2019-05-27 - Night Terror

When I was a child, I heard voices. Some would sing and some would scream.

Alexander closed his eyes as he laid back on the bed, the bulky headphones covering his ears entirely, the steady beat of the music as loud as he could bear. The drum beats pushed the thoughts out of his head. The husky voice of the singer kept his mind from roaming, kept the pulsing emotions all around him from slipping inside to join all the chaos already within.

((cluck-cluck-squawk-mew)) He shook his head. Nope. Not going back there, not pulling anything more out of that short little trip to hell. ((BANG BANG BANG)) The blood flowed down his face and it tasted like the Bay. ((CRACK))

Nope.

Nope.

Alexander turned his mind back to the music. It was well after midnight. He was going to sleep, he was not going to spend another moment reliving a murder that wasn’t even his.

All you have is your fire, and the place you need to reach.

The bunched muscles of his neck relaxed, and in that moment, the bed beneath him opened, dropped, enveloped him in darkness. “Fuck.”
Alexander opened his eyes and sat up, no longer burdened by the headphones. It didn’t stop him from hearing the music, though; that continued though there was no stereo, no home, no speakers to contain it. The beat pulsed from the overcast sky, which flickered with red lightning in time with the music, with the beating of Alexander’s heart. Leaves and sticks crunched under his bare feet. He was walking through the woods in his boxers and t-shirt and nothing else.

It was summer now, although it hadn’t been before. Sweat beaded, trickled down his chest and thighs. The shadows were deep, and lights flickered in counterpoint to the lightning above, to the beat of his heart. He was following a path. He was following a man.

When I was sixteen, my senses fooled me.

He couldn’t see his face, but he didn’t need to. The man Alexander was following had the back of his head caved in, dripping down his back, and he was dressed in boxers and t-shirts and bare feet. “Do we have to do this tonight?” Alexander wondered. “I have a headache.”

I knew that something would always rule me.

The other Alexander didn’t answer, which perhaps wasn’t a surprise. Alexander wouldn’t have answered either; clearly, after all, they were doing this tonight. So he ignored the way the broken branches stabbed into his feet, the clutch and drag of underbrush on his arms and legs. They passed beneath trees covered in bright green moss, and the fireflies grew brighter. No longer sparks, but will o’ the wisps, then tiny, cold suns. Alexander led himself to a clearing, barely worthy of the name, and a single grave dug crudely there. They stood on either side of the pit, and stared at each other, until the dead one pointed downward into the wet, black soil.

“No,” Alexander said.

I knew this sin was mine alone.

<FS3> Alexander rolls Melee (6 5 4 3 1) vs Dead!Alexander (a NPC)'s 3 (8 7 7 3 2) <FS3> Victory for Dead!Alexander.

The other Alexander smiled with blue-gray lips, coming back from shattered teeth. They leaned in at the same time together, grabbing at each other’s throat. Alexander’s feet sank into the soil; he gouged, jabbed, and clawed, and his double did the same. There was no grace in the battle, and no mercy. The other shifted, breaking the tit-for-tat reflection to yank him forward instead, and Alexander cursed, then screamed as he fell into the grave.
His double bore him down, falling to his knees as he pressed him deep into the hole, into the loam. It reached for Alexander, held his struggling body. “Yes,” the other Alexander said, and laid his clammy, black-mottled hand over Alexander’s eyes. They closed and he could not open them again.

Not even as the hands lifted away.

Not even as the dirt began to rain down on his chest, his legs, his open mouth. And still the music pulsed in the sky, flashes of red just barely seen through his eyelids.

Don’t you ever tame your demons, but always keep them on a leash.

The dirt rained down, and even it fell like music on his skin, with a weight and clammy wetness all of its own. Alexander struggled for leverage, for freedom, for waking. But the weight was so heavy, and the grave so soft. That little voice of doubt whispered, maybe this is where you truly belong.
“No,” he said, around a mouthful of dirt. More fell between his lips. A worm like a finger squirmed. “No!” He screamed it, his body jerking and shuddering. He twisted, pulled…

…rolled out of the bed onto the floor, face first, the cord of his headphones wrapped tight around his throat. He threw up there, vomited with the taste of soil and wood in his mouth, although all that came up was the remnants of yesterday’s dinner. And still the music played.

But my peace has always depended, on all the ashes in my wake.

All you have is your fire, and the place you need to reach.

Don’t you ever tame your demons, but always keep them on a leash.