deepundergroundpoetry.com
Across Dark Parallels
- Across Dark Parallels -
One night of which I have thought often over the years, I had dreamed a highly strange and disturbing dream that will doubtless continue to haunt me with its’ enigma for all of time. And yet, I know answers to its' riddle that are dark indeed! There are many, of a purely philosophical bent, who would postulate that dreams are sometimes far more than just the fancies of one's slumbering mind. The strangeness of what had unfolded to me both in dream and in all of my life (such as it became) so following that dream seems only to confirm that very notion for me. The dream that I do speak of, began with a very definite sensation of leaving my body behind and traveling back in time for many countless centuries. The next thing I knew, I was walking down a long misty corridor that was lined with glass walls on both sides of it. The glass was cold, and it was fogging over, and through all of the panes of the glass I could see deep snow upon all the ground of the dense forest lands that lay beyond those otherwise unremarkable walls. I could see what appeared to be the faint gray shades of once-living human beings... passing through the foggy walls of that ethereal corridor... and I could hear them lowly muttering things that to me had little bearing on anything familiar to my life and all my experiences. A great gathering of these ghosts passed along the corridor behind me, and I had felt the need to rush along... and stay at least one step ahead of that throng. Eventually, the ghosts seemed to fade into nothingness like unto smoke that dissipates. The corridor opened to the right and I walked through an archway and down several steps carved into what was apparently a stone floor. The archway was carved from solid rock, and I was now in a deep cavern that suddenly opened up and led out unto a sprawling coastal region surrounded by great high, craggy cliffs of jagged rock. I could see sandy dunes and date palm trees, and I could make out a great city in the far distance. The city was a grand harbor with many ships moored at its’ docks, and it was a mighty metropolis of the ancient world with tall gleaming spires and lofty temples. A nearby sign on a piece of leather stretched across a wooden board nailed unto post set into the ground welcomed me to the place, but the language was utterly unfamiliar to me and I could not read it with any skill. I know only that the name of the city began with the Greek letter “A”, or Alpha. The sign was at the distant beginning of the outlying lands of the city and its’ suburbs, outside the walls of the city proper, and these lands were full of primitive stone huts with thatched roofs. As I made my way towards the distant spires, a woman rode past me upon a great gray stallion with a bright golden saddle. The woman wore a white tunic-like dress belted at the waist with a buckled leather belt. She held a great barbed spear in her hands and uttered a loud battle cry as her steed galloped along upon its’ own way. That battle cry was strange and guttural, almost like the growl of a wild animal and not a human being at all. Her face was pleasant and I would even say childlike. Suddenly, she stopped the horse and got down off of it to come over and speak with me. Though she spoke no language native to me, I knew in my mind that she was saying unto me: “Are you going to the city, stranger? I too am bound there. Allow me thus to accompany you, and to guard you against any harm. There are many in these parts of the world that would injure an outsider, and you have a dark look in your eyes. An evil look, perhaps, as some would say… although to me your eyes are no different than any other man’s or woman's.” The woman had very short red hair and green eyes. She seemed to hail from far away, and I agreed to let her travel with me, desiring such fair company greatly in my loneliness. As we neared the city, I felt strange and it seemed that this glimpse into another time was fading away into mists. I could recall the strange reddish color of the woman’s hair, and how it was deeply red like unto blood… and not a natural shade at all. I allowed this thought to pass as I embraced the mists and allowed them to embrace me utterly. But fate entwines all souls, and in ways we cannot at first fathom. Within the mists I saw countless half-imagined glimpses of the past, the present, and the future. Every future that could possibly be, and every past that ever was. It was too faint and indistinct to be maddening to the senses, though. And so I allowed this to pass over me, through me, and beyond me. I would be stronger than all, for I had something to learn from this experience. Something perfect!
When the mists parted, I was within the deep cavern once more though clearly in another section of it. This particular section was even colder than the other one had been though. Behind me was the familiar throng of gray ghosts, but this time they were not ethereal specters but flesh and blood, as they looked in life. Gray and transparent no longer! They seemed happy and content, but also fearful of the place for which they were bound. I let them lead me onward, and we passed a series of peculiar panels mounted on the cavern’s walls. In each of them, I could see scenes from my life playing out before me. The good memories, and also all of the most terrible ones! As I traveled along, I beheld my entire life playing out before my startled eyes. Then I saw more and more such panels, playing out scenes from all of my past lives, stretching out into infinity, as it seemed. Eventually, those panels were gone and the ghosts and I arrived at a great mountain formed of golden sand and rock that rose up out of the cavern and into very stars that appear in the night sky. We climbed up steps that were carved deeply into the dried sand and rock, and great torrential winds swept a number of the ghosts out into the black void mercilessly. They screamed as they were hurled head over heels into eternity, and I bowed my head before the gale that tore at some but blew very gently for others. For me, it seemed to pass and soon there was no wind at all. I hurried up the great steps, and soon I arrived at the summit of the golden stairway. Seated upon the top of this entire mountain, upon a massive throne of icy cold gray stone, was a being that I thought at first had to be God, or something just as majestic. I beheld a beautiful but utterly alien entity that was flesh and blood but also of the more spiritual realm. It was a woman, or at least it was female in nature though gigantic in stature. She had ten great white wings that spread out from her back across the starry expanse beyond. Her flesh was grayish blue, and had black veins all through it that were visible on the surface of her skin. Her eyes were solid white, but sometimes seemed more a metallic silver. She wore black robes trimmed with gold, and wore a winged crown upon her head. I realized soon, that the wings were part of her head, and not actually part of the crown at all! The blackness of those robes she wore held shimmering starlight within its’ very fabric, and I knew that this being was as wholly one with the universe. She smiled serenely and spoke to me, saying: “What is wrong, oh my firstborn child… do you not recognize your original mother?” And one of the ghosts behind me yelled out to me: “The Goddess of the Universe is your mother? How very blessed are you!” Suddenly, the spirit of the woman who had traveled with me to the city in that other time and place was standing closely at my side. She exclaimed: “Behold the female aspect of God... made tangible, for living beings to thus attempt to understand. You are witnessing one small glimmer of Her greater glory. She is Light and Darkness in perfect harmony.” I was staring into the Goddess’s face, when the whole scene began to change into another, entirely. Her power was drawing me away, somewhere, for some purpose. I awoke from my dream both enlightened and uncertain as to why God would choose to reveal such a great and terrible glimpse of eternity to me. I could not realize then, that it was a gift, a prelude to other gifts… more terrible gifts… that were about to be bestowed unto me. If only the nightmare that my life became next had been only a dream! If only God… or the Goddess… had warned me of what was to come. Could I have stopped the tragedies that befell me over the years? I will never know. I have contemplated this often in the years since then, but now I choose not to ponder it at all if it could be helped. I must relate all of this though, so that you may understand all. The spirit of the woman with the blood red hair wanted me to meet the Goddess… the woman, the girl, with the blood red hair. Who was she? I was too frightened to find out, and yet I knew that somehow our fates were entwined. Upon the following day I decided to talk a long walk through the woods at the local park near where I lived at the time. Now, that seems to be a lifetime ago, but it is nothing in the grander scheme of time itself! There was something there, something in the park that was waiting for me... as I passed through the darkest places in its' deep forests. I had a feeling of being just outside of the normal flow of time, and through that crack in time and space I was drawn into a strange and surreal experience that was both familiar and strange unto me. I had experienced this long before!
In the blackest depths of the ancient woods of yore, where ancient Pagan powers reign, I so walked in shadowy paths and ranged nigh even unto the distant crags of the most lofty Carpathian mountain range itself. I found a place there that no human being has likely ever beheld, a cavern that led to an old mine shaft that was long abandoned back in the days when Rome was still the most dominant power in all of the world that was known to explorers and scholars in their time. That lost mine led me into a kingdom beneath the ground, where there existed unto that fated hour a community of creatures not unlike what I have over time myself become, only while my transformation was subtle and spiritual in nature... theirs was overt, physical, and obvious to all who looked upon their features. There were among their number, certain sages of a sort who are so incredibly ancient, although ageless, that man of old once called them gods and goddesses of the underworld. Whilst I still yet possess a certain degree of my old conscience, further made brighter by a certain childlike sense that has ever been a part of me... those old sages have given wholly into an exceedingly evil nature that grants them tremendous power… as well as pleasure and pain so blended that I cannot reason where the joy ends and the suffering begins. I could not bring myself to learn from them, for there is too much apathy in what they teach for me to find anything in it that sings to me. I am, by nature, a passionate person and apathy is ill-suited to a hedonist such as I am.
