EPISODE 3: FROM THE BEGINNING
The bar experience had exhausted me! I manage to have a shower, towel my body dry, and stumble into my bed. Somehow, Somnus had decide to delay his visit. I recount the experience with Black Adonis, which manages to evoke a smile from me. I get my phone and look up WhatsApp. I see a message from him. I smile again. I reply, and from there we go on a merry round of online conversation. I start to fell sleepy and I tell him so. I turn off my phone, and find Somnus waiting for me. I embrace him, gladly.
Soon enough, I awake to find myself at the edge of a chasm, as far and wide as the eye could see. There’s no sunlight, and ashes are falling in fat flakes from the sky. Well, I know my way back. Or I think I do. The scene behind me is a wasteland, like the kind you see in Maze Runner. I start to turn in the direction of “home”, but my feet are firmly planted to the ground. I twist and turn my upper body around to see if my legs would follow, but… heh. Suddenly, I am thrown to the ground by an invisible force, or body, or… whatever. I start sliding, albeit unwilling, to the edge of the chasm, screaming and cursing all the way. Fear clogs my throat like calories clog an artery. I get to edge of the chasm, still held down by said force. I look into the pit-chasm-ish thing. I release breath I didn’t realize I was holding. That thing looks deep. But as soon as I try to get back on my feet, I’m thrown, like a sack, into the chasm. Huh. The chasm was deeper than I’d imagined. I just kept on falling….
Crack! I’d hit rock bottom, and my head crashed on…. Was that a skull?
Damn. I’d stooped low. So, I was hanging out with Aragon’s deserters now? *. It was like I had stepped into Tolkien’s Hall of the Dead. There’s bones, mostly skulls, everywhere. Lord, help me. As if someone had heard my thoughts, CRACK! again and, BOOM. An earthquake? Do I have bad karma? Ahh! But it’s not just an earthquake, and it’s very weird. There’s this huge hole about eight feet from where I’m standing, and it is oozing smoke and fire. There’s a foul smell too, which I later discovered to be Sulphur. I stand mesmerized. But that’s not all. Almost immediately, silence follows, and it is deafening. The smoke clears and I see a throne, and there’s a man sitting on it. His raiment and his hair was so black I could have sworn I was looking at Darkness, and I was, but little did I know. Before me sat, the man with the pitchfork that I had seen at the bar.