A lone child walks an ancient road through a dark and foreboding wood knowing not from where he came or to where he goes but only that step by step he must move ever onward. All around the Dark Forest suffocates him. Dangerous energy is everywhere as if tortured souls loom just beyond sight. Holding on tight he keeps to the road moving forward for he knows that if he falters, if he pauses even for a moment, the Dark will swallow him whole. So the boy braves his way step by step but before long the suffocation becomes unbearable. The deep, malicious presence almost upon him he falls to his knees knowing that it is over until suddenly in the distance there appears a light, a golden and godly light. Faint it seems at first until suddenly it explodes across the boy’s field of vision obliterating the dark and penetrating his soul.
The light crystallizes, shatters, and reforms and the boy feels himself falling in a formless Abyss. The boy thinks to himself, “What is this place?” Or does he mean, “Why is this place?”
A voice, maybe his own, answers, “This place is all there is and ever was.”
“What am I?” he thinks.
“All that is and ever was.” The Abyss echoes back.
“Why am I?”
There is no answer.
In slow realization the boy finally asks, “Who am I?” but in answer there is only silence deep and celestial. Slowly he slips again into the Dark and ever down into the Abyss his consciousness goes. For a moment he is lost and all is still and the boy is without thought or form.
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Out of a haze the boy seems to wake finding himself sitting in an endless sea of emerald green grass flooded with the white light of an ominous full moon dominating the vast dome of a starry sky. A cool and gentle breeze stirs him fully conscious before he finally notices the pair of emerald green eyes that have been watching him. Taking a moment to look the boy sees that these eyes belong to a face he knows but from where he cannot remember, the face of a girl with golden hair and pale skin almost shining in the moonlight and wearing a thin and amused smile. The girl offers no words but instead her smile widens to reveal a pair of white teeth against her milky pale skin and it isn’t until then that the boy sees that she is very beautiful and is held in awe.
Without words the boy says, “What does this mean? I know you and this isn’t real.”
Without words the girl responds, “There are no answers, there is only it.”
“Who are you?”
“I am you.”
“A part of me?”
“A part of you, a part of me.”
“Is this real?”
“This is you. This is us. This is all there is and ever was.”
“Am I dead?” there is no answer. A smile returns to the girls face and then she is gone. The green all around the boy withers to grey and the sky turns dark. All about him the Darkness closes in. His muffled screams fade away as he falls again into the Abyss…
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The boy falls. Plummeting through the Abyss ever present a trembling voice rambles, “Life is a series of events: nothing more and nothing less. Everything is a product of that which has already happened to you. Leaving you stripped of yourself; lost in the Abyss of past realities, constantly reaching for that which is beyond your grasp. Never accepting and always cursing your fate. Hopeless and confused you are a child choking in the chaos of your meaningless existence and looking to justify yourself everywhere but right in front of your eyes. Never letting go and holding on for dear life to that which does not exist. Existence is meaningless and random and your struggle to make sense out of the nothing leads you nowhere but to despair. You are alone. You are lost. You are detached, even from yourself. The depression of life is that you are the alpha and the omega. There is no celestial being guiding the course of your life. You are floundering in the depths of yourself, lost and unaware.”
It sounds like the boy’s own voice, but distant somehow and detached as if he were looking back on something; a past voice in a past world belonging to a past life. And then suddenly the question returns to the boy, “Am I dead?”
The Abyss is unanswering, unmoving. There is no answer.
Continuing to fall the boy turns inward and in his heart he knows he is not dead yet. He is forever at deaths doorstep. It’s malicious energy always towering over him. Living life fleetingly, pursuing a momentary existence entirely subject the dark Chaos that is life. An entire existence wasted fighting the inevitable. Who is the cruel Architect of this insanity? Given but a taste of the forbidden fruit only to live waiting for your inevitable and eternal damnation? Who would be so cruel as to consider it just to condemn a man from birth to damnation?
Questions with no answers fade from his mind as the boy falls down, down into the Abyss.
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Slowly, the boy’s eyes open. As consciousness washes over him he finds himself in a dimly lit alley soaked to the bone in cold rain. Both arms pressed to his stomach, hopelessly trying to stop the crimson flow issuing freely from his soul. Death is near now. Never before has the boy felt its Dark presence stronger. All hope fades from his heart.
Out of Dark reality the boy finds a face looking down on him; a shining face, a beautiful face, a face he knows but from where he cannot remember. The face is of a young woman with pale skin radiating the sun, emerald green eyes, and flowing whisks of golden hair.
She takes the boy’s hand into her own and the warmth of her touch penetrates the boy’s soul. Out of some Darkness the boy is roused fully conscious as he is lifted to his feet. Face to face she and he stand hand and hand. Lovingly she embraces him and a weight the boy has carried his whole life is suddenly lifted from his shoulders. At the center of his being the warmth of pure, golden light grows enveloping him body and soul. A smile comes to his face as he looks into her emerald eyes and in that loving embrace he knows suddenly that everything is going to be okay. Beyond pain and suffering he knows that they will be together and happy forever.
Then the boy catches something, a glint in her eye maybe. He cannot explain it but he knows, “This isn’t real.”
