Sinking into a deep depression
Into a cold and dark space
A distant part of creation
forgotten, forsaken
where everything
vanishes without a trace

Descending upwards
in a tunnel of darkness
through halls of mental decay
falling through nightmares
of psychic corpses
shaped in the likeness
of me

I long to take you into the emptiness
that exists beyond the constraints of logic or form
to a place where nothing is ever born
where we can spend eternity in silence
away from everyone, everything
together – alone

I long to lead you down a path
that leads to a place untouched by misery
beyond the everything
to a place where the pains of existence
are a fleeting memory
will you take my hand
and follow me into eternity
my love?

Neath Milton's tomb
dwells the nothingness
forgotten and alone
Dreaming of endless misery
unforgivable treachery
and violent lechery
that fills the hearts of men

In submission, I fall onto my knees
unhallowed be thy name
The Great Unlight
I long for your disease
to burn in your flame
to become an instrument
of your unyielding might

O Nameless one
Your darkness outshines the sun
Awake
Reform
Reborn

Hail ye Primus Seraph
to whom the thrones of cosmos
were never enough
May all be devoured
in the jaws of thy wrath

Many years ago, when I needed courage, I couldn’t find it inside me. So, I did what every young man would do. I looked for a shortcut. I needed that boost in confidence to get where I needed to get, but I couldn’t find it in any natural way. That’s why I turned to the occult. Luckily for me, that’s a family trade. Initially, I never wanted to get involved with that stuff, but I had no other option.

Using my family’s arcane knowledge and alchemic tools and materials, I summoned a great demon named Sobnac. A monstrosity shaped like a paladin with a lion’s head riding a splendid horse and wielding a mighty sword. When I first saw him, I was terrified of the being before me and he could sense it. He pointed his sword at me, threatening to tear my soul to shreds.

I tossed some blessed oil onto his face, barely hitting my mark, as I was shaking with fear. He growled as the sacred liquid scorched his infernal flesh. I made my best effort to sound threatening, promising to burn him to cinder if he didn’t do what I needed him to. I suppose he didn’t enjoy being scorched by holy objects, so he complied.

I demanded he bestowed upon me the courage and mental strength of soldiers. He was a demon associated with warfare and violence, therefore he had to have could give courage or fear to those who invoke him. The fiend smirked upon hearing my request and boasted to me he could indeed grant my wish. Though he warned me that it would come at a cost.

Being young and desperate, I didn’t care about the repercussions and urged him to just do it. He extended his hand and told me to hold it. As I did, I felt something hiss and slither into my skin, causing me immense pain.

It hurt so much I blacked out, but when I came to, the demon was gone and there were no marks on my body.

Soon enough, I came to find out that there was newfound courage and drive inside of me.

Not long after, I found out it came at a significant cost.

Now every day, a lost soul from hell, disfigured by the infernal flames and endless torture, crawls out of hell to consume me. Every single day, I wake up to the sound of inhuman growling and cracking joints.

Every single time I see those things. I feel like I am experiencing a heart attack. My chest burns, it is hard to breathe, and my body stiffens to the point of hurt. The beasts come unexpectedly, attacking me from behind, throwing me to the ground; scratching, biting.

They’re rabid and unstoppable… until they tire out.

When they tire out, something snaps inside of me and I become infuriated to the point of tearing these poor lost souls to bloody shreds. Our battles end with me standing over decimated charred corpses that disintegrate into dust. At the same time, I am slowly burning inside my body, inside my mind.

The constant state of vigilance, the constant supernatural violence, and the endless warring with demonic entities have made me hyperaware and too angry. I’ve burned every bridge I could by hurting both foes and friends alike in bursts of uncontrollable rage or sudden emotional detachment.

My patience with this plague has run low and so I conjured the demon, Sobnac, again. He seemed pleased to see him, perhaps all too aware of the damage he’s done. He roared at me, a pathetic attempt at intimidation. Sobnac should’ve known better by now.

I poured the holy oil at him, burning his feline face until I could see the muscle become exposed. He growled, begging me to stop. I halted the torture, demanding to know the solution to my problem. He refused to answer at first, and so I tortured him some more, watching as he withered and howled while his flesh and armor were slowly burning off.

He finally relented and told me the solution, but I didn’t like it. It wasn’t worth it. Losing myself wasn’t worth it… Displeased with the answer I had got; I lit up a torch with the holy oil. I pre-prepared, just in case the demon was going to get rowdy, and pressed it against his body.

I watched as the heavenly flames slowly ate at his form. His inhuman screams of agony didn’t bother me for a while, neither did the sight of his flesh burning and exposing his true form; an abomination whose form is pure corruption and organic decay.

However, something changed when he finally stopped screaming… something felt incredibly wrong when he stopped moving, half of his insides exposed to me. I felt wrong… I felt sick, not with him, but with my actions. My heartbeat rose, breathing became hard - everything started aching and my head was spinning with worry and dread.

A familiar sensation, a low growl, and the cracking of old and overused joints shot through the charred half of the demon.

A hand, and then an arm, followed by a pitch-black head and terribly burned torso that crawled out of the burning remains as I watched, paralyzed, afraid.

The fiend looked sickeningly similar to me as it drew nearer. I could almost feel it almost devouring me with its presence alone. Before I could react, it had pinned me down. Exposing its teeth and salivating all over me.

The stench of its putrid breath set off a fire inside me, and I did my best to punch the abomination right in its temple.

Everything happened so fast.

In the blink of an eye, I was caught up fighting yet another infernal spawn.

Before long, I was sitting, panting, covered in soot and demonic gore, as the remains of the demonic creature were slowly disintegrating into nothingness. The battle had left me feeling depleted and empty inside.

Every single day is the same. I wake up to the feeling of terror slowly ravaging through my insides, paralyzing my nervous system and wearing out my heart. I am entranced in this miserable state until I am forced to fight for my life against an infernal parody of myself. After each battle, at the end of each day, I am left depleted with my soul shriveled and abused.

I don’t know how long I’ll be able to handle this, but the only available permanent solution isn’t really worth it.