The ancient sages worshiped a horned god not unlike the Horned God that is revered by many modern witches today, and that fact prompted me to learn all I could about their own particular deity. The sages brought me unto a limestone archway covered by golden runes and blockaded by a wall of sharp thorns. Reaching out to touch it, I cut myself and drew back… for those thorns were like unto razor blades. My blood had an odd reaction on the thorn that had spilled it, causing the wall of thorns itself to wither, die, and crumble to naught… thus opening the path to what lay beyond. The walls of the tunnels that I shall now tell you of were covered in a thin layer of ice. The ground was warm, however, and covered in the water born of what ice had been melting in that hidden domain. Holes in the ground at various intervals kept these passageways from ever flooding, but the source of the ice was not nearly so apparent. Every so many feet, there were recesses in the walls where it appeared that people were trapped, frozen by the ice that held them as if they still lived… seemingly in a state of suspended time. If they so were dead or slumbering, I could not know. If they dreamed, their nightmares must have been terrible! I was told that these all were the most remote ancestors of the residents of the secret underground domain, from a time before the ancient flood that washed over the world entire. Just past these icy sentinels, the passage we took opened up into a circular chamber wherein at last the frightful source of all that ice was revealed.
I beheld a being of pure cold, an ice queen out of old fairy tales… but nothing at all like such carefree tales depict. She was beautiful, outwardly, but her features were sharper than any human being’s could possibly be… her teeth were long and fanged, so that she could scarcely close her mouth without them showing. Her skin was a pale blue, and her eyes were like twin rubies. Her hair was white as snow, and her gown was diaphanous and as transparent as crystal… though not a hint of her body’s charms could be seen through the fabric, for it sparkled and shimmered in such a way as to obscure what lay beneath its’ folds. She was literally chained to stone posts set into a raised dais in the center of the room, and her screams were horrific. They caused more and more ice to form, which was continuously kept in check by natural volcanic vents that ran the outer circumferences of that chamber itself. Steam rose up at all those points, and the whole scene itself had the quality of a vision, more than reality. What I noticed the most, however, was the pair of curved ram-like horns that rose up from the sides of the top of her head! She was the horned deity the people of this realm worshiped, and she had no name. I walked over to her and regarded her shackles, which rusted and fell apart when I touched them… as if they waited for me alone to undo their spell. How much of this... was by my power, or by her will, it may never be known.
I remember the ice demon queen kissing me, grabbing at me with sharp claws that tore and did rend, before her slaughter of all those people who had held her captive began. Her kiss was filled with blood, and so was the whole of that underground before I grew disgusted with all of this and departed back to my home again! Yet not before I had witnessed things that would drive some into insanity. My fleeting memories of the horror that the she-demon perpetrated in that moment still disturb my mind and plague my heart with the sheer brutality of it. One man... if man is the right word, for those who dwelt in that place, had his face cut away by her sharp claws. With all of the precision of an artist, she cut the skin… slowly at first, but with greater and greater force as she worked… from along the exposed jaw, all the way around, until the entire face was bleeding profusely from these ghastly wounds that were now all one wound. With a sickening spurting sound, and something akin to tearing, the monster tore his face away from the meat and bone beneath. Leaving him to bleed to death in agony as she took her trophy and attempted to wear it for a mask. Deciding the fit was not exact enough to suit her, the fiend went on to do the same to all of the others… and worse things still that I could mention, but shall not. I speak of all these details to attempt to convey the true savage horror of that supernatural encounter, and why it was I fled there so swiftly. Who was I in that life, in that time? I learned not any answer, to that query. Following that, I was back in the present once again but it was not in the same world that I had left. In my haste to flee that memory from the past, whatever its' source, I had inadvertently ended up in some alternate version of the world I had left, of this prime reality we all dwell in. I made my way home, but all was not precisely as I had left it. Everything had a subtle difference to it, a peculiar variation on the more familiar things that I had once known. I knew those woods a the park contained odd properties of a magical nature, but on this occasion not anything I had previously imagined, could have prepared me.
Beyond my house, there was this place thickly wooded... right near the old cemetery but one street up. That cemetery was now a lot larger than it used to be! People had always said to me that this cemetery was haunted... and, that one time, in every year the dead would rise up from their graves to walk again. I heard this silly sounding tale first spoken by other children back when I was still in high school, and I hastily disbelieved them, at at least at first. Now... as I recall all of these memories in much more recent years... I remember well, what transpired to alter my erring opinions on that singular matter. I just wish, that I could have changed, many of the tragic events that arose from this lack of knowing. But... I shall not get ahead of myself here. I remember how impatient I felt, at that time... I wanted to escape and get back to the world I remembered at all costs. It was a perhaps dark sort of impatience! Yet my life back home in those years had not been a happy one, for I was lonely beyond any proper words to so properly describe. Discontent, with my life as an artist and a poet, I had lost myself in my studies of the magical arts... of metaphysics, and of the study of dreams. I was, and still am, a romantic! Some would say of the hopeless variety, and yet I had hope that I could change the course of my life, perhaps for the better. In the alternate reality, it was the summertime. A brutally hot one, at that! I did not desire to go near to the cemetery, however, and so instead I walked on towards the woods that lay past the bounds of it. But on this day, a woman and her child warned me against going into the forests. They called me by my full name, which I had found passing strange, for I knew them not. “Come, my friend! Both I, and my child, know you well. Walk with us... and we shall take you to a much safer place to be... something wicked is to swiftly transpire in those woods, and you do not wish to be a part of it in the least. Please, listen to me! I am not in the habit of lying to people I care about.” and so I heeded the strange woman’s advice, and allowed her to lead me toward a small village, nearby. On the way, I recall the child calling me her “sibling”, and I found her turn of phrase to be strange. I had no sister, although I always truly longed for one. Perhaps I am a tad eccentric after all, as some claim of me? But no matter... for it was not to be. At least not in this child's sad case. I do not know why things in that world were fate for so dark a destiny!
At any rate, the odd woman and child brought me toward their village, and in the center of it's quaint cluster of quiet cottages, with their high peaked roofs and their wood-paneled walls, there lay a grassy hill, high enough to reach the second story of many of these homes. In a truly peculiar turn of events, I was instructed to seat myself upon the hill and wait thus with the child whilst the mother went off to get her home ready... to receive me as a guest. And whilst I sat there, I looked at the girl and thus saw her as though for the first time. She was like any other girl you might find in any other such village... she was pale blonde of hair, bright blue of eye, and wearing in a pretty white dress with a pink band to adorn her long curly locks. She wore pink ballerina style shoes and white lacy stockings upon her legs. She spoke in a bubbly voice, very cheerful and full of life. “Do not worry, sibling!” Said she... in her rather strange yet bright manner... once again. “Soon, we will both be safe from harm.” and so I was filled with dread, as I contemplated just what it was that might imperil us, demanding our sudden safety. And so it was, at length... the mother returned and told the girl and I to follow her to their small cottage... which: we did. After a rather pleasant meal... the woman did again call me by name, and therefore ushered me into her daughter's chambers where the girl was happily playing with some of her toys. I was instructed to keep the child pleasantly occupied... and to keep occupied myself, until the next day. “But, do not leave this house before dawn, no matter what you hear occurring without, lest I lose my child... and you... to the horrible catastrophe that occurs each year.” And so... I was left, to ponder all this. I was told by the girl: that, long ago, a great number of the villagers went into the woods to look for water during when water was scarce one year, and so that afflicted the land, in a past age. The villagers found some water, but it was poisoned and all who drank it died and were afterwards buried in the cemetery, which had to be so expanded in order to allow for their burials. But an evil legend held that once a year, on the day of their deaths, they do return to visit their loved ones, and even their descendants, for one single week. During that week, it is said they walk among the living by day, and haunt the woods as zombies... every night. Children and visitors, are kept safe, but sometimes meet with death anyway... when some of the dead become too angry, to appease. I, of course, did not believe a word of this story, and thought the girl just a bit morbid, for having imagined this. I lived not so very far away, after all, and I had never even heard this tale... nor heard of any such terrible events. For that matter, this village had not existed in the prime reality I had come from... the outer sports fields of the park and the streets just past it were there, but all of this was vastly different on that parallel world. I was fearful, to learn of any further such differences.
