A cold ground and thunder rumbling outside. All darkness at first and no memory of how I’d gotten here. Chilly air and damp.

I called out into the darkness but got no response. I saw what looked to be an old Zippo lighter by my side. I used it to faintly illuminate the room.

I am in prison, but the cell door is wide open.

They say sometimes we have dreams like this, though they could be better called nightmares. Perhaps they are nightmares embedded within nightmares in the subconscious, sleeping world. I have no memory of my life; everything is a blank slate, pale and grayish. The only images playing in my mind are of shadowy figures like ghosts. Though I see no one in this prison, I hear echoes of voices. They’re whispers, so I follow them. They say, “You deserve this,” and “The time is now for your punishment.”

The prison is expansive, set up like a labyrinth. I walk through the corridors and rows of cells, lost. It feels as though I’m wandering in circles. I follow the echoes of the voices. “Come closer,” they whisper. The thunder continues to rumble outside, and brief flashes of lightning that illuminate the prison’s interior. The whispers turn to deeper voices like growling. Then, the barking of dogs, loud, deep barks from vicious chained-up dogs. I can tell they’re chained up because I hear the chains rattle in the nighttime air.

No moon in the sky outside through the windows. My eyes adjust to the darkness so I can see better, but there’s not much to see. Despite the sounds, there still appears to be no one here.

My stomach twists with anxiety. Goosebumps on my arms. The clanging of steel now sounds in the distance. Memories are coming back, not like a flood of them, but little pieces here and there. Memories of a physical struggle, of looking down into the ashen face of a pale man on the concrete. His eyes are the purest light blue, and his smile is devious. He says, “Kill me, you bastard.” Memories of me holding a handgun and the steel’s coldness in my hands.

But it’s all mixed up. The man is on the ground, and his face has changed. The skin is green now, and the tongue is reptilian. The eyes are a deep yellow, and the teeth are sharp like fangs. There’s a crowd encircled around us, watching, cheering. There’s my mother crying, my dead father sleeping and levitating.

I am still walking the prison corridors, listening to noises. When I hit a dead end, the walls start closing in. Just when it appears as if there’s nowhere to go, a heavy door opens and hits me with a blinding red light.

Standing there behind the door is GOD.

But it is now how I imagined GOD would look.

He is a black, nebulous creature with wings. He has no face to speak of, and his body is not humanoid. It is more like a reptilian bird. I know this is GOD, though, for some reason. Something tells me it is.

I wait for the thing to speak while it flaps its wings. Then, the creature, GOD, opens its terrible, cavernous mouth and lets out the most horrible sound I could ever imagine. It blows me backward and pierces my bleeding eardrums until it makes me deaf and mute. The sound continues unabated, and the pressure in my brain keeps getting worse until it suddenly stops.

Everything is in complete darkness again. A garden has formed in this small room, filled with radiant blue flowers. A garden of the night within the prison walls. I fall asleep, I think, but I awake in the garden again.

There is no escaping this place. This is my home now, for eternity. Whatever punishment must come, it doesn’t matter. Whether I am cursed or blessed, I do not know. I know nothing anymore. Nothing but pain.

The End

Check out my science fiction novella, Mother Portia, on Amazon Kindle

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