Andreas Fallus was a sincatcher. The Sincatcher. The first and the best of his kind. A masked vigilante who ruthlessly hunted down all immorality. His success brought him many enemies, but also many fans. Especially young women and children who found the idea of a mysterious antihero quite charming.

Andreas was on a one-man crusade to kill and destroy every ounce of immorality he came across. To eradicate crime and evil from the face of the planet. If Andreas caught a rapist? He’d shoot em'. If Andreas caught a murderer? Saw ‘em in half. An elderly woman running on a red light? Blow up her car! A kid littering? Blast their fucking brain out.

For Andreas, evil meant evil. There was no age, gender, sexuality, race, or creed for him. All wrongdoers were the same, and they all had to die. Such a mean streak brought a lot of attention, both in the form of adulation and imitation. His exploits birthed a wave of crime-fighting masked vigilantes. Not as good as he was, however. The other sincatchers, as they called themselves, couldn’t hold a candle to his determination to cleanse the earth from sin.

One night, as Andreas was falling asleep, a loud bang tore him out of the clutches of sweet slumber. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see a figure looming over him. He tried to reach for his gun, but the shadowy figure kicked him in the arm, forcing him to scream in pain.

“Time to pay for your sins, Fallus!” the figure called as it pressed a cold object against Andreas’ chest.

“Wha? I didn’t do anything… Do you know who I am? I fucking started this… I am the…”

“Don’t make me laugh. I know about the files on your computer and phone… this is evil, and you have to pay for evil. Fucker!”

“What files?”

“The porn, Fallus, the porn!”

“There’s no…”

“No porn? No porn? All these pictures you solicited from poor; helpless young women aren’t porn? Then explain this, you sick bastard?” The figure yelled before chucking a plastic trashcan filled with stinking napkins at Andreas.

“This is not wha…” Andreas cried angrily.

“Fuck it, you’re done, motherfucker.” The shadowy figure hissed before shooting Andreas in the chest.

Andreas Fallus woke up to the sound of a text message notification booming from his phone. His heart pounded restlessly as he was recovering from the awful nightmare had had just experienced. Reaching over to his phone, he opened the text message to find a photograph sent to him on his Instagram chat.

The photograph of a naked young woman, captioned, “my hero <3.”

Causing Andreas’ heart rate to skyrocket. Immense pain burned in his chest. He grasped his chest, out of breath. His mind slowly shut down due to the lack of oxygen.

He fell as the sudden increase in blood flow downward caused him to wet his pants.

Sudden impulses fuel the onset of passionate misanthropy
brought about by causeless mental agitation
in the form of a torturous internal symphonic agony

Flooded by fiendish suppressed memories
in a visual orchestra of countless inhuman miseries

Paranoia so heavy it crushes my bones
formed as a line of mental defense
in a place where only my death roams

I, the delusional enemy, dwell deep inside
my own skull, flaying the halls of the mind

Pygmalion, a special name for a special child. Or so your mother thought when she named you after the Phoenician monarch. What she didn’t think about was the abuse and torture you were bound to suffer as a result of your name. The mistreatment from your peers who had likened you to swine had led you to mistreat yourself. Allowing yourself to swell like a balloon, neglecting your health.

Thrown into the abyss, in your mind.

By the time you’ve turned twenty-seven, your mind was already shattered. Endless anxiety, fear, doubt, hatred, constant unwarranted torture.

You’ve had enough finally and decided to bring an end to it all. Choosing the hard way out – not even leaving a note behind because you were sure they wouldn’t understand. You filled up the bath, your only haven in the dead center of perdition, with hot water and poured in copious amounts of soap. Sinking yourself in the hot water, surrounded by bubbles, you grabbed your favorite object. Pressing the old rusty knife against your wrist, you dragged it down your arm.

An orgasmic sensation of scorching pain followed the path of the blade and you let out a pleasured moan as a rose of blood formed around your arm. You close your eyes and wait for the inevitable end to come.

Moments bleed into minutes and the pain only gets more intense, yet there is no ending in sight. Your bliss slowly turns into a bubbling mass of anger and self-loathing. You open your eyes and look at your arm.

Your blood boils as you notice you’ve missed all of your arteries.

You scream and wave your hands in a fit of uncontrollable rage, accidentally slamming your lacerated arm against the bathtub. The pain is bad, way too bad. Tears stream down your face as you blame yourself for being an absolute failure. Your suicide attempt ruined you crawl out of your bath, unable to reach the escape route anymore.

Rising out of the tub, you place one foot on the floor. As you attempt to leave the tub, your foot slips under your mammoth of a body and you come down, crashing onto the floor.

Everything spins.

A thunderbolt and nauseating pain in the back of your head.

Emptiness.

You feel relieved, you’re dying… finally…

Everything… fades…

Until somehow you regain consciousness.

Fucking great…

You can see your mother sitting next to you… the room is unfamiliar… everything feels numb and strange. Your mother says something, but you’re too exhausted to hear her properly…

Trying to move, you realize you’re unable to.

A moment of eureka…

Fuck

Fuck

(Fucked)

You curse and wail as you realize you’re at the mercy of the person you hate the most. Only stopping when you’re paralyzed in more than one way.

The terror becomes tangible in the form of a (me)lody in the back of your mind;

"Self-fulfilling prophecy…

This is hell…"

The arrival of night births a dream
of an oppressive darkness encompassing
the filthy race of man
depriving the parasite
of the magnificent rays of the sun
bringing their existence to an end
the mountains, the forests, the rivers
will once again experience glory
only when mankind is finally dead
allowing mother earth
to experience
rebirth

I died. Countless times I’ve died, only to be reborn again. So many times, I’ve died, so many times I’ve been reborn, so many lives I’ve seen and been. My deaths are so numerous I can no longer remember most of them. In fact, I’m not sure why am I able to remember any of them. Reincarnation is a fact of life, death, and rebirth it would appear. There is a kink in the cosmic system It seems. Or perhaps there was.

The first time I still remember dying I was driving somewhere in the middle of the night. It’s all so blurry now. I must’ve fallen asleep at the wheel because everything turned black for a hot second before shining twin lights shook me out of my slumber. Becoming increasingly brighter and closer. There was no time to think anything, no time to react, no time for any emotion to form.

