1 Past Memories

Sweat dripped off my body into the hard, cold concrete floor, glistening off the rays of moonlight flooding through the barred window of the top left wall of my cell. The light illuminated my drenched, shaking body. My hands clasped to my head, intertwined with clumps of moist hair. My screams echoing off the walls of the cell and back into my body, causing me to shudder at the sheer volume and intensity of it. The dream, the nightmare came again, haunting my sleep. It drives me to insanity and depravity, all the while as I'm trapped within the cell confined from humanity, unable to escape and explain my instability.

An explosion of neon lights exposed the dark crevasse of an isolated alley, revealing its contents for a brief moment. A body sprawled on the floor; its upper half held up only by the crumbly surface of the brick wall. Shock and awe expressed by his face, the man's fear and horror only revealed by his wide emerald eyes, a knife stuck into his stomach reflecting off them. Pools of blood seeping further and further onto the floor, reflecting the sudden bloom of light, creating a plethora of colours and horror with the body. There I stood opposite of him my own eyes wide in fear and horror, a flood of bile rushed through my body, my legs slowly collapsed.

A skeleton rose from his body, impervious to the physical restraints of its fleshy host. Bony arms rising and stretching for my neck, moonlight now cascading onto the bone, lighting up the skeleton into a fluorescent white. I try to push it off, my body shaking to its core, white noise screaming into my head. My hands grasp at its protruding rips, and the blood on my hands accidentally slipping them off, leaving a bright stain of blood on its white, pure figure. Its cold hands clasping at my neck, its hollow eyes staring into something deeper than what I am on the surface and I start to see it too, a monster trapped in a human's body. Lights shuddered off again, darkness encompassed the single strip, my screams slowly quieted in the night.

A splash of water brought me back into reality, the images of the alley and the skeleton dispersed back into the shadows of my mind, waiting. My hands wobbled on the steel stained sink, the sounds of running water from the tap occupying my mind, staving off the growing fear inside me. I stared into a scratched mirror, sunken eyes inside of a hollow and thin face reflected back, its fading and grainy blond locks being the only recognizable sign of who I was. I sat back down onto my soaked bed and stared out into the night sky.

It was often nights like that when I wondered, pondered and considered suicide. Wondered what's the point of it all? Going to sleep, having that dream, then waking up in fright just to have it all repeat. It made me fear going to sleep, that dream, why must it scare me? My mind often drifted to that man; his emerald eyes plastered in my mind. Images of a family at a grave followed children's crying into the leg of their mother, who was unable to assist them in grief as she succumbed to its will as well. A tight knot usually formed in my throat following those images. Grief, regret, shame all mixing and combining into a powerful feeling, a heavy blanket covering me sapping me of all my will to do anything except reminisce. That sensation was called depression, a drug of sorts that kept me addicted to my miserable life, ensnaring me into going back to the dream. I always wanted to escape it all, escape the dream, escape the sensations, escape my torment. The regret building up inside of me every moment I don't take into rectifying my past mistake, increasing the pressure of that blanket, continuing the cycle.

It was one summer's day, light trickling into my gloomy cell, that I realized this was the day that marked my fifth year in this prison. Another year of slowly decaying away in the cell that is my world, another year of horrific and restless nights. Another year of staring into the moon through my window contemplating the meaning of my life, my actions and my feelings. Another year of no change just the same old, unfulfilled, regretful life within my cell, losing a portion of my sanity every day.

I sat up in my bed, my blanket delicately falling off. The cold of my barren cell hit me, my skin prickled, my weak bones wobbled, and my thick, grey cotton blankets called to me with temptations of warmth and rest. I flipped my legs however onto the cool surface of the concrete floor and walked toward the sun rays that slipped into my cell. The ray's warmth filled my dreaded body, its warmth kinder and more freeing than the lonely, trapping warmth of the blankets. I closed my eyes and breathed in filling my lungs with the cool morning air. At that moment I felt more alive than I had in years.

It was weird, that one unconscious action changed me so much. The odd compelling desire to just feel the suns warmth then stay in the bed that had sealed me for so often. The desire for something new rather than the familiarity of the bed, even if it was just a few steps away. Its impact was so compelling that I even started to drift out of my cell, my legs dancing along the prison hallways, an exotic sensation driving me forward. I ended up in front of the doorway that opened out to the outside yard of the prison. Sunlight beamed through the entrance, creating an angelic feel to the bland concrete wall and steel door of the entrance. The guard on-duty by the door, stood in disbelief at the sight of my thin and weak arms and legs and my gaunt and loose face. I walked pasted into the sunlight, my eyes adjusting to its light before seeing the small green field of the yard. Prisoners were standing and sitting, chatting and listening, running and playing along the trimmed and torn up, brownish greenish grass floor. A horrid sight to be sure of, however, to me it was Eden's garden, a paradise created by God that I had reluctantly declined in favour of the man-made cell.

My legs hesitated however and the angelic, exotic sensation abandoned me in an instant. A familiar dread rose within me, memories of the alley and of that crying family flickered through my mind once again. My legs gave out and I crumbled onto the hard concrete, the grass and dirt a few meters away, taunting me. I rose my and toward it pleading for its grace, its invitation once again but my hand froze, shook and then fell. The Guard ran up to me, his green eyes stared into my own, my mind mistaking him for the dead man's emerald eyes. The dread started to overwhelm me, controlling me and forced me to scream until my throat gave out transforming my screams into a coarse cry. The dread didn't let go of me until the guard put me back into my cell, locked the iron bars and left with a look of disdain.