to die, but something stirred deep inside my chest that made me think it couldn’t be.
My hands pressed together tightly as I started to walk again, and I felt like I was leading the procession once again. Back home, back before this all, our family used to take the gifts down at Mass and I would intertwine my fingers together into a sort of fist instead of pressed them flat together. It seemed stupid to hold them like that, but now it gave me a sense of relief like I’d never felt before. I closed my eyes as I walked, my feet had long ago memorized the repetitive patterns in the stone steps, and began to pray.
When I opened my eyes again, the stained glass was gone.
Now, I was standing in a large stone tunnel. The sides were rough, like an old cave poorly mined. It was quiet, save for the gentle pitter-patter of some oily liquid dripping from the roof. It dripped onto my back and head, plastering my hair to my skull and making my skin sticky. I tried not to think about it, and continued walking. While I walked I kept my head bowed down, staring at the oily stone floor, and my hands clasped together in prayer. Those words became my mantra, became my life as I walked, as I repeated the prayer over and over again. Deliver me, deliver me, deliver me from evil. Amen Amen Amen.
As I walked the dim light began to grow so that I could fully see, and I risked a glance up only to look right into the face of the Devil.
It looked me some distorted version of myself, but not quite right. It’s eyes were too sunken in, the skin on its face was too tightly pulled back, and it’s lips were too red. It called to me, soft hands sliding over my own as it tried to coax me to drop them. It didn’t speak but I could hear it inside my mind, it was pulling and breaking my memories, emptying my head more and more until all I had was this moment. I was an empty shell, standing in that cave, and the only thoughts in my mind were breathe and pray.
Pray.
I yanked myself back from the Devil, watching as it’s mask, that bastardization of my face, morph into some indescribable type of horror, and I screamed.
I have never screamed so loud before. My eardrums moaned and the walls seemed to shake as I shrieked at it.
Deliver me from evil!
Deliver me from evil!
Deliver me from evil!
My words were fire, filling the tunnel with a burning golden glow and the Devil made some sort of horrible sound, cut somewhere between a crow’s dying squawk and the sound of the universe cracking into two, but I did not falter. Someone’s hands were on my shoulders, steadying me, and when I glanced at them all I could see was light. My voice did not waver as I began to move forward, hands clasped together as my shield and my words my sword, I slashed my way through the Devil never once faltering in my words. Again I shut my eyes, and walked until I no longer saw red hot orange from behind my eyelids, until I no longer felt that Holy presence behind me.
When I began to see darkness behind my eyes, I opened them again, feeling a calm I had never felt before in my life. I was protected, I was alive, I understood.
The only way to fight against evil is too surrender to it, to give in and endure it.
I walked for another month before I spoke again. I came upon another large opening and saw a group of half naked girls huddled around a dying torch. Their skin was filthy, covered in piss, ashes, and other unmentionables. Their eyes were wide, pupils blown out, and as I entered they all turned to face me. One of them asked me if I was their saviour and it was then I noticed I was clothed. I’m not sure if I had been naked in the stairwell, but now my skin was covered with a long blue dress, a stark strip of white cloth covering my head.
I told her no, that I myself had already been saved, and then began to grow angry as I spoke. How dare I tell them to endure the pain when they had already suffered so much. They screamed and cried, ignoring my attempts to explain I was broken too.
I had lost so much, even my name, but He had saved me.
The group turned away from me, resigning themselves to pick and dig of the mold covered worms that lived inside the dirt, popping them into starving mouths, and I turned to leave. But before I could, one girl stood out of the group, swaying on her bruised feet and walked over to me. Her face was almost entirely black from dirt but tear trails carved out little rivers exposing her pale skin and my heart ached as I looked at her.
She held out her arms to me and I began to cry as well. Her wrists and arms were shredded, fat cuts bubbled over with blackened blood decorated her skin and I watched as she dug her fingers into one of the cuts. It was right on her vein, and she shoved her fingers underneath the raw skin, wiggling her fingers inside the wound before removing them. There was no flow of red blood just sticky bits of blackness stuck on her fingers.
“Why can’t I die?” She asked, pushing her arms closer to my face, “I just want to be dead, I want to leave this place.”
I took her hands in mind and told her the truth.
We were already dead.
Her eyes grew wide and she began screaming, bashing against me before running up against the wall and slamming her head against it over and over again. I cried out for her to stop, trying to get her to understand that He was the only way through, but she didn’t listen. When she turned around there was a visible dent in her forehead but still no blood. She told me to fuck off and my stomach dropped in fear as I heard the horrible ticking, scratching sound of another Devil arrrivng.