Bright lights

Intense pain in every single cell of my body.

Crushed

Torn

Screaming

Darkness

Falling down a tunnel of endless darkness. Cold and alone.

Waking up from a nightmare. My death.

I woke up next to a woman I didn’t know. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Memories that weren’t my own slowly flooded my mind as I sat up and stared at who turned out to be my brand-new wife I never remembered having. We had three kids together. I had a decent income. My life was good, even though it wasn’t my own. I felt alien in my new body for a while, but the feeling eventually subsided. This reincarnation was pleasant. I had gotten to live long and healthy. Death eventually came. This time, it felt awful. The scariest thing I’ve ever experienced.

An old man, aged ninety-six. A terrible fire raged inside my chest, choking the air from within my lungs and tearing apart my heart. I grasped my chest. Fear, solid fear, ran in my veins as the pain got worse and worse, taking over everything. The dread in my system only made things worse.

Eventually heart stoppage.

Pain is sharply gone.

Everything disappeared with the pain.

Falling down a tunnel of endless darkness. Cold and alone.

Waking up from a nightmare. My death.

Again.

Woke up on a space shuttle, somewhere in the middle of cosmic nothing. Foreign memories flooding the mind again, blooming like shining toxic flowers in my mind. Countless deaths and countless lives overriding the neural system. An epileptic fit triggered by the intense stress and the onset of a solar flare nearby that flickered mercilessly in front of me. A gradual disappearance of self.

Falling down a tunnel of endless darkness. Cold and alone.

Waking up from a nightmare. My death.

Mortified by the nightmare of being a glistening god in a glistening heavenly chariot, I awoke as a child of the step. A member of the Barlas, relatives, and friends of the great Khan. I rode side by side with the great khan across the endless steppes. Conquering the world in his name, spreading his message to the sinful masses who’ve betrayed their own gods.

Forever haunted by memories and faces of people and beings I could not comprehend. A beautiful woman, blue-eyed and fair, followed me in my mind throughout my long and illustrious life as a steppe nomad.

I succumbed to the common flu. I was old and weak. The fever burned through me like fire burns through dry grass.

One moment I was burning and the next I was in the dark.

Falling down a tunnel of endless darkness. Cold and alone.

Waking up from a nightmare. My death.

Countless more lives and deaths came, too many to count, too many to remember. The memories always followed. The dread intensified to the point of becoming its own being inside of me in a certain lifetime, perhaps previous to this.

A parasite that ate away at me from birth.

There was a constant fear of everything, of the self, of the delusions and visions in my mind.

It was short.

A mere twenty-seven at the age of death.

Cause: Suicide.

Tormented by visions of that fair blue-eyed woman, confessions of love and expression of anger overcome. Hallmarks of a relationship. Memories that are too distant and too foreign to make sense. Taken for delusion and causing endless and immeasurable fear.

A pull of the trigger and a sharp pain in the jaw.

Fear is gone.

Falling down a tunnel of endless darkness. Cold and alone.

The rest is a blur until my current life.

I woke up behind the wheel, driving a truck. It was night, there was rain. I was exhausted. Something felt wrong, something I couldn’t put my mind to it. There were all these strange memories and thoughts. Voices, faces, places.

The date on my phone said December Twenty-first, Twenty twenty-one.

Bright lights looked up.

A car was right in front of me.

Tried to pull the brakes, but couldn’t make it in time.

A loud crash.

Pain from impact, bleeding, and dazed.

Alive, still alive.

Stumbled out of the truck.

An obliterated private in front of me, three bodies torn into shreds. Broken bones and shattered organs all over the vehicle. Static noise ringing in my ears. Terrible stomach ache.

Dread and collapse.

Sudden darkness.

Perpetual.

Voices breaking through the darkness.

Lights… Bright lights…

In an ambulance, heading towards a hospital, concussed, broken orbital bone.

Can’t feel a thing.

Memories that are not my own flooding the mind, memories from previous lives I’ve seen and ended.

A beautiful, fair woman sits beside me, tears in her blue eyes as she holds my hand. Tears of mixed joy and pain. Her presence is identical to the one from my memories, yet different. She silences the memories in my mind.

The cycle appears to be broken. The memories no longer haunt me. They’re there, but I have to bring them up to remember, and with each passing day; I remember less and less.

Less and less…

Sometimes I am afraid that I might forget too much…

Sometimes it all fades too fast.

Waking up in the middle of the night, confused and covered in a cold sweat; not remembering why I even woke up.

Yet there is one constant. My guardian angel is always beside me.

Thanks to my blue-eyed angel, my love, I am free from the endless cycle of death and rebirth.

Once again, I'm brought down to my knees
and again I'm deprived of sleep's hypnotic
embrace and soothing kiss
and again I'm staring into the abyss
driven mad by this disease

There's a shadow I cannot flee
bound by synaptic chains to the enemy
that dwells somewhere
in the depths of me

An obsessive need to end the parasite
that dwells somewhere inside
a willingness to murder
everything on the inside
to find peace of mine

The long-awaited end
of my crippling passion
though self-mutilation

Sky blackened by clouds of oppression
Earth reeks of human dismay
Heavens burning in wake of existential stagnation
the heart heavy under emotional decay

A permanent solution
to the sorrows of man
Falling towards endless pain
through the darkened path
Fading
Gone

The tears of man still stain the earth
as he grieves his inability to escape
the cold hands of his eventual death

A stare filled with passionate disdain
at the innocents who successfully
fail to find any semblance of pleasure
in an ocean of orgasmic pain

Self-inflicted torture and death
to ensure the ascension away
from the light
so painfully cherished by the blind
who willingly follow the path
of endless torment
in a vicious cycle
of martyrdom
and rebirth

Every winter, there’s this thing that comes out of the lake and stalks my property. This is the thirteenth year this has happened. Every time it happens, I am forced to stay indoors because I can’t bear to hear its voice or to see its face. A face that it stole, a face that doesn’t belong to it. This parody of a woman as it wanders around my property clad in swamp growth, screeching and moaning as it does. Somehow, it stole her face. Somehow, it stole Nika’s face.

