Chapter 1. Re-awakening.
I have done a lot of evil things in my life. Things so evil that no amount of piety will ever atone for my sins. Yet I have come to terms with it. I sleep soundly at night, I no longer hear the screams, or wake up screaming myself. Paralyzed with fear, unable to move, unable to run, unable to contract my throat to make anything other than a low pitched noise “aahhhhhhh” that sounds so guttural, my wife fears when I have those nights. I have nightmares, nightmares that the victims are coming after me. Coming to drag me back into that pit of despair.
I thought it was over, but it wasn’t. I saw them, or maybe it was their souls, because they did not look like the living. All writhing and dancing in that dimly lit pit. Flashing lights and the dark lord himself locking eyes with me. Staring straight into my soul as he rhythmically beat his drum. With each strike of the drum the souls would writhe even more wretchedly. The air hot and humid, the stench unmistakable combinations of all manners of fermented bodily fluids. His voice, that voice. That voice that cuts through, it all rings through this motif, with one recognizable word of our dark lord….
“SUAVEMENTE!”
Oh no, it’s too late. There is no escape. I too feel myself losing control. I begin to writhe as well.
“BESAME”
The dark lord continues his incantation, charming all those within earshot. I feel myself slipping, losing myself as I become part of the seething, roaring, shouting mass.
“QUE YO QUIERO SENTIR TUS LABIOS”
No I can’t, I must stop. I can’t allow him to control me again. I regret it all, I regret nothing.
“BESÁNDOME OTRA VEZ”
NO I CANNOT LET HIM. I WILL NOT. I WILL SCREAM. I AM SCREAMING. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
I open my eyes to darkness. A light comes on my wife’s nightstand. I am paralyzed, I can’t move, all I can do is scream. “ROBERT! ROBERT! WAKE UP YOU’RE HAVING A BAD DREAM AGAIN!” my wife says. Slowly I regain conscious function. First I regain control of my breathing and vocal chords. I stop screaming. I regain control of my eyes and I look over at her. As I regain control of my eyes, I start weeping, knowing these are not *just* nightmares. She does not know.
He is calling me, beckoning to return. As I regain use of my arms my wife embraces my face, letting me cry into her chest. I thought it was all over, I thought I had left it all behind, but the dark lord beckons me again.