Since we would be together all night, I asked that little girl to tell me her name. She so told me it was Cecelia... and that her mother's name was Suzanne. I remarked, that her name was a very pretty one, for an equally pretty little child. She had blushed, which I indeed fully expected that she would. She then did stand up from the floor, arranging her skirts with care, and sat down upon her bed. She looked deep into my eyes, and said to me in a serious, adult manner: “The people who live in this land... they are a lot like tiny moles, hiding in the dirt. I wish that I could just yell to the moles to all wake up and so they would. Let me wake you up, my dear sibling!” and, she suddenly leapt upon me, planting a savage kiss upon my lips which left me wondering if she had gone quite mad. “Child... I am old enough to be your father or mother... a good thirty two years of life have I seen! This behavior... it is not proper.” But then, I realized her true intent, for my eyes became sharper, and able to see things in a clarity that I can only describe as supernatural. She giggled cheerily... and sang: “Wake up, silly mole! Slumber no more. See, what lies beyond your front door.” And I looked outside of a nearby window... and saw that many of the people walking about in the odd village were not in any way people, but the walking dead. “Is this how you see things?” I asked the girl, and she said to me: “It is how things really are.” And so I shuddered at the odd thought of those dead beings, posing as the living. The child threw her arms about me, and she begged me to protect her. She was not sobbing or crying, but rather insisting in a rather plaintive way.
I promised little Cecilia that I would do as she asked, and that I would never allow any of those living dead to get her. She smiled, but there was the hint of something else about her peculiar grin, which was troubling me just a little. I thought I glimpsed something hidden... a curious thought, perhaps... that she knew and thought better than to reveal to me in what was my unsteady state of mind. For unsteady was an understatement! It had been the year 2006 when all of this had begun, a modern year in an extremely modern world where science and rationality are understood to be an integral part of how we choose to look at the universe around us. But in that other reality, whatever science might have existed to explain these supernatural events seemed to be absent from this place that was at once both familiar and strange to me increasingly. I took it into my head to protect that child, at all costs. So I asked the mother if she could take us unto the safest place in the entire village, wherever that was. She then bade the child and I to follow her. It was upon the fifth hour of the afternoon by now, and night still very distant. Summer is yet a good time for escaping the dead. Better than the months of autumn, let me assure you! But even in such a season, fate can be cruel. We came to another cottage, but this other one was locked tight... and a maidservant informed us that the place was being repainted... so we could not enter. And that was when the mother, Suzanne, brought her daughter and I back up to the hill and there she laid out a blanket on the grass and strongly ordered both Cecelia and I to share it, and to remain seated thus, well until early morning. I then noticed... a cross was emblazoned upon the blanket. “Is this honestly the safest place... in the entire village?” I so asked Suzanne, who was now speaking with another woman who had just come to converse with her. “This is the only safe place.” Replied Suzanne. So I lay back, looking at the sky. All of a sudden... Cecelia had plopped herself atop me and her bright face was looking down on me like an angel. “Sibling... I... want to leave this village if you would take me far away from it. My mother cannot protect us both forever, and surely your home is a far safer place than my own is?” I did find this curious, for the child knew very much without knowing in any certain manner. She had a true gift for inner sight... reading my thoughts with a precision I was starting to find a bit unsettling. I went to speak and she kissed my left cheek. I went to speak again, and she kissed my right cheek. She reminded me of some playful puppy, and I realized! She had no father I saw... and not one sibling. I was like both to her, and I found myself thinking of her as my own child, the more I was around her. Perhaps that was what drove me to seek to protect her so... or perhaps something about us that was, kindred, on a deeper level. I will never know, now. All I knew in that hour, is that she made me laugh, and I loved her for that, at least... as I needed joy in my life. What had happened on this world? There were no police, no sort of authorities that I had seen so far. Just frightened villages living as if it was back in the Victorian period once again. For everything had a timelessness to it, and yet electricity and every modern convenience had been present there otherwise. Yet... there was no longer any internet, and televisions played only a pattern of static upon them. Cars were left to rust and rot... and, people rode horses and in carriages as drawn by horses instead. I did not ask why all of this was so, and I did not want to know how it was so.
Night, had fallen, and still the heat of the summer was hot upon the land... all the living dead were all gathering, in the dark woods near the village, and likely those woods I had been warned to stay clear of as well. Probably: off to feed upon some prey... without alerting the living. I could hear their screaming, moaning, and animal-like cries. It was as if this hill upon which we sat was perched between the living realm, and that of the restless, evil dead. Other children... were upon that hilltop as well, each kept safe upon some cross blanket like the one I and Cecelia sat upon. But not one adult was to be seen, save for myself. All had seemingly vanished, or gone indoors. That was when a horrible fear overtook me. “We, are going to be sacrificed! My gods, they are going to feed us to those living dead...” and at once I took Cecelia into my arms and ran down the hill, towards the old wall made of rough stone that surrounded the village. If we could reach an exit, perhaps we might escape and flee to another, better, community.
As we neared the stone wall, however, the dead swarmed around us. But, I spied a safe path and, with the girl still in my arms, pursued it hastily. Soon we came to a very large pile of old clothes, and we hid beneath it. The entire night, we thus remained hidden whilst outside... the fiends tore up some animals and from what I could discern fed upon them ravenously. No people could they find to thus gorge their appetites on! We would not have been sacrifices, after all, and I had led us into peril for nothing. At this point, I intended to grant Cecelia her wish, and take her back to my own home with me, away from this village of the dead, where she could be safest in my care forever. Dawn had arisen, and the dead went back among the living, to masquerade as living beings themselves. It was now time to leave, and I led Cecelia by the arm to the edge of the village. But, not sooner did we reach the road than the girl took ill. The farther we got away from the place, the worse she became, and by the time I got her to my home she was on death’s door. Whilst I cared for her... a thick mist built up beyond my house... like a living thing, with it’s own terrible will and power. Soon, I realized there was nothing as I could do... and I just held her. I held Cecelia in my arms, and I watched ever so helplessly as her life left her body. Her final words to me were: “I do love you, brother. Sister. Whatever you see yourself as. Thank you for freeing me from that awful place!” Her last act: was to kiss me, removing her version of the gift of sight from me. I had to bring her back to her mother. I had to carry her all that lonely way... to face my failure and Suzanne’s anger at my utter foolishness. I wept, ceaselessly. I kept kissing the dead child's face. Her left cheek: then her right. Then, I bid her farewell and I commended her into her grieving mother's arms. As that was done, I nearly passed out from shock. My final whisper, unto Cecelia, was: "I do love you, too, my daughter in spirit! And I always will." I was sick with nausea after that, and the world was spinning.
Suzanne told me that those within the village could not ever leave, because the place had the power to keep them there. Taking them away meant death. But there was one like me, she explained: a girl, just a little bit older than poor, lost Cecelia had been, who also had the occult gifts of second sight. “Take her, and leave! Neither of you should have to suffer... of our particular doom. We brought this upon our own selves, and only we need to pay for what we once did in the times of old.” Was the last I heard from the grief-stricken mother. She forgave me... and she said that I was far, far too brave to see the truth before. I agreed... and then went to the hill... where, a very small gathering of some rather happy children were playing. Ah they were playing! Just like any a normal bunch of kids, you might see... as if nothing had ever happened at all. Among their number was this girl with curly, reddish brown hair and green eyes that sparkled like flashing emeralds. She wore a child's version of a gypsy dress, some sandals, and had in her hair a green ribbon... and I so knew her to be the one that Suzanne spoke of, from the description she had given me before we parted ways. Her name was Holly... and, I called unto her: “Holly, you and I are going home. To my home... which will be yours forever after. What say you to that offer of mine?” and so Holly rushed madly into my arms, this reminding me much of Cecelia's manner. She said, wet tears in her eyes, that she had formerly been Cecelia's closest friend, and she asked me what became of her. I did tell her the truth; and we cried together, finding so much solace and comfort, in our shared sorrow. “We can just leave, right now, Holly...” I then explained, even through all my tears: “We do not have to... watch each other die... like I had to watch dear Cecelia.” And she asked me why Cecelia often called me “sibling”... and how it was Suzanne knew my name. I told her of the gifts of sight that it was revealed as they possessed, and that she too was said to possess. As to why the girl was always calling me “sibling”, I reasoned it was because she saw within me a kindred spirit. Why else, would she have shared her deepest perception with me... as she did? Holly then called me by name, and did say to me: “Let us depart this land of blood, and tears.” And, having never told her my name... I knew she, indeed, had that power of sight and was the one I sought. So, we left for the road to my distant house. I held her hand, and I began to cry at once. How familiar this was! Not unlike what happened with Cecilia before.