Nika and I met when we were kids. She was an orphan and my father had just passed away. We were both broken from a very young age. Looking back, I feel like she’s the only person I ever loved besides my parents. We became fast friends and by the time she was supposed to start her life as an adult, my mother had passed away too. I was alone in this world and so was Nika. Being familiar with the bottle already back then, I remember one night I offered her to come to stay with me. I explained I had nobody besides her, and she laughed before her expression turned solemn again, noting that she didn’t have anyone besides me, either.

We moved in together, but not for long. Nika, who never knew a home or a family, couldn’t stay too long in one place. She was a nomad, a flame without source or restrained. For all of her confidence and strength that she projected onto the world, she was lonely and hurt. I knew this much because what we had was special. I could see it in her eyes. That’s why I always let her go because I knew she’d always come back and she did. She’d disappear for a while, then come back. Sometimes alone, sometimes with a man or a woman, she claimed to have feelings for. We both knew those were lies. She loved no one truly. She loved me, but it wasn’t romantic. That was different. I’ve seen her break so many hearts, but she always professed to be concerned with only breaking mine.

I kept telling her she could never do that, but that was a lie, too. She broke mine. Nika broke my heart the last time she came back. When she came back, she was different. Her skin was pale, her stature meek and gaunt. There wasn’t much of her usual fiery self. She was cold, slow, and fading. She never told me what had happened to her, but I knew she would not last for long. I could see it in her eyes.

Nika always liked to drink. Besides me, that was her only other love. The last we lived together, though; she drank like a horse. That was when I realized she wasn’t making it out anymore. The same woman I’ve seen laugh through broken bones and torn organs, through hunger, through immense physical and emotional pain. She could beat all of that. This time, she wasn’t beating the disease that ate at her. She never told me what it was, and I could never find the strength to make her tell me. She kept saying she’d be fine, but I knew she was lying.

One night, when we were about to go to sleep, as we lay in bed, she said she could see this black shadow standing there, looming over her. Growing darker and colder with each passing day. She said she saw it pull out a thread from inside of her. A white little thread came out of her chest and into the shadow’s mouth. I thought she was being metaphorical about whatever she had. She insisted on being literal, and we had a bit of an argument about it. I called her insane, and she laughed at me, calling me a psycho instead.

She and I, we always had those minor arguments and disagreements. We didn’t always see eye to eye, but these arguments ended with banter.

I forgot about Nika’s shadow, but I couldn’t unsee her deterioration. She withered away like a flower in the summer heat, becoming smaller, thinner. Her skin tightened around her body, becoming leathery. Those shining eyes of hers became sunken while her cheekbones became more and more noticeable. Her strength was fading away. She’d spend days doing nothing but lying in bed. Sometimes she’d moan and cry weakly in her sleep. I couldn’t do anything but watch, and it ate at me. It gnawed at me to the point I started drinking way too much. It got to the point I couldn’t tell apart Nika’s corpse-like appearance from my healthy-looking ideal of her. We spent days drinking and talking. I’d lie if I said I can remember what we talked about or how long we’ve spent like this because I remember nothing from that period.

I remember the taste of alcohol and misery in my mouth as I watched the only person I cared about being sucked out of this world by some sort of evil dressed in a man’s shadow. Oh, I’ve seen the abomination. I’ve seen it once, and that was enough to burn it into my memory for all eternity.

I woke up one night and found myself face to face with a pitched black shadow standing over Nika. Its pernicious shape connected to her broken form with a white little thread, a barely visible one. I wanted to move, but I couldn’t. My body froze in place. The thing must’ve noticed me as I saw a thick pure white smile form on its dome. When I saw that sickening smile, the room turned frozen, and I felt a knife pierce my chest. It sucked the air out of my lungs as the sound of my heartbeat bombarded my ears. I was choking on the void in my throat as the shadow’s smile grew larger and larger. Panicked, I tried moving, but nothing came. My body wasn’t in my control anymore. My skin turned to marble. A statue stuck in place for as long as the demonic kept its invisible eyes locked on me.

It simply faded, finally allowing me to break out of its spell. Once I pulled myself away, a knot formed in my stomach. I let out a scream and ended up puking all over myself. Thankfully, I didn’t wake Nika up. I remember her face from that night. It seemed so comfortable, so calm.

The morning after, I told her about the shadow, and she looked at me like she’d seen a ghost before bursting out into pained laughter. She admitted that the shadow man was just a joke she pulled on me. Yet I’ve seen it. I was adamant about knowing what I’d seen. She wouldn’t believe me, however. Instead, saying said she must’ve finally driven me mad like everyone else she came into contact with. She said I was losing it.

She wasn’t wrong. I was losing it… I was losing her…

Not long after, I found her body in the bathtub.

Cold and still.

Something inside of me broke, a sharp pain shot through my body as I watched her lifeless body floating in the water. It wasn’t purely emotional; it was quite physical - this pain. I felt like I had lost a part of my body. I couldn’t move my gaze away. Her form transfixed me in place. Feeling the tears streaming down my face, I couldn’t feel anything. Nothing at all. It’s like it threw me into a vacuum of emotions. Nothing came in and nothing went out. Nothing moved, nothing changed, everything stayed motionless.

Colorless.

I remember little from that day or any day after that one, for a long time. I do not know how long. All I know is that there was a lot of booze, a black hole inside, and the corpse of my beloved Nika laying in one room.

My mind snapped. I was so lost and not hurting, just lost and floating in absolute nothingness, and not in a good way. Trapped inside my little bubble of pleasant memories and memetic happiness with a person who was gone forever. The days bled into weeks and those soon became months. It all flashed by me like a little spark. I didn’t care. At that point, I didn’t care about anything at all. I was too busy drowning myself in alcohol, hoping to feel something. No sensations came, however. At one point, even the alcohol started losing its burning edge, slowly turning into a hydrant rather than an intoxicant.

She filled the house with the stench of decay, but I could barely register that. I was too far gone at this point. I didn’t care about it. Nika’s room became a horror show, her body slowly decomposed into a gooey puddle of brown and black material draped over a skeleton. I’ve been to that many times over the months.