She stood up against a wall, covered in muck and filth and dark blood, cowering from the voices swirling around her mind and I watched frozen as her Devil started to appear. It seemed to push through the rocks, skin a molting magenta as it shoved its way through. That pink skinned devil curled over her shoulder, peeling itself away from the rocks and sticking up flush against her like a bastardization of a shadow. It’s talons punctured her skin as though it was jello, and this time thick streams of red blood erupted from the wounds. The Devil’s skin seemed almost painted on, like paper mache pink construction paper glued to a flimsy body. It’s talons were long and sharp, stained black at the tips while it’s hands are so covered in red it looked like it wearing gloves. It whispered and hissed into her ear, dragging her deeper and deeper into the pit, deeper and deeper away from Him.
I shrieked for her to give up, that it was too late and now she needed to accept it, but her eyes clouded over and she started to fight. She kicked and thrashed in the pink demon’s grasp, doing nothing more than sliding those razor sharp talons deeper and deeper into her skin.
The only way out is through
I am on my knees now, prostrated in prayer. The floor was slick with grime, sour black vomit, and piss, but I embraced it. I pressed face into the ground and chanted, those same words repeated over and over again to keep my mind distracted from the horrific scene in front of me.
The girl was being eaten alive. She was lying on a large rock slab, arms plastered to her sides by an unseen force. The pink demon’s tongue was long and coated with gasoline that, when it landed on her white skin, burnt little round marks onto her flesh like cigarette burns. It was peeling her skin back, layer after layer on her stomach, flaying up to her chest. Her skin looked like white paper that’d been dipped in sticky red paint, thin sheets than seem never ending. She was screaming but the sound was inhuman now, less her actual voice and more a deep rooted horror coming from her heart.
I prayed for what feels like hours, hands clasped so tightly that they started to stick together. I listened to the wet squelching sounds of the pink Devil’s feast before I resigned myself to stand. I have to keep my eyes open but still I chanted louder as I walked past it in order to preserve some part of my mind.
I walked away, back out into the cavernous hallways, pitch black except for the stray candles shoved into the rocky walls.
I walk for another year.
And then suddenly, I am home.
I am standing on the street, surrounded by hundreds of people minding their own business and living their lives fully. Looking around, I see that I am wearing the same blue color as before. But instead of a long dress it is a coat now, soft, warm, and embracing. My hair flies around me in the wind and I realize I am holding something.
It is a small bell, with a crucifix burnt into it.
I fall to my knees, ignorant to the passerbyers who glance at me briefly and then never again, like all city-dwellers do, and look up into the sky. Without the words to express the severity of my gratitude, of my faith, I begin reciting that prayer yet again, head tilted up to the sky as I pray. The sun is warm on my face, a cool breeze is flying past me, and I am alive. I am safe. I am here.
Something urges me to open my eyes and I do. I look to my left and my heart stops.
He is there, standing only a few feet in front of me, kissing a child’s forehead. He is glowing, so bright that I think it might melt my eyes but still I watch him, gasping, almost choking for breath as I sob.
“Thank you, thank you thank you,” I cry, prostrating myself before him, head touching the ground because I am not worthy to look at him. He should send me back, a sinner like me, back to that hellfire. But somehow he tells me to look up and I do. He is radiant and he blesses me, thumb slowing drawing an invisible cross on my forehead. It is a fire against my skin and I can smell the burning flesh. People around me are staring, whispering and trying to avoid my gaze as I sing his praises. “He saved me!” I cry, looking around at the people trying their best to hurry past me, “He is our saviour, the Holy Son of God who can keep you from death!”
I realize they can’t see Him as I can, just me. They only see me, a wayward lost soul crying in the street about salvation and damnation and the horrible truth of them both. I watch as He walks away, fading in between those unaware of his presence. How can they not feel his sunlight, a holy fire burning so close to them. How do they not know?
I’m crying now not only for myself, for my redemption, but for them as well. I curl into myself, up against the sidewalk and listen to the sounds of steps rushing past me. They refuse to look at me, it’s easier to continue on their way, and I slowly realize what this has all been about. It was never about me, I think, as I bring my hands together in prayer, still lying on my side on the sidewalk, it was never just about me.
I pray for myself, for my family, for my soul, and for them.
And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)
Aelwelsh 