Holly then said to me, strongly: “I, am not going to die on you... father, if you do not mind me calling you such. So, please, do not weep any more! Find your strength in my sincere love for you, and so find your purpose in loving me as you loved Cecelia. It can overcome death itself!” On hearing this, I picked her up and I kissed her left cheek, then her right. I was happy and thought we had... won. But how may we have done so? That was never my true home, after all. Never the prime reality that I belonged a part of and was fated to one day return to. I could not have known how soon this was fated to come to pass. Upon the way home, little Holly and I noticed that the mists which I had seen earlier were still present, and growing a great deal thicker. By the time she and I were at my house, all outside was a gray world containing nothing but loudly howling winds. Then, a thought came to me, and I did ask Holly to kiss me in the same manner Cecelia had done; and no sooner had our lips met than the gift of second sight returned unto me once more. I peered out of the window, and saw that those mists were all alive, and reaching out for my house like hands. Suddenly, Cecelia was standing between Holly and I... where I could not see her before. She asked me how much I was willing to sacrifice... to keep Holly from the village... forever. For, it was revealed, the odd village wanted to keep her for it's own despite her being an outsider who had lived in that place... but had not been born to anyone there. “How, could you be here? I saw your life leave you!” I remarked. Holly then saw Cecelia's new ghost, and let out a shriek. “Brother mine... the mists are a gateway, unto many other realms! Some realms where the dead may so speak with the living as I speak to you now. Your sight makes the power much keener, and the gift is what is now calling the mists to this place where they belong not. So many with this gift, all drawn to you. But do tell me... oh my dearest brother, dear heart, what would you be willing to thus sacrifice... for Holly to be spared the full horror of my own fate?” And I confessed that I would give anything, even my very soul if that was what was required. Cecelia then said in an inhuman and deeply commanding voice: “So be it!” and, the mists did become almost a pearly solid white in color. Suddenly, they faded, becoming darker and darker, until soon they were gone away entirely. When I looked out the window once more, I saw... that we were not in the same place where we had been. We had shifted into still one other reality, one in which the dead did not roam quite so freely. But upon our arrival to that safer shore the little girl and I were not the same as we had once been before we... arrived. Although, perhaps, our love had gotten stronger, deeper, although in ways less innocent than it had previously been, as our time in the new world we had come to dwell in went on... much had changed, markedly. We had become like shadows of all that we were, though we were solid and living surely enough. But truly we were content! And I found that an odd notion, an eccentric and disturbing one as well. What had we been before, that this new existence, liberated from even the morals and ethics that once held us back... was preferable to all that we had both known before? Neither of us aged in all our time there, and one day I looked upon Holly and noticed how perfectly ageless she was, and yet how inhuman at the same time. She was still that same sweet little girl, with curly, reddish brown hair, and piercing green eyes as she walked out of her room one day after playing with her toys, very much dressed like a gypsy in her favorite dress that she liked to wear so often. She opened her mouth to smile, and every tooth in her mouth was sharpened like unto small fangs. What she had become had no name. The demonic child sat upon my lap, in every way a parody of a normal child of her age. She kissed me upon the left cheek, then upon the right, and said unto me in a bright and cheerful tone: “You still look so nice! Just like when we first met. Tell me a story before bedtime... you know so many, and all of them interesting to me.” and I began to tell her a bedtime story of the sort she preferred the most, of kings and princesses, dragons and castles, knights in shining armor and wizards who create works of marvelous magic and enchantment. It was a normal life but in a world inhabited by such as we became, one that was hedonistic, mad and yet artistic and filled with wonders at the same time. A world in which decadence and liberty were the best of friends, and in time that union had produced a kind of society wherein great otherworldly beauty came to dominate all.
Our new dwelling had been in a great city, where we lived in a palace that was shared by others who had crossed over into that reality from various other ones. Each apartment in the palace was given unto a newcomer where they and their family or significant other could live together and start a new life with no fear of homelessness or poverty. Those things had been abolished on that world during the 1960's, in which the counterculture movement succeeded in changing the government of the Unites States for the better. My mother would have taken a special delight in that... since she had been a hippie, back during the 60's of the prime reality. From what a calendar in our own apartment said, Holly and I noticed that as of the year of our arrival in this strange but beautiful new world it was the year 2167 A.D. Which as of this writing is very distant in the future. For as I sit here writing this account of these events, it is the year 2022, and sadly injustice and suffering are still all too much a part of life for many in this country. But on that day, as Holly and I looked out of the window we could see far beyond the city's skyline, vast sandy dunes and date palm trees. The city was a grand harbor with many ships moored at its’ docks, and it was a mighty metropolis of this new world with tall gleaming spires and lofty temples. It was, I now realized suddenly... the identical city that I had at first thought to be a great metropolis of a vastly more ancient time. That most peculiar dream I had of this very city was, I understood finally, a vision of this alternate future... not a glimpse of an age gone by in my own original world's history. This filled me to my core with shock! The woman with the short red hair and green eyes wearing the white tunic dress... she had been a premonition of Holly, whose face I noticed was identical to that woman's only younger by far. Holly's spirit had always seemed to be far too mature for her age, and now I knew how she truly saw herself. I was far from New England, where I had started... this looked like someplace in California but it was so altered, so changed with time that I would never have been able to identify the city and put a name to it. My suspicions were confirmed when I asked one of our neighbors what the city was called and they told me it was named Ashbury. This had once been San Francisco, renamed following all the great societal changes of the 60's in honor of the Haight-Ashbury district which had been perhaps one of the greatest centers of the hippie counterculture itself. “No rules, just love.” was a saying people in this new city said quite often, and I knew at once... that herein was a place where I could truly belong.
Holly was a study in contradictions, a beautiful enigma! While she bore the appearance of a child, she had become an adult in every way save in body, despite still enjoying playing with her toys and being as silly as she pleased. I delighted in her every act of silliness! It was akin to my own, and I did not need to disguise my own childlike, and sometimes childish, soul when around her... or anyone... in that parallel world. Many in the prime world would have called us mad! Yet in the prime world there are still wars, and violent crimes. While in that other world, there was only peace and love, universally. I learned that the reason neither of us aged was because we were in new bodies, parallel variants of our original forms that we had left behind. These bodies had their aging processes halted... and while they still looked like us, at our existing ages, they would never get older or perish. The seemingly “demonic” aspects of these bodies was due to DNA from a vampire-like alien race. No one in that other world would age or die, for only by violence or in accidents could someone still meet their end. And those were all growing a great deal rarer by the day. New children only rarely needed to be born, so most people were implanted with tiny chips to render them unable to make or to bear children. The chips could be removed, allowing for both of those things to take place, but the need for that was no longer truly urgent. It was like an artistic utopia, that city we came to call our home. Inevitably, however... one night after we had fallen asleep, I dreamed of strange deep mists, and when these had cleared I awoke in terror to notice that I was back in the prime reality once more, on this Earth where during the year 2006 I was still lonely... and filled with countless sorrows. The parallel variant of me, of that other world... was still happy in its' life there, but I was once more back in my original body and living my old life. I cried for hours missing my dear Holly.