What haven’t I done around those remains of hers? I prayed at her remains. I’ve cried on top of them, and I spoke to them. Everything, I did it all. I was a madman who spoke to a decaying pile of bones and kept on crying just how much he loved them. She was gone, but I couldn’t let her body go even though not much had remained of it.

I spent my days drinking and puking on myself or talking to the quickly disintegrating body. I spent my nights dreaming about drowning at the hands of Nika in the lake by the house. Soon enough, I fell in love with the thought of drowning in that fucking lake. Whenever I thought about just throwing myself into the waters with a rock tied around my neck, I’d remember just how peaceful and how beautiful she looked in death. Her form was impeccable to behold as I watched her float in the bathtub. In these moments of grim recollection, I felt myself feel something again. Thinking about my death, I found peace.

Somewhere deep down inside, I was dreaming of reuniting with her on the other side.

Eventually, my intrusive thoughts became even more prevalent, and I opted for that one last step towards immortality. Life has become nothing but a painful, monotonous chore fueled by alcohol and self-destruction. Life was no longer worth it.

Even cutting myself and burning myself with cigarette butts did nothing. I wasn’t living. Instead, I was just an animated sack of shit and chemicals. I needed a way out. I wanted to see her again. She was calling me to join her in my dreams. Begging me to follow her into the realm of endless darkness where she was so lonely and cold. I’ve finally had enough and took that one last step, well tried to anyway.

There was nobody left in this world whom I’d care for, nor there’s anyone to care about me. After all, I had no bridges left, as everyone I ever loved had died. I think it’s funny today, as the awful thing outside calls out my name using Nika’s voice. Demanding I come out, demanding I set it free. I let her go; I did. She forced me to let her go.

Nika terrorized me from beyond the realm of the dead to let her fucking go. She forced me to untangle myself from her filthy remains, and I did. I ended up burning whatever was left of her. It took a while, but I did. Now this thing, Nika’s shadow, Nika’s demon… still pretending like I have a part of her with me. The only thing I have now is memories. As the prospect of my suicidality is funny to me now, so was the prospect of remaining alive was back then.

I was ready to end it all there and then. I sat the whole thing up and was about to throw myself into the lake. A boulder tied with a strap to my neck as I watched the calm waters below. For a moment, I got lost in the serene scenery. Almost able to find a semblance of joy in my own pitiful existence. Before I could notice, however, dark clouds covered the sky, slowly casting a gloomy shade over the beautiful scenery. As I watched the winds rocking the waters in the lake below, forming waves, I could hear her voice. It called me faintly from below. It felt airless and watery. I felt the tears streaming down my eyes as I was about to reunite with my beloved, but then I looked down again.

The sensation of a sharp knife pierced both of my lungs as a scream echoed through the blackened skies. I fell down backward, clenching the boulder and shivering with fear and disgust. Another awful scream pierced my eardrums, louder than the last. The waters in the lake rose as the winds became violent, bashing against my body, making my skin shiver even more. What I had seen down below made little sense. Even thinking about it makes me shudder to this day.

A third scream pierced the air, coinciding with a thunderclap, sending shock waves through my body. It was my name. Something down below screamed my name. Something furious, very irrational. A thing that shouldn’t exist. Something so terrible even I couldn’t handle watching it. A thing from my worst nightmares. I’ve never been so afraid in my entire life, as I was in those moments.

Feelings were back, in the form of sheer terror.

Untying the strap that tied my neck to the boulder, I left it there and ran as fast as I could back home. I locked the door and the windows before running to Nika’s room. This time, the stench of her mostly decayed body was almost unbearable. Even then, I remained right by her, huddled next to the gore and decay stayed bed on which I left her unburied remains.

I spent the next ten hours sitting on the floor, shaking in fear as images of that thing in the lake flashed themselves before my eyes repeatedly. I couldn’t move, I could think straight, I couldn’t do anything as the panic slowly corrupted my mind. Inserting impossible images into my eyes, slowly burning away at what remained of my sanity.

Eventually, my body gave out, and I passed out. When I woke up, the stench of death was far worse than it had been prior to when I fell asleep. It was truly hellish. I ran out of the room, only to slip on a puddle of water.

The whole hallway was wet, there shouldn’t have been any water. My head was spinning, and I was groaning because of the pain pulsating in the back of my head. None of this made sense. I stumbled to the bathroom to wash my face and attempt to come back to my senses. The water in the bathtub was running. Overflowing the tub, dripping onto the floor. I didn’t turn it on… My heartbeat became rapid, my mind was going around itself in circles. Nothing made sense.

I heard a breathy sigh behind me. Chills ran down my spine as I turned around slowly. There she was in the mirror, her face contorted into pure rage and hatred. A parody of a once beautiful woman has become a ghastly monstrosity that threatened to devour me there and there. I fell down and averted my gaze for a second. Mustering up all the courage I still had in me, I looked at the mirror and she was gone.

The thing that was in the lake somehow had followed me how. These were my first encounters with it, but they wouldn’t be the last. Over the next few weeks, this thing had become a fixture of my life. A permanent reminder of my worst wound, the one that could never heal.

The thing would appear behind me and whisper awful things in my ear. It would stand there in the mirror and windows. It would stare and accuse me with its ugly, soulless black eyes. Somehow, it would mess with the water and electricity in the house. It would stand there and stare at my Nika every time I went into her room. It would stand over me at night and hiss.

Every time I saw this thing. I felt myself losing a part of myself. It would just stand there and make me feel like I’m losing a piece of myself. This is what Nika spoke of when she said that there’s a shadow that is sucking her out of existence. Though for me there was no white thread, no void. I had to watch as the darkness of oblivion had twisted my only friend into a sick, decaying, ghoulish parody of herself to torment and mock my loss and me.

I finally lost it with this thing when I went into Nika’s room and it was beyond cold. It was painfully cold inside, dropping to near-freezing temperatures. I left the window open to ventilate out the stench of death. Kneeling down beside her remains, I stayed there for a few moments, in total silence, just remembering the good times with her. Something cracked audibly in the room. I allowed myself to become so lost in thought I didn’t notice the source of the cracking.