As the girl draws her face closer, in a whisper she answers “I know,” as their lips embrace.
The world is set alight in violent red energy as the boy feels himself fall plummeting down, down into the Abyss. Screaming, thrashing, fighting the boy falls…
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The boy falls farther and faster than before. Deep and muffled screams echo through his mind muddled in its denial of the deep mysteries before him. Surrounded by questions without answers and energy without form the boy takes to despair. Screaming he curses the mystery, the Architect, and the Abyss knowing naught but that if there is a bottom to which he falls it surely is death and at that thought the boy loses himself and for a moment beyond the concept of time all is still and he is again without thought or form when suddenly he finds himself conscious again walking step by step the same ancient road. Looking back he sees the Dark Wood looming in the distance its magnitude seeming diminished.
Ever onward the road seems to go and the boy feels himself for a long while lost in the rhythm of his steps. All questions he banishes from his mind preferring himself in blissful ignorance. Step by step he concentrates only on moving forward caring not where it is that his feet take him. But somewhere deep in the depths of himself a consciousness persists, “It’s like the more I try to choose the more I have no choice. The more I fight the stronger the current becomes. To whatever end I go I am led by a string I cannot sever from myself.” And knowing this the boy cares not anymore lost in the rhythm of the road to oblivion.
For a long while all is numb to the boy until finally in the distance there appears a glimmer. Squinting, the boy sees before him a vast ocean into which the road goes. As he comes closer he sees on the shore there stands a rickety wooden shack next to a yard of lonely graves tended by a wrinkled and bent old man. At this moment the man turns to greet the boy’s approach and the boy sees that the haggard face before him is none but his own.
”What is this now?” the boy asks looking about the yard, examining the graves arranged in a perfect circle with a single tall and ornate headstone standing in the very center of the ring. The shack creeks in the wind as if it wishes to convey its exhaustion like it were about to collapse to rubble.
“All that is and ever was. The alpha and the omega: the truth, the light, and the answer.” The old man speaks without words in answer.
“This road that I’ve walked I know is the path of my life, but here it has come to an end. Can there be an end that is anything but death? Have I walk this eternal scape in anguish only to go into Dark nothingness? Is this the end where I am to lose myself forever in the Dark of the Abyss?”
“To come to an end is only to complete the circle and find yourself back where you began. You say you walked in anguish but that anguish is not a given but self inflicted for your lack of acceptance.”
“Have I come to the end then only to find a specter of myself offering riddles in the place of answers I don’t want?”
“The truths are your own. This shack is your body, these graves are your memories, and yes I am you holding the string leading you ever onward. Grieve and despair not for you are he that is and this is not the moment of your defeat but of your greatest triumph over all that which is old and evil.”
“Memories?” the word comes with a weight causing trembling sensations to rise to the boy’s head.
“Do not read the graves lest you remember your life and cheat yourself out of eternal bliss.”
“Cheat myself? Is it not a cheat to deny myself knowledge of myself? What is life worth if not to be looked back upon at the moment when the heaven meets the earth?”
“Truth lies not in attachment to the external symbols but in harmony with the internal energy informing all life.”
“So what does that riddle mean? Nothing is real? She isn’t real?”
“As real as you are where you stand. Life is energy and energy takes infinite forms but ultimately it is all tied to the internal continuum. Give not into attachment and set your soul free and you will find her in yourself.”
“NO! I don’t accept that. There’s more to life than that, it isn’t all just nothing. I’m not alone.”
“Denial is the most malicious form of attachment. The Dark Wood, the alleyway; these are manifestations of such attachment. Give in not to it lest you condemn yourself to an eternity of aguish gripping specters that are not true. You do not want this. God’s children must bow their heads to their creator. Let go.”
“No.”
“The path has ended this is your moment to choose. The first and final choice you will ever make. Do not go willingly into damnation spending eternity tending the graves of those you held dear. I am a manifestation of such a choice. There is a release, you can be free.”
“I don’t want to be free, I want her. I don’t want the mystery, I want life.”
“Life is only a manifestation of the energies that inform the universe. Accept this or not you cannot change it.”
“Shut up! I don’t accept it. I choose damnation.” And at that the boy turns his back to the specter and advances toward the graves. With each step instead of feeling heavier as he did on the road the boy’s confidence grows until he finds himself running forward to the yard. As he approaches the outer circle he looks to read the graves but finds the letters of the words illegibly jumbled and blurred.
The boy looks back to the specter but before the question still formulating in his mind can be posed the answer is given, “Your consciousness clouds such memories that are not your heart’s desire. This is your final chance. Given in not to Fear, Love eternal is yours if you will but take it.”
“Yes and I choose love now be it eternal or not.” And at that the boy enters the circle, walking slowly now to the center with each step he feels the beat of his heart grow stronger and faster. He reads, “CHARLOTTE SHEPARD R.I.P. 2093 Beloved daughter, sister, wife, and mother.” The boy’s head swims with hot sensations as the memories come flooding back. A deep rumble shakes the earth and hearing the shack collapse he looks to the side to see its ruin. Then he looks behind him in search of the old man, but he is gone. The Darkness grows this time stronger than ever as the boy feels himself fall, twisted screams echoing down, down into the Abyss…
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