One night of which I have thought often over the years, I had dreamed a highly strange and disturbing dream that will doubtless continue to haunt me with its’ enigma for all of time. And yet, I know answers to its' riddle that are dark indeed! There are many, of a purely philosophical bent, who would postulate that dreams are sometimes far more than just the fancies of one's slumbering mind. The strangeness of what had unfolded to me both in dream and in all of my life (such as it became) so following that dream seems only to confirm that very notion for me. The dream that I do speak of, began with a very definite sensation of leaving my body behind and traveling back in time for many countless centuries. The next thing I knew, I was walking down a long misty corridor that was lined with glass walls on both sides of it. The glass was cold, and it was fogging over, and through all of the panes of the glass I could see deep snow upon all the ground of the dense forest lands that lay beyond those otherwise unremarkable walls. I could see what appeared to be the faint gray shades of once-living human beings... passing through the foggy walls of that ethereal corridor... and I could hear them lowly muttering things that to me had little bearing on anything familiar to my life and all my experiences. A great gathering of these ghosts passed along the corridor behind me, and I had felt the need to rush along... and stay at least one step ahead of that throng. Eventually, the ghosts seemed to fade into nothingness like unto smoke that dissipates. The corridor opened to the right and I walked through an archway and down several steps carved into what was apparently a stone floor. The archway was carved from solid rock, and I was now in a deep cavern that suddenly opened up and led out unto a sprawling coastal region surrounded by great high, craggy cliffs of jagged rock. I could see sandy dunes and date palm trees, and I could make out a great city in the far distance. The city was a grand harbor with many ships moored at its’ docks, and it was a mighty metropolis of the ancient world with tall gleaming spires and lofty temples. A nearby sign on a piece of leather stretched across a wooden board nailed unto post set into the ground welcomed me to the place, but the language was utterly unfamiliar to me and I could not read it with any skill. I know only that the name of the city began with the Greek letter “A”, or Alpha. The sign was at the distant beginning of the outlying lands of the city and its’ suburbs, outside the walls of the city proper, and these lands were full of primitive stone huts with thatched roofs. As I made my way towards the distant spires, a woman rode past me upon a great gray stallion with a bright golden saddle. The woman wore a white tunic-like dress belted at the waist with a buckled leather belt. She held a great barbed spear in her hands and uttered a loud battle cry as her steed galloped along upon its’ own way. That battle cry was strange and guttural, almost like the growl of a wild animal and not a human being at all. Her face was pleasant and I would even say childlike. Suddenly, she stopped the horse and got down off of it to come over and speak with me. Though she spoke no language native to me, I knew in my mind that she was saying unto me: “Are you going to the city, stranger? I too am bound there. Allow me thus to accompany you, and to guard you against any harm. There are many in these parts of the world that would injure an outsider, and you have a dark look in your eyes. An evil look, perhaps, as some would say… although to me your eyes are no different than any other man’s or woman's.” The woman had very short red hair and green eyes. She seemed to hail from far away, and I agreed to let her travel with me, desiring such fair company greatly in my loneliness. As we neared the city, I felt strange and it seemed that this glimpse into another time was fading away into mists. I could recall the strange reddish color of the woman’s hair, and how it was deeply red like unto blood… and not a natural shade at all. I allowed this thought to pass as I embraced the mists and allowed them to embrace me utterly. But fate entwines all souls, and in ways we cannot at first fathom. Within the mists I saw countless half-imagined glimpses of the past, the present, and the future. Every future that could possibly be, and every past that ever was. It was too faint and indistinct to be maddening to the senses, though. And so I allowed this to pass over me, through me, and beyond me. I would be stronger than all, for I had something to learn from this experience. Something perfect!
When the mists parted, I was within the deep cavern once more though clearly in another section of it. This particular section was even colder than the other one had been though. Behind me was the familiar throng of gray ghosts, but this time they were not ethereal specters but flesh and blood, as they looked in life. Gray and transparent no longer! They seemed happy and content, but also fearful of the place for which they were bound. I let them lead me onward, and we passed a series of peculiar panels mounted on the cavern’s walls. In each of them, I could see scenes from my life playing out before me. The good memories, and also all of the most terrible ones! As I traveled along, I beheld my entire life playing out before my startled eyes. Then I saw more and more such panels, playing out scenes from all of my past lives, stretching out into infinity, as it seemed. Eventually, those panels were gone and the ghosts and I arrived at a great mountain formed of golden sand and rock that rose up out of the cavern and into very stars that appear in the night sky. We climbed up steps that were carved deeply into the dried sand and rock, and great torrential winds swept a number of the ghosts out into the black void mercilessly. They screamed as they were hurled head over heels into eternity, and I bowed my head before the gale that tore at some but blew very gently for others. For me, it seemed to pass and soon there was no wind at all. I hurried up the great steps, and soon I arrived at the summit of the golden stairway. Seated upon the top of this entire mountain, upon a massive throne of icy cold gray stone, was a being that I thought at first had to be God, or something just as majestic. I beheld a beautiful but utterly alien entity that was flesh and blood but also of the more spiritual realm. It was a woman, or at least it was female in nature though gigantic in stature. She had ten great white wings that spread out from her back across the starry expanse beyond. Her flesh was grayish blue, and had black veins all through it that were visible on the surface of her skin. Her eyes were solid white, but sometimes seemed more a metallic silver. She wore black robes trimmed with gold, and wore a winged crown upon her head. I realized soon, that the wings were part of her head, and not actually part of the crown at all! The blackness of those robes she wore held shimmering starlight within its’ very fabric, and I knew that this being was as wholly one with the universe. She smiled serenely and spoke to me, saying: “What is wrong, oh my firstborn child… do you not recognize your original mother?” And one of the ghosts behind me yelled out to me: “The Goddess of the Universe is your mother? How very blessed are you!” Suddenly, the spirit of the woman who had traveled with me to the city in that other time and place was standing closely at my side. She exclaimed: “Behold the female aspect of God... made tangible, for living beings to thus attempt to understand. You are witnessing one small glimmer of Her greater glory. She is Light and Darkness in perfect harmony.” I was staring into the Goddess’s face, when the whole scene began to change into another, entirely. Her power was drawing me away, somewhere, for some purpose. I awoke from my dream both enlightened and uncertain as to why God would choose to reveal such a great and terrible glimpse of eternity to me. I could not realize then, that it was a gift, a prelude to other gifts… more terrible gifts… that were about to be bestowed unto me. If only the nightmare that my life became next had been only a dream! If only God… or the Goddess… had warned me of what was to come. Could I have stopped the tragedies that befell me over the years? I will never know. I have contemplated this often in the years since then, but now I choose not to ponder it at all if it could be helped. I must relate all of this though, so that you may understand all. The spirit of the woman with the blood red hair wanted me to meet the Goddess… the woman, the girl, with the blood red hair. Who was she? I was too frightened to find out, and yet I knew that somehow our fates were entwined. Upon the following day I decided to talk a long walk through the woods at the local park near where I lived at the time. Now, that seems to be a lifetime ago, but it is nothing in the grander scheme of time itself! There was something there, something in the park that was waiting for me... as I passed through the darkest places in its' deep forests. I had a feeling of being just outside of the normal flow of time, and through that crack in time and space I was drawn into a strange and surreal experience that was both familiar and strange unto me. I had experienced this long before!
In the blackest depths of the ancient woods of yore, where ancient Pagan powers reign, I so walked in shadowy paths and ranged nigh even unto the distant crags of the most lofty Carpathian mountain range itself. I found a place there that no human being has likely ever beheld, a cavern that led to an old mine shaft that was long abandoned back in the days when Rome was still the most dominant power in all of the world that was known to explorers and scholars in their time. That lost mine led me into a kingdom beneath the ground, where there existed unto that fated hour a community of creatures not unlike what I have over time myself become, only while my transformation was subtle and spiritual in nature... theirs was overt, physical, and obvious to all who looked upon their features. There were among their number, certain sages of a sort who are so incredibly ancient, although ageless, that man of old once called them gods and goddesses of the underworld. Whilst I still yet possess a certain degree of my old conscience, further made brighter by a certain childlike sense that has ever been a part of me... those old sages have given wholly into an exceedingly evil nature that grants them tremendous power… as well as pleasure and pain so blended that I cannot reason where the joy ends and the suffering begins. I could not bring myself to learn from them, for there is too much apathy in what they teach for me to find anything in it that sings to me. I am, by nature, a passionate person and apathy is ill-suited to a hedonist such as I am.
The ancient sages worshiped a horned god not unlike the Horned God that is revered by many modern witches today, and that fact prompted me to learn all I could about their own particular deity. The sages brought me unto a limestone archway covered by golden runes and blockaded by a wall of sharp thorns. Reaching out to touch it, I cut myself and drew back… for those thorns were like unto razor blades. My blood had an odd reaction on the thorn that had spilled it, causing the wall of thorns itself to wither, die, and crumble to naught… thus opening the path to what lay beyond. The walls of the tunnels that I shall now tell you of were covered in a thin layer of ice. The ground was warm, however, and covered in the water born of what ice had been melting in that hidden domain. Holes in the ground at various intervals kept these passageways from ever flooding, but the source of the ice was not nearly so apparent. Every so many feet, there were recesses in the walls where it appeared that people were trapped, frozen by the ice that held them as if they still lived… seemingly in a state of suspended time. If they so were dead or slumbering, I could not know. If they dreamed, their nightmares must have been terrible! I was told that these all were the most remote ancestors of the residents of the secret underground domain, from a time before the ancient flood that washed over the world entire. Just past these icy sentinels, the passage we took opened up into a circular chamber wherein at last the frightful source of all that ice was revealed.