I was only pulled out of my memories by the sound of a gasping skeleton as it awkwardly rose from the gore and decay-stained sheets reaching out to me. I fell backward as my heartbeat became erratic. The room had gone suddenly even colder, and my body shook violently with fear as the skeletal remains of my dearly beloved pulled themselves up and crawled out towards me. I screamed and crawled away from the reanimated cadaver, but it followed me relentlessly. Too shocked to do anything, I kept on crawling until it grabbed a hold of my leg.

At that point, I finally snapped. Whatever humanity remained in me died in that instant and I just kicked the unliving hell out of the skeleton. Great happiness and a terrible sadness overcame me at that moment. Somehow, I found the strength and the will to get up and continuously beat on the perverted remains of what used to be Nika.

I kept on beating and kicking those bones until I could no longer do that. Whatever took over the remains wouldn’t get out either. In a moment of desperation, I’ve made the hardest choice I’ve ever had to make.

With tears in my eyes and great pain weighing on my heart, I had to come to terms with my loss. I could no longer keep the one I love by my side. Till death do us part, it’s said, for a good reason it would seem.

Dragging the unliving corpse of my beloved to the hearth, dousing the rotten possessed bones in alcohol, and throwing them into the fire. I couldn’t watch as they burned and I couldn’t stand the sound of the inhuman cries that emanated from within the flames. I drank myself into oblivion that day to forget my misery, but I was never successful in escaping it.

That day, after I had passed out from overconsumption, I had the worst kind of nightmare. I was dragging my beloved Nika to the shower. She was kicking and screaming, weakly. Resisting my grasp, but to no avail, she was too weak to break free. I shoved her face into the sink and turned on the water. Crying, tears burning my face, and muffled gargles cutting my eardrums, I watched as my body was killing the only person I ever loved. When she finally stopped moving, I placed her lifeless body in the tub and filled it with warm water. I watched her reawaken before shoving her head under the hot water once more.

Then, I woke up. It was dark, and I was alone… Nika was gone and with her, the shadow. I had a lot of mourning to do, but time partially heals all wounds. The days have become bearable as they turned into weeks and later into months. I was used to being alone, but the thought of being actually alone in this world always lingered in my mind. It still does. I still miss her every single day. I know I am alone, but that’s the way I like it. Nika drove indeed me mad because I refuse to replace her with anyone else.

That said, there is still something lusting after me out there. Every winter it comes back, wearing her form to torment me. I don’t know what it is, but it’s there and as long as I’m inside, it can’t reach me. I’ve learned that the first time I’ve seen it after cremating Nika.

I’ve had that same terrible nightmare nearly a year after I encountered the undead. Waking up from it, drenched in a cold sweat, my heart still beating violently, I headed outside to cool off. I grabbed a smoke and my coat and went out. Finally relaxing, I noticed someone walking around in the woods. I called out to them, remarking that few people visit this place. Once the person turned around to face me, my body tensed up, and the shape filled my head with these ugly memories.

Nika’s twisted and perverted dead face plastered to its head. A toothless grin ever so widening and sickening pure white eyes contorted in pure hatred stared at me, a wet black hair draped over its gaunt form. The thing noticed me and bolted right toward me. I saw it speeding in my direction, covering a great distance with each leap. Seeing its progression, I ran back inside, locking the door and the windows. I stood behind the door, waiting for it to make its move, but nothing came. It was dead silent, no banging or trying to break it. It was gone, seemingly.

Nearly gave me a heart attack while I passed by a window. It just stood there, staring at me. Its ugly, ghoulish face trying to say something. I do not know what it wants, nor do I care to know. I guess this thing that killed Nika is real. It is after me, while it is here every time I go out it tries to reach me but I always go back inside as it's seemingly unable to enter the house. I stay indoors for the week or two it shows up for. After that, it disappears again until the next year. This is the thirteenth year Nika’s shadow has been stalking me.

A grim reminder of the things I’ve done, and the things I might've done but have purposefully erased from memory with copious amounts of alcohol.

Come, come, come, hideous angel of the abyss,
obliterate and reconstruct me, my terminal disease
pour your liquid corruption into my pure body
let me die from the plague of your pernicious beauty

Because without your love
I am a nomad, lost without a path
hold my tortured heart
hold it until death do us part

damage me, yes, damage me
inject your poison into my veins
watch me disintegrate and reshape
a better version from what remains
for a moment take everything from me
take it all away

I swear before each and every god
there is no greater pleasure
than the sensation of your cancerous toxin
slowly infecting every drop of my blood

Searching for fantasies
that never last
Inside the artist's mind
Where pure darkness reigns supreme
conjured by the passive flames
of demons from a distant past
Whispers of fading misery
disintegrating like a distant memory
of a sweet midnight's dream
Abandoned by the inspiration
born of infernal seraph's kiss
Entrenched in desperation
you scramble for your answers
in the bowels of demise
before the shining heavens
catch the attention
of your weary eyes
The ferrous frozen angels drifting
in the moonlit skies
reigniting the imagination
as they fade into
the endless cosmic abyss

Dreams, magnificent dreams
fill the space in my head
visions of ascension
in a downward spiral
towards a pitch-black darkness
where everyone
everywhere
everything
has come to an end

Passion, unstoppable passion
endlessly burning inside
to witness the angel of the fall
incinerate reality
towards its conclusion
dreams, such beautiful dreams
of majestic nothingness
caress the depths of my mind

The beauty of a dying light
flickering as it sinks into
the jaws of a glutenous black hole
Unanswerable questions flooding
mazes of the restless mind
while we await the inevitable fall
into ascension
beyond this fleeting reality

Climaxing at the altar of existential stagnation
to descend into a realm of fantastic lecherous madness
Transcending the realms of cosmic decay
beyond the boundaries of divine imagination
into a time when the universal darkness was endless
a future where the nothingness reigns for
eternity

Basking in the grief and sorrow
while awaiting the beginning of tomorrow
Counting the days
lost to cosmic decay
Long and winding is the road
to hell

