Prologue

Our spot: dark and red; it’s almost ironic, seeing as how the end came upon us. Our life begins and ends as such, in the blackness. The dark holds peace and turmoil, love and hatred. We spend our entire lives in the dark. As children black is the “bad” color, as teens it’s the color of rebellion, as adult the black is feared. As an adult the black represents the void after a human body dies. As a child we fear the monster under your bed, the man in the window, the beast that lives in the closet. Let me tell you, this beast lives in everyone, and I’ve met it in me. The beast may be different, the dark hold different fears, but every person, man woman or child has a blackness following them. I’ve faced my beast. Each of you will make the choice, to defeat the dark that follows you or to become slave to its every whim.

Red, the color of life, the color of blood; the flickering red of the neon sign reminds me of this. Red, like dark symbolizes life and death, love and hatred. Red is tender as a rose but angry as the red in the eyes of the creature that haunts you. Just as we begin and end in dark, we live and die in red. As babes brought into the world surrounded by blood, and as the blood in our veins stops running, we die.

Dark envelops me, holding me like a long lost lover. This is where He professed His love for me, and this is where the end came. The nightclub’s sign once read, The Hangout, however, seeing as the place has since fallen into disrepair it now reads something closer to, he Ha g ut; most people that come here call it the He Hagut for that exact reason. He called this ‘our spot,’ just another piece of the picture without a place in the puzzle. He only took me here once; making it a grand total of twice, now three times that I’ve ever been here. Nothing has changed since that last visit six months ago. Used needles glare angrily in the light of the neon red sign. The scurry of rats scratching at the garbage greets my ears; I cannot see them, for my eyes have not yet adjusted to the dim lighting. Though I cannot see, I know instinctively what surrounds me: broken beer bottles, torn newspapers, perhaps a torn shirt.

Walking past the club, past the rats, past the broken glass surrounding the dumpsters, the slumped silhouettes of the homeless appear in the back alley. Gingerly I step over each of them. I stop once to examine what kind of man sleeps in the streets behind He Hagut; and immediately I wish I hadn’t. The man is old, older than time itself it seems, his skin pulling away from his skull and pooling in deep, sad wrinkles underneath his sunken eyes. His closed eyes pull back in his head making deep caverns. He may not even be that old; he is dying, starving to death. He stinks of the trash that he picks for the necessities of life. A fly lands on the man’s hand and he twitches. The veins in his hands bulge; the skin stretches unnaturally around muscles in the hand that should not be visible to the human eye. I close my eyes and walk on, but the image still burns in the back of my mind.

I follow the alley all the way back. I know my way around here forwards, backwards, and sideways. Maybe this time I will make it. I have to make it. It has been a week of trying; I have to go all the way this time. All the way in the back of the alley a coarse brick wall stands. Turn left, past three sewer man holes. It should be up ahead soon. I almost turn back for fear of what I will find. This is ridiculous; I know what I will find, but I don’t know if I can stomach it. I press onward despite the pit growing in the depth of my gut.

I stop; this is the place. The corpse in front of me is mangled and destroyed. Not much is recognizable besides the eyes. However, I could never forget those eyes. I don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive Him for doing this. How He could take such a precious life, I will never know. Perhaps I do understand though. In the past week I have come to realize that understanding and forgiving are two very different things. I will hate Him forever for what He did to tear my life apart, but I do understand it. He was twisted and angry; a life of frustration and rejection will do that to a person. There was a snapping point that He passed long before he met me. I believe that He was quite insane for years perhaps before I met Him on that day that started the chain of events that threw my life into a time of turmoil.

Now, all there is for me to do is to forgive Him and stop worshipping Him as I have for so long. That’s going to be a lot easier said than done. In order to forgive Him, I’m going to have to relive the hell that He put me through.

A large hunk of the corpse’s stomach was missing where a gun, a piece of cold lifeless metal, had ended me. Its intestines are as tattered as a curtain that cats habitually use as a scratching post. Blood surrounds me, the corpse’s shirt and hair is matted with it. The red liquid of life has dripped down the body’s leg creating odd-looking patterns in the fabric of the pants. Pools of blood surrounding the corpse have congealed splotches making the blood look more gruesome than ever. I have an urge to vomit that I fight down; actually, I don’t even know if I can throw up anymore. Maggots have eaten away at the beloved face, leaving it marred almost beyond recognition. Yes, perhaps at some point, that was a nose, a lip, a cheek, though, now one can only speculate: assume from placement on the skull. It’s obvious that the corpse has been cleaned out by the scavengers that live in the alley from the awkward angle that the body has been dropped; it no longer has a wallet or any jewelry on its person. I hope that one of those men that sleep in the alleyway has made good use of whatever they have pilfered from the claws of death. Maybe at least someone has prospered from my misery.

The gun has been dropped an arms length from the body only a couple of feet from where it had been dropped originally. It’s strange the power that a piece of metal can hold; the ability to give or take life. Sometimes I fiercely wish that the human race did not have these abilities. However, more often than not, I thank whatever power that is looking out for me that we do have the ability to make that choice. Who is to say that a piece of metal has the right to decide who lives and who dies? Who is to say what person has the right to wield the piece of metal that gives or takes life? I try to pick up the cold metal, to feel the weight of the life taker, but it seems to burn through my hand. I drop it and stare. I do not know if I will ever be able to forgive Him, though I must try. I must move on in my, well, not-life.

Green-Yellow eyes stare at me glassily; Death’s last cry for pity. Burning embers that once held life, love, and beauty have been stamped out before their time. The flame that once lit those clear eyes has been doused, has been brutally extinguished. I reach out to close those eyes. I cannot bring myself to do it. I flinch and pull my hand away. I cannot close the eyes of the corpse. When I close the corpse’s eyes I am admitting to myself that I will never open my eyes again. I need to do this; I need to let Him go; I need to rest in peace. The corpse, or rather my corpse, seems to be daring me to do it, to move on, to free myself from Him. “Fuck you,” I whisper. Trembling consumes my body. Taking a deep breath, quickly, before I can stop myself I reach out and close my eyes. My earthly body seems to be at peace, which is much more than I can say for my state currently.

I sigh, it hasn’t helped, I still haven’t moved on. I turn around and you’re standing behind me. I had forgotten that you had come with me. Sighing I tell you,
“I suppose, I must go back to the beginning.”

I take one last longing look at the corpse that once held so much meaning for me. I take one last look at the life that I had. I wonder what would have happened had I not met Him. Would I have been happy? I like to think so.

I gesture to you, “Follow me.” We slowly fade, merging into the scenery until we are no longer visible.

Darkness surrounds me, and the flickering red neon sign reads, He Ha g ut. We reappeared in the same back alleyway as we started. “Shit.” I mutter to myself and close my eyes.

One of these days I’ll figure out this new ‘beam me up Scotty’ thing. In theory it’s a good mode of transportation, but in reality it’s not so effective. This disappearing act is very prone to being screwed up unless you’ve been practicing for a lifetime. I’ll have to get it right eventually, or I’ll just continue getting frustrated and making a fool of myself. Once again we slowly fade into the scenery, the nightclub visible through our silhouettes until we disappear completely to the human eye.

If anyone were around other than you and me from the spirit world, they’d be able to see us as pale blurs across space and time, warping it, using it to our own devices.