I beheld a being of pure cold, an ice queen out of old fairy tales… but nothing at all like such carefree tales depict. She was beautiful, outwardly, but her features were sharper than any human being’s could possibly be… her teeth were long and fanged, so that she could scarcely close her mouth without them showing. Her skin was a pale blue, and her eyes were like twin rubies. Her hair was white as snow, and her gown was diaphanous and as transparent as crystal… though not a hint of her body’s charms could be seen through the fabric, for it sparkled and shimmered in such a way as to obscure what lay beneath its’ folds. She was literally chained to stone posts set into a raised dais in the center of the room, and her screams were horrific. They caused more and more ice to form, which was continuously kept in check by natural volcanic vents that ran the outer circumferences of that chamber itself. Steam rose up at all those points, and the whole scene itself had the quality of a vision, more than reality. What I noticed the most, however, was the pair of curved ram-like horns that rose up from the sides of the top of her head! She was the horned deity the people of this realm worshiped, and she had no name. I walked over to her and regarded her shackles, which rusted and fell apart when I touched them… as if they waited for me alone to undo their spell. How much of this... was by my power, or by her will, it may never be known.
I remember the ice demon queen kissing me, grabbing at me with sharp claws that tore and did rend, before her slaughter of all those people who had held her captive began. Her kiss was filled with blood, and so was the whole of that underground before I grew disgusted with all of this and departed back to my home again! Yet not before I had witnessed things that would drive some into insanity. My fleeting memories of the horror that the she-demon perpetrated in that moment still disturb my mind and plague my heart with the sheer brutality of it. One man... if man is the right word, for those who dwelt in that place, had his face cut away by her sharp claws. With all of the precision of an artist, she cut the skin… slowly at first, but with greater and greater force as she worked… from along the exposed jaw, all the way around, until the entire face was bleeding profusely from these ghastly wounds that were now all one wound. With a sickening spurting sound, and something akin to tearing, the monster tore his face away from the meat and bone beneath. Leaving him to bleed to death in agony as she took her trophy and attempted to wear it for a mask. Deciding the fit was not exact enough to suit her, the fiend went on to do the same to all of the others… and worse things still that I could mention, but shall not. I speak of all these details to attempt to convey the true savage horror of that supernatural encounter, and why it was I fled there so swiftly. Who was I in that life, in that time? I learned not any answer, to that query. Following that, I was back in the present once again but it was not in the same world that I had left. In my haste to flee that memory from the past, whatever its' source, I had inadvertently ended up in some alternate version of the world I had left, of this prime reality we all dwell in. I made my way home, but all was not precisely as I had left it. Everything had a subtle difference to it, a peculiar variation on the more familiar things that I had once known. I knew those woods a the park contained odd properties of a magical nature, but on this occasion not anything I had previously imagined, could have prepared me.
Beyond my house, there was this place thickly wooded... right near the old cemetery but one street up. That cemetery was now a lot larger than it used to be! People had always said to me that this cemetery was haunted... and, that one time, in every year the dead would rise up from their graves to walk again. I heard this silly sounding tale first spoken by other children back when I was still in high school, and I hastily disbelieved them, at at least at first. Now... as I recall all of these memories in much more recent years... I remember well, what transpired to alter my erring opinions on that singular matter. I just wish, that I could have changed, many of the tragic events that arose from this lack of knowing. But... I shall not get ahead of myself here. I remember how impatient I felt, at that time... I wanted to escape and get back to the world I remembered at all costs. It was a perhaps dark sort of impatience! Yet my life back home in those years had not been a happy one, for I was lonely beyond any proper words to so properly describe. Discontent, with my life as an artist and a poet, I had lost myself in my studies of the magical arts... of metaphysics, and of the study of dreams. I was, and still am, a romantic! Some would say of the hopeless variety, and yet I had hope that I could change the course of my life, perhaps for the better. In the alternate reality, it was the summertime. A brutally hot one, at that! I did not desire to go near to the cemetery, however, and so instead I walked on towards the woods that lay past the bounds of it. But on this day, a woman and her child warned me against going into the forests. They called me by my full name, which I had found passing strange, for I knew them not. “Come, my friend! Both I, and my child, know you well. Walk with us... and we shall take you to a much safer place to be... something wicked is to swiftly transpire in those woods, and you do not wish to be a part of it in the least. Please, listen to me! I am not in the habit of lying to people I care about.” and so I heeded the strange woman’s advice, and allowed her to lead me toward a small village, nearby. On the way, I recall the child calling me her “sibling”, and I found her turn of phrase to be strange. I had no sister, although I always truly longed for one. Perhaps I am a tad eccentric after all, as some claim of me? But no matter... for it was not to be. At least not in this child's sad case. I do not know why things in that world were fate for so dark a destiny!
At any rate, the odd woman and child brought me toward their village, and in the center of it's quaint cluster of quiet cottages, with their high peaked roofs and their wood-paneled walls, there lay a grassy hill, high enough to reach the second story of many of these homes. In a truly peculiar turn of events, I was instructed to seat myself upon the hill and wait thus with the child whilst the mother went off to get her home ready... to receive me as a guest. And whilst I sat there, I looked at the girl and thus saw her as though for the first time. She was like any other girl you might find in any other such village... she was pale blonde of hair, bright blue of eye, and wearing in a pretty white dress with a pink band to adorn her long curly locks. She wore pink ballerina style shoes and white lacy stockings upon her legs. She spoke in a bubbly voice, very cheerful and full of life. “Do not worry, sibling!” Said she... in her rather strange yet bright manner... once again. “Soon, we will both be safe from harm.” and so I was filled with dread, as I contemplated just what it was that might imperil us, demanding our sudden safety. And so it was, at length... the mother returned and told the girl and I to follow her to their small cottage... which: we did. After a rather pleasant meal... the woman did again call me by name, and therefore ushered me into her daughter's chambers where the girl was happily playing with some of her toys. I was instructed to keep the child pleasantly occupied... and to keep occupied myself, until the next day. “But, do not leave this house before dawn, no matter what you hear occurring without, lest I lose my child... and you... to the horrible catastrophe that occurs each year.” And so... I was left, to ponder all this. I was told by the girl: that, long ago, a great number of the villagers went into the woods to look for water during when water was scarce one year, and so that afflicted the land, in a past age. The villagers found some water, but it was poisoned and all who drank it died and were afterwards buried in the cemetery, which had to be so expanded in order to allow for their burials. But an evil legend held that once a year, on the day of their deaths, they do return to visit their loved ones, and even their descendants, for one single week. During that week, it is said they walk among the living by day, and haunt the woods as zombies... every night. Children and visitors, are kept safe, but sometimes meet with death anyway... when some of the dead become too angry, to appease. I, of course, did not believe a word of this story, and thought the girl just a bit morbid, for having imagined this. I lived not so very far away, after all, and I had never even heard this tale... nor heard of any such terrible events. For that matter, this village had not existed in the prime reality I had come from... the outer sports fields of the park and the streets just past it were there, but all of this was vastly different on that parallel world. I was fearful, to learn of any further such differences.
Since we would be together all night, I asked that little girl to tell me her name. She so told me it was Cecelia... and that her mother's name was Suzanne. I remarked, that her name was a very pretty one, for an equally pretty little child. She had blushed, which I indeed fully expected that she would. She then did stand up from the floor, arranging her skirts with care, and sat down upon her bed. She looked deep into my eyes, and said to me in a serious, adult manner: “The people who live in this land... they are a lot like tiny moles, hiding in the dirt. I wish that I could just yell to the moles to all wake up and so they would. Let me wake you up, my dear sibling!” and, she suddenly leapt upon me, planting a savage kiss upon my lips which left me wondering if she had gone quite mad. “Child... I am old enough to be your father or mother... a good thirty two years of life have I seen! This behavior... it is not proper.” But then, I realized her true intent, for my eyes became sharper, and able to see things in a clarity that I can only describe as supernatural. She giggled cheerily... and sang: “Wake up, silly mole! Slumber no more. See, what lies beyond your front door.” And I looked outside of a nearby window... and saw that many of the people walking about in the odd village were not in any way people, but the walking dead. “Is this how you see things?” I asked the girl, and she said to me: “It is how things really are.” And so I shuddered at the odd thought of those dead beings, posing as the living. The child threw her arms about me, and she begged me to protect her. She was not sobbing or crying, but rather insisting in a rather plaintive way.