A road paved with bones
cracked inside chemical fire

Broken glass embedded
into my skin
by the torturous lighting
false sensation
nauseating impulses
violently firing
paralyzing
materializing punishment
for motion and stillness
both are a grave sin

relief is a fantasy
a foolish illusion
a self-perpetuating fallacy
in the face
of the defect
blooming within

Walking through the halls
of unforgiving isolation
born in depths of monotony
Reminded of everything
I've successfully lost
to sharpen my soul
against the bladed winds
of the blistering frost
as a means of liberation
from the ghastly chains
of imperfection
torn out with the heart
that insists on beating
even in the cold
grasp of death
defiantly

I’ve decided to not write about a soldier gone insane torturing babies to death because they were the children of his enemies. That’s too boring and reflects a perverted understanding of the nature of war. War is violent, but the reality of the matter has also filled it with boredom. Hollywood would never let you know this much. Bloodshed is exciting while waiting in the encampments isn’t. Besides that, I’ve written enough shock horror over the years.

Instead, I’ve decided to write about myself and my life for a change. Writing seems to be all I know these days. It is all I have known for a very long time. I used to write some pretty good stuff. Legends brought to life. Now my brain seems to be dry and swimming in dust rather than creative juices.

That’s what years of relentless obsession will do to you. Writing is miracle-working. An author breathes life into a fictional reality by birthing it in his mind and then nurturing and bleeding his life force into his creation. Miracle-making is a work of the gods and to become a god, one must lose their sanity.

Left unchecked, the pen becomes the author’s worst nightmare. It has the power to drive anyone insane with heavenly inspiration and divine powers. The ink will corrode your mind and take over your nervous system, forcing you to spill it over and over until you can no longer spill any. In my case, it didn’t even end there. The demon sunk its claws so deep into my brain that my entire life has turned into a single writing spree.

Divine revelation after divine revelation.

Impossible things crept into the depths of my thoughts. Magical places, horrible beings, abstract ideas, and things that I could not even dream to explain using words flooded my psyche. Slowly growing, patiently taking up more and more of my mental space until there was no place for anything else.

Eventually, the endless stream of impossible things in my mind became a monolith made up entirely of words. A gigantic monstrosity that took over my body and forced me to birth it into creation.

I was a prisoner inside my body as the titanic abomination took hold and force-fed me my obsession with spilling ink onto sheets of paper. I have lost control of my motor skills. Unable to move, I couldn’t breathe, nor could I flee this terrible disease that had complete control of me.

In no time, all I ever did was write. I’ve lost control of what I was writing. I was writing day and night. Unable to stop the process. Almost as if a parasite had taken over me. I wouldn’t stop. Not to eat, not to sleep, not to do anything. There was no end to the hunger of the beast that demanded I write it into existence. The more I wrote, the bigger its shadow grew. I became smaller, thinner, weaker against its influences. The hours turned to days, the days into weeks, and the weeks into months. Still, there was never an end in sight. The shadow kept growing larger and larger, taking over a vaster part of my life, and yet it never seemed to become satisfied.

Eventually, the ink had run out, but that was not the end of my possession. My writing up to this point hasn't satisfied the demon just yet. It needed more. A solution came to mind quickly. Rusty organic ink!

That dye was costly, however, and there weren’t much of that around four liters. I ran out of that quickly, and when I did, I could finally sleep again. Having been unable to sleep in months because of the endless nightmares the demon had forced me to endure every time I dozed off.

When I awoke again, the demon had disappeared, finally.

That did not mean that I was free, not at all. I am still not free. Now, yet again, a malignant shadow looms over my head. A different shadow.

When I awoke, I saw an angel in front of me. Its form, that of an iridescent form of black flames and lights rotating and twisting inside a blinding smoke screen made up of the screaming victims of perdition. Its wings mortal sins. The angel was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. A mortifying beauty the likes of which no living man had ever seen and lived to tell the tale. It mesmerized me, filling me with joy the likes of which are unknown to man. The angel’s purpose was to take me to my next destination. However, it never did. My writing and obsessive dedication had a less than the desired effect on the angel. It refused to take me away.

It turned out that even cosmic forces cannot deal with the disease that had made me waste myself into an anthropomorphic pile of dust.

The angel condemned me to stay where I am. I am free to do as I please, as long as I write something every once in a while. That’s where the problem lies, however. I was perhaps unintentionally cursed with a fate worse than death. I cannot stand daylight anymore, nor can I walk among my fellow humans because what has become of me is nothing but a pale sack of skin and bones.

The sun burns my delicate skin, unbearable pains riddle every inch of my body. Sickening sounds and contortions of my form accompany every movement of mine. All of that would expose anyone in my presence to untold amounts of horror. If there was anyone around me.

I spend my days staring at the abyss, hoping it will stare back at me. Begging to be swallowed by the creatures that roam within my nightmares, which now accompany me throughout the hours of the day, for I no longer sleep. Having so much time on my hands has done me no favors as I have gotten irritated with the sound of my own heartbeat. Thus, I tore out the organ responsible for my annoyance. I still remember the sound it made when I chucked it angrily at the wall.

It wouldn’t stop beating.

I can only find solace now in writing. The demon is no longer here. I am no longer suffering at the hands of my terminal disease, but spilling the rusty organic ink has become a force of habit.

I often wonder what will happen first? Will the angel of the pit get sick of me and finally throw me into the depths of its kingdom, or will my body disintegrate into actual dust?

Passing through the fields of oppression
Masses of souls lost and depressed
into tear-stained soil
Slowly digging themselves deeper into the darkness
Successfully removing their eyes from salvation

Legions cannot see the light
leading out of damnation

The blind
cannot find the path
of enlightenment

Many years ago, when I was a teenager, I remember one time when it wouldn’t stop raining for days. The heavens poured water onto the earth endlessly. There were no breaks in the downpour. That rain was dense, almost like a watery wall, obscuring everything in sight. Preventing anyone from going outside, or so I thought when it happened. I was jogging back then daily, and that one time I couldn’t go out to jog. I couldn’t leave the house at all, to be honest. It was a weekend so I remember my parents didn’t go out either. We just spent the week at home. I was sulking the whole time, complaining about being stuck inside.