I promised little Cecilia that I would do as she asked, and that I would never allow any of those living dead to get her. She smiled, but there was the hint of something else about her peculiar grin, which was troubling me just a little. I thought I glimpsed something hidden... a curious thought, perhaps... that she knew and thought better than to reveal to me in what was my unsteady state of mind. For unsteady was an understatement! It had been the year 2006 when all of this had begun, a modern year in an extremely modern world where science and rationality are understood to be an integral part of how we choose to look at the universe around us. But in that other reality, whatever science might have existed to explain these supernatural events seemed to be absent from this place that was at once both familiar and strange to me increasingly. I took it into my head to protect that child, at all costs. So I asked the mother if she could take us unto the safest place in the entire village, wherever that was. She then bade the child and I to follow her. It was upon the fifth hour of the afternoon by now, and night still very distant. Summer is yet a good time for escaping the dead. Better than the months of autumn, let me assure you! But even in such a season, fate can be cruel. We came to another cottage, but this other one was locked tight... and a maidservant informed us that the place was being repainted... so we could not enter. And that was when the mother, Suzanne, brought her daughter and I back up to the hill and there she laid out a blanket on the grass and strongly ordered both Cecelia and I to share it, and to remain seated thus, well until early morning. I then noticed... a cross was emblazoned upon the blanket. “Is this honestly the safest place... in the entire village?” I so asked Suzanne, who was now speaking with another woman who had just come to converse with her. “This is the only safe place.” Replied Suzanne. So I lay back, looking at the sky. All of a sudden... Cecelia had plopped herself atop me and her bright face was looking down on me like an angel. “Sibling... I... want to leave this village if you would take me far away from it. My mother cannot protect us both forever, and surely your home is a far safer place than my own is?” I did find this curious, for the child knew very much without knowing in any certain manner. She had a true gift for inner sight... reading my thoughts with a precision I was starting to find a bit unsettling. I went to speak and she kissed my left cheek. I went to speak again, and she kissed my right cheek. She reminded me of some playful puppy, and I realized! She had no father I saw... and not one sibling. I was like both to her, and I found myself thinking of her as my own child, the more I was around her. Perhaps that was what drove me to seek to protect her so... or perhaps something about us that was, kindred, on a deeper level. I will never know, now. All I knew in that hour, is that she made me laugh, and I loved her for that, at least... as I needed joy in my life. What had happened on this world? There were no police, no sort of authorities that I had seen so far. Just frightened villages living as if it was back in the Victorian period once again. For everything had a timelessness to it, and yet electricity and every modern convenience had been present there otherwise. Yet... there was no longer any internet, and televisions played only a pattern of static upon them. Cars were left to rust and rot... and, people rode horses and in carriages as drawn by horses instead. I did not ask why all of this was so, and I did not want to know how it was so.
Night, had fallen, and still the heat of the summer was hot upon the land... all the living dead were all gathering, in the dark woods near the village, and likely those woods I had been warned to stay clear of as well. Probably: off to feed upon some prey... without alerting the living. I could hear their screaming, moaning, and animal-like cries. It was as if this hill upon which we sat was perched between the living realm, and that of the restless, evil dead. Other children... were upon that hilltop as well, each kept safe upon some cross blanket like the one I and Cecelia sat upon. But not one adult was to be seen, save for myself. All had seemingly vanished, or gone indoors. That was when a horrible fear overtook me. “We, are going to be sacrificed! My gods, they are going to feed us to those living dead...” and at once I took Cecelia into my arms and ran down the hill, towards the old wall made of rough stone that surrounded the village. If we could reach an exit, perhaps we might escape and flee to another, better, community.
As we neared the stone wall, however, the dead swarmed around us. But, I spied a safe path and, with the girl still in my arms, pursued it hastily. Soon we came to a very large pile of old clothes, and we hid beneath it. The entire night, we thus remained hidden whilst outside... the fiends tore up some animals and from what I could discern fed upon them ravenously. No people could they find to thus gorge their appetites on! We would not have been sacrifices, after all, and I had led us into peril for nothing. At this point, I intended to grant Cecelia her wish, and take her back to my own home with me, away from this village of the dead, where she could be safest in my care forever. Dawn had arisen, and the dead went back among the living, to masquerade as living beings themselves. It was now time to leave, and I led Cecelia by the arm to the edge of the village. But, not sooner did we reach the road than the girl took ill. The farther we got away from the place, the worse she became, and by the time I got her to my home she was on death’s door. Whilst I cared for her... a thick mist built up beyond my house... like a living thing, with it’s own terrible will and power. Soon, I realized there was nothing as I could do... and I just held her. I held Cecelia in my arms, and I watched ever so helplessly as her life left her body. Her final words to me were: “I do love you, brother. Sister. Whatever you see yourself as. Thank you for freeing me from that awful place!” Her last act: was to kiss me, removing her version of the gift of sight from me. I had to bring her back to her mother. I had to carry her all that lonely way... to face my failure and Suzanne’s anger at my utter foolishness. I wept, ceaselessly. I kept kissing the dead child's face. Her left cheek: then her right. Then, I bid her farewell and I commended her into her grieving mother's arms. As that was done, I nearly passed out from shock. My final whisper, unto Cecelia, was: "I do love you, too, my daughter in spirit! And I always will." I was sick with nausea after that, and the world was spinning.
Suzanne told me that those within the village could not ever leave, because the place had the power to keep them there. Taking them away meant death. But there was one like me, she explained: a girl, just a little bit older than poor, lost Cecelia had been, who also had the occult gifts of second sight. “Take her, and leave! Neither of you should have to suffer... of our particular doom. We brought this upon our own selves, and only we need to pay for what we once did in the times of old.” Was the last I heard from the grief-stricken mother. She forgave me... and she said that I was far, far too brave to see the truth before. I agreed... and then went to the hill... where, a very small gathering of some rather happy children were playing. Ah they were playing! Just like any a normal bunch of kids, you might see... as if nothing had ever happened at all. Among their number was this girl with curly, reddish brown hair and green eyes that sparkled like flashing emeralds. She wore a child's version of a gypsy dress, some sandals, and had in her hair a green ribbon... and I so knew her to be the one that Suzanne spoke of, from the description she had given me before we parted ways. Her name was Holly... and, I called unto her: “Holly, you and I are going home. To my home... which will be yours forever after. What say you to that offer of mine?” and so Holly rushed madly into my arms, this reminding me much of Cecelia's manner. She said, wet tears in her eyes, that she had formerly been Cecelia's closest friend, and she asked me what became of her. I did tell her the truth; and we cried together, finding so much solace and comfort, in our shared sorrow. “We can just leave, right now, Holly...” I then explained, even through all my tears: “We do not have to... watch each other die... like I had to watch dear Cecelia.” And she asked me why Cecelia often called me “sibling”... and how it was Suzanne knew my name. I told her of the gifts of sight that it was revealed as they possessed, and that she too was said to possess. As to why the girl was always calling me “sibling”, I reasoned it was because she saw within me a kindred spirit. Why else, would she have shared her deepest perception with me... as she did? Holly then called me by name, and did say to me: “Let us depart this land of blood, and tears.” And, having never told her my name... I knew she, indeed, had that power of sight and was the one I sought. So, we left for the road to my distant house. I held her hand, and I began to cry at once. How familiar this was! Not unlike what happened with Cecilia before.
Holly then said to me, strongly: “I, am not going to die on you... father, if you do not mind me calling you such. So, please, do not weep any more! Find your strength in my sincere love for you, and so find your purpose in loving me as you loved Cecelia. It can overcome death itself!” On hearing this, I picked her up and I kissed her left cheek, then her right. I was happy and thought we had... won. But how may we have done so? That was never my true home, after all. Never the prime reality that I belonged a part of and was fated to one day return to. I could not have known how soon this was fated to come to pass. Upon the way home, little Holly and I noticed that the mists which I had seen earlier were still present, and growing a great deal thicker. By the time she and I were at my house, all outside was a gray world containing nothing but loudly howling winds. Then, a thought came to me, and I did ask Holly to kiss me in the same manner Cecelia had done; and no sooner had our lips met than the gift of second sight returned unto me once more. I peered out of the window, and saw that those mists were all alive, and reaching out for my house like hands. Suddenly, Cecelia was standing between Holly and I... where I could not see her before. She asked me how much I was willing to sacrifice... to keep Holly from the village... forever. For, it was revealed, the odd village wanted to keep her for it's own despite her being an outsider who had lived in that place... but had not been born to anyone there. “How, could you be here? I saw your life leave you!” I remarked. Holly then saw Cecelia's new ghost, and let out a shriek. “Brother mine... the mists are a gateway, unto many other realms! Some realms where the dead may so speak with the living as I speak to you now. Your sight makes the power much keener, and the gift is what is now calling the mists to this place where they belong not. So many with this gift, all drawn to you. But do tell me... oh my dearest brother, dear heart, what would you be willing to thus sacrifice... for Holly to be spared the full horror of my own fate?” And I confessed that I would give anything, even my very soul if that was what was required. Cecelia then said in an inhuman and deeply commanding voice: “So be it!” and, the mists did become almost a pearly solid white in color. Suddenly, they faded, becoming darker and darker, until soon they were gone away entirely. When I looked out the window once more, I saw... that we were not in the same place where we had been. We had shifted into still one other reality, one in which the dead did not roam quite so freely. But upon our arrival to that safer shore the little girl and I were not the same as we had once been before we... arrived. Although, perhaps, our love had gotten stronger, deeper, although in ways less innocent than it had previously been, as our time in the new world we had come to dwell in went on... much had changed, markedly. We had become like shadows of all that we were, though we were solid and living surely enough. But truly we were content! And I found that an odd notion, an eccentric and disturbing one as well. What had we been before, that this new existence, liberated from even the morals and ethics that once held us back... was preferable to all that we had both known before? Neither of us aged in all our time there, and one day I looked upon Holly and noticed how perfectly ageless she was, and yet how inhuman at the same time. She was still that same sweet little girl, with curly, reddish brown hair, and piercing green eyes as she walked out of her room one day after playing with her toys, very much dressed like a gypsy in her favorite dress that she liked to wear so often. She opened her mouth to smile, and every tooth in her mouth was sharpened like unto small fangs. What she had become had no name. The demonic child sat upon my lap, in every way a parody of a normal child of her age. She kissed me upon the left cheek, then upon the right, and said unto me in a bright and cheerful tone: “You still look so nice! Just like when we first met. Tell me a story before bedtime... you know so many, and all of them interesting to me.” and I began to tell her a bedtime story of the sort she preferred the most, of kings and princesses, dragons and castles, knights in shining armor and wizards who create works of marvelous magic and enchantment. It was a normal life but in a world inhabited by such as we became, one that was hedonistic, mad and yet artistic and filled with wonders at the same time. A world in which decadence and liberty were the best of friends, and in time that union had produced a kind of society wherein great otherworldly beauty came to dominate all.
Our new dwelling had been in a great city, where we lived in a palace that was shared by others who had crossed over into that reality from various other ones. Each apartment in the palace was given unto a newcomer where they and their family or significant other could live together and start a new life with no fear of homelessness or poverty. Those things had been abolished on that world during the 1960's, in which the counterculture movement succeeded in changing the government of the Unites States for the better. My mother would have taken a special delight in that... since she had been a hippie, back during the 60's of the prime reality. From what a calendar in our own apartment said, Holly and I noticed that as of the year of our arrival in this strange but beautiful new world it was the year 2167 A.D. Which as of this writing is very distant in the future. For as I sit here writing this account of these events, it is the year 2022, and sadly injustice and suffering are still all too much a part of life for many in this country. But on that day, as Holly and I looked out of the window we could see far beyond the city's skyline, vast sandy dunes and date palm trees. The city was a grand harbor with many ships moored at its’ docks, and it was a mighty metropolis of this new world with tall gleaming spires and lofty temples. It was, I now realized suddenly... the identical city that I had at first thought to be a great metropolis of a vastly more ancient time. That most peculiar dream I had of this very city was, I understood finally, a vision of this alternate future... not a glimpse of an age gone by in my own original world's history. This filled me to my core with shock! The woman with the short red hair and green eyes wearing the white tunic dress... she had been a premonition of Holly, whose face I noticed was identical to that woman's only younger by far. Holly's spirit had always seemed to be far too mature for her age, and now I knew how she truly saw herself. I was far from New England, where I had started... this looked like someplace in California but it was so altered, so changed with time that I would never have been able to identify the city and put a name to it. My suspicions were confirmed when I asked one of our neighbors what the city was called and they told me it was named Ashbury. This had once been San Francisco, renamed following all the great societal changes of the 60's in honor of the Haight-Ashbury district which had been perhaps one of the greatest centers of the hippie counterculture itself. “No rules, just love.” was a saying people in this new city said quite often, and I knew at once... that herein was a place where I could truly belong.
Holly was a study in contradictions, a beautiful enigma! While she bore the appearance of a child, she had become an adult in every way save in body, despite still enjoying playing with her toys and being as silly as she pleased. I delighted in her every act of silliness! It was akin to my own, and I did not need to disguise my own childlike, and sometimes childish, soul when around her... or anyone... in that parallel world. Many in the prime world would have called us mad! Yet in the prime world there are still wars, and violent crimes. While in that other world, there was only peace and love, universally. I learned that the reason neither of us aged was because we were in new bodies, parallel variants of our original forms that we had left behind. These bodies had their aging processes halted... and while they still looked like us, at our existing ages, they would never get older or perish. The seemingly “demonic” aspects of these bodies was due to DNA from a vampire-like alien race. No one in that other world would age or die, for only by violence or in accidents could someone still meet their end. And those were all growing a great deal rarer by the day. New children only rarely needed to be born, so most people were implanted with tiny chips to render them unable to make or to bear children. The chips could be removed, allowing for both of those things to take place, but the need for that was no longer truly urgent. It was like an artistic utopia, that city we came to call our home. Inevitably, however... one night after we had fallen asleep, I dreamed of strange deep mists, and when these had cleared I awoke in terror to notice that I was back in the prime reality once more, on this Earth where during the year 2006 I was still lonely... and filled with countless sorrows. The parallel variant of me, of that other world... was still happy in its' life there, but I was once more back in my original body and living my old life. I cried for hours missing my dear Holly.
Published 7th Jun 2022
Author's Note
This is the true story of a supernatural event that happened to me during the summer of the year 2006.
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
likes 1
reading list entries 0
comments 2
reads 361
Commenting Preference:
The author encourages honest critique.
8th Jun 2022 3:32am
Ok, I know this going to sound loco and all, but I've seen zombies too! I really have. Though I do like wine in moderation, I had none on the night I am talking of either. I also never took drugs or smoked in my life, so I wasn't hallucinating at all. But there is this one old cemetery in Santiago, it was called the General Cemetery. I know it don't sound fancy, but the place is big and like the cemeteries you see in New Orleans. Lots of old crypts and tombs there. One night, I saw people walking around. It wasn't like a Halloween kind of thing either, it was... they were dead, they smelled like decay even and had bloody, open wounds in places. I was there with a couple of lady friends, business associates to do with my father's line of work we helped him out with back then. Anyway, we saw the dead people walking slow towards us, turned around and screamed and when we looked back, they were gone like poof! Into the thin air, as they say. So, I do believe this account of yours truly! I, seen too many weird things not to believe in, and I been to other realities too. So, I know they exist! Time has no meaning there sometimes, so yeah you probably did see some alternate future. Government likes to mess around with DNA a lot, I hear, so mixing alien DNA like you wrote about in this account, it could happen and maybe even has, and they just quiet about it. Maybe not vampire aliens so much, but you never know what else! I always loved alien stories and supernatural ones too, so this work being true also is pleasure for me to read. Love it!
8th Jun 2022 3:58am
That does not sound crazy at all! I believe in all that and more, so when you tell me you and your friends encountered those creatures in that old cemetery, I know you speak the truth. In all the years I have known you, you always told only the truth, and I adore you for that (and a lot else besides, too, of course). Yeah, the government does indeed mess with DNA a lot, from all I have learned over the years about that kind of thing. If it happened in a parallel future, then in all likelihood there is an equivalent thing that is happening or will happen here, only not perhaps in the same way as there. That is the nature of the multiverse we live in! One thing happens, and it sends ripples across all creation, so that something similar yet also different occurs in every single individual universe and in every reality. A lot of people might not comprehend that, but I know you totally grasp metaphysics like I do, so we can talk about such things and understand each other totally. I am glad you loved this work of mine, dear one! And glad I met you on here, too. *Kisses Camilla*