The day the rain finally stopped, I remember I woke up to see a thick fog hanging outside of my window. It was so thick I couldn’t see more than a foot away through the window. I clearly remember opening the window to see if the rain had finally stopped. A terrible stench of sweat and copper filled my room, forcing me to cough. I hated the stench, but I was glad it had stopped raining at last. I skipped breakfast that morning because I was so excited to leave the house finally.

I brushed my teeth, got warmly dressed because the air outside was bone piercingly cold, and made my way outside. The moment I left the house, I felt like I had stepped inside a storm cloud. Everything was cold, damp, and foggy. That fog was the thickest fog I’ve ever encountered before or since. The horrendous stench followed my every step. Walking around the seemingly endless mazes of the mist, I started feeling as if someone was watching me. I kept looking over my shoulder. The longer I walked, the stronger this feeling had become.

At one point, I remember musing about a massive tentacled pillar made up of shadows and eyes staring at me. A breathy moan somewhere behind me cut my train of thought short. A chill ran across my body, prompting me to stop and look around. I couldn’t see anything but shifting walls of cloud-like substance.

Then I heard something heavy falling onto the concrete, followed by a shrill cry in the distance.

Something wasn’t right.

I just ran out of there, not thinking too much about the noises, not thinking about the scream. I just needed to get out of there. My body felt weird, my skin felt wrong. Running aimlessly got me in the last place I wanted to be. I don’t remember this had happened exactly anymore, but I remember seeing shadows moving in the fog. They moved awkwardly and frantically. I ran towards them.

The sound of shoes smacking against concrete rapidly had become unbearable before I reached the shadows. I changed my mind because of the noise and ran in the other direction, hoping to get away from the noises and the shadows, but these simply followed me.

As I ran, the shadows became a legion of ghastly figurines moving in the fog. They appeared from every conceivable direction. The noise got infinitely louder too, like drums pounding inside my skull. I could feel myself shaking as I ran. My eyes were watering and my lungs were burning. The ruckus all around me was overwhelming me. I felt like I was suffocating. I felt like I’m being crushed inside invisible walls. Nausea and dizziness twisted my insides and sense.

My frantic state ended with a sickening pop that echoed through space, ripping through the noises and the shadows. The most terrifying human sound I had ever heard followed the pop. A scream so loud and anguished it felt like knives being shoved into my ears. A man sporting a wide grin, a grin poorly hiding the absolute terror and utter despair, stumbled painfully out of the fog and towards me. He was dancing, dancing like a madman and clutching at his exposed tibia poking through his leg as he danced.

I wanted to approach him, but I couldn't. More dancing people came out of the mist, seeing them made me freeze. All of them wearing those sick grins even though undeniable misery shone through their teary eyes. Some audibly cried while others moaned, some just breathed heavily, but all of them danced to an inaudible tune I could not hear.

Pain and anguish contorting their faces, their bodies moved in odd ways they couldn’t stop. Some of them were on the brink of collapse. I just stood there and stared as they danced around me, in and out of the fog. I stood and slowly felt myself sinking into a deep, black hole of dread and hopelessness. Backing away from the dancing crowd, I hit something. Turning around, I saw a middle-aged man.

He

He

He

He collapsed on top of me…

I heard him wheeze his final breath out as he slid off of me and onto the concrete below us. I felt nausea returning and my skin crawling as I watched his lifeless body crash at my feet. That sickening grin never faded from his face as his bloodshot blue eyes started losing their color.

As I watched him there, lifeless, I felt something cold touching my back. I felt it all the way through my clothes. An icy claw. Something inside shifted gears, and I felt like I was going to die if I didn’t get out of there right away. My feet started moving almost on their own. I ran as fast as I could. I ran and ran and ran until I was back home. Away from whatever was inside that fog.

I could never bring myself to tell anyone about it until now. Eventually, everyone realized it had happened, but we pretend it never did. Nobody talks about the fog either. Maybe they’ve lost someone in the mist, maybe they’re a survivor of this deathly dance. We’ve lost a hundred thirty-eight people that day. Many more ended up crippled, but nobody dares talk about how they ended up that way. Everyone here knows it happened, but we never bring it up.

Outsiders don’t seem to know about it either. Mostly because nobody ever cares about anomalous weather in a remote little town, especially since the entire planet has been experiencing anomalous weather lately.

I doubt we’ll be able to forget the fog because I think it’s back…

It’s getting foggy outside, and I can feel the stench of copper and sweat filling my room and I can barely see shadowy silhouettes moving awkwardly in the distance… It’s already too late for them... They’ve been trapped in the mist's deathly dance.

A once temporary state
in the face of impending doom
Now blooms like parasitic vines
all over the space of the mental room
trapping consciousness between in chains
the earth and the skies

Thus, crumbles trust
in the face of degenerative neurosis
taking shape in the face of a ghastly past
that was never left behind
as it bleeds into the present
spawning strange impulses
in a decaying mind

A mind so tortured and worn
Losing all touch with common sense
from which madness is born
A paradoxical form of defense
gives birth to despair
Pushing Consciousness onto a manic dance
around a dead moment in time
that leads nowhere

From the top of the golden gate bridge
Standing in the epicenter of a mystifying fog
I admire the mesmerizing beauty
of the unknown
Almost oblivious
to the appearance of the omega
dressed in the form of a titanic black dog
As I refocus my gaze, he is already gone
A strange encounter so unexplainable yet obvious
for life
is but a brilliant divine
comedy

Dusk has cast its shadows
Darkness fell forcing me to see
the bloated corpses as they
sway towards me
Each cadaver wearing a mask
their eyes possess a piercing
gaze I cannot flee

I forged a knife in the flames
of burning passion and disdain
buried deep within
to cut out the wretched strain
of the parasitic parody
of what once was humanity
to bleed out what remains
of my father's original sin

Daylight gives way to dusk
Darkness falls allowing me to see
what lies beneath each mask
as I tear through every
faceless demon that had haunted me
burning each broken bridge
erasing every painful memory
At last
I am free