Crossroads and Fools

 

This isn’t how this is supposed to go.

It was all supposed to work out. It always works out.

Fortune began to lick my face, the fur around her mouth tinged pink.

“What will it be, Sarah?”

“I-I..” the words clawed against my windpipe, strangling the carbon dioxide waiting to escape. The darkness smiled signaling my time was up. “No, no please. Just…give me a minute!” My hands scraped along the floor, my palms skidding through thick puddles of blood. So much blood.

“Times up, Sarah.”

The darkness reared back allowing the floor beneath my quivering frame to evaporate. I tumbled into the abyss. My screams echoing through caverns of endlessness only to reverberate in my skull. Laughing wind crashed through my frame propelling me faster down the inky chasm.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

{Deep inhale of ragged breath}

I breached the surface of my bedroom, my heart jackhammering against the concrete walls of my chest. Damp fabric strapped me to my bed and I kicked and thrashed against it; my body still in a free fall State. As the abyss embed and the regular shadows of my room edged into view, I banished the remnants of my latest nightmare. I’ve never been plagued by such visceral dreams before, not even in childhood. My life contained no stressors for my addled mind to cling to in sleep. Wiping sweaty palms across my face, I discarded the sheets and headed to the bathroom. Fortune let out a sneeze of frustration at the loss of her heat source as she watched me pad across the small bedroom space. A precocious smile tickled the corner of my lips as I took in my protector and most loyal companion. Stumbling across her after missing the bus home one evening was one of the best, if not top three moments in a string of other serendipitous events that have guided me through life.

Flipping on the faucet, I splashed cold water on my face and sighed. These dreams really needed to kick rocks. I brushed my bangs from my eyes and froze as they locked on the mirror. A well of darkness blazed from the mirror before me; my reflection nowhere in sight.

“Time to choose, Sarah.” The demon’s smile etched cracks in the mirror before me. I ducked for cover as small shards exploded from the mirror, their sharp edges reaching for my exposed flesh.

“Choose.”

I cowered under my porcelain protection as an unholy wind slammed my only means of escape shut. The room began to tilt, the beast roaring for my decision, but my human instincts made the only one they saw fit. I dove for the door handle, the knob slipping in my wet hand. The wall groaned behind me and like a fool I looked over my shoulder. Stygian tendrils filtered through the cracks of the mirror, reaching for me. I screamed but it was too late for screams.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.

The demon laughed as it yanked me through the mirror, my arms and legs left in tatters as it forced me from my world and into its own.

“Choose.”

I howled as the darkness ripped at my soul while my mind remained frozen, unable to follow the demon’s command.

My life isn’t about choices. Choices are useless for a person who does not require them.

The darkness ripped and ripped, taking more and more of me as I tumbled further into the darkness.

“Choose!”

{Deep inhale of ragged breath}

I bolted awake, a scream already leaving my lips. Fortune’s cold nose tickled my elbow as she whined and pushed her way into my lap. A dream. It was just a scary, stupid dream. Pulling my white knight to my chest, I murmured to Fortune I was ok, gave her a squeeze, then shuffled to the bathroom. The room pressed down on my shoulders as the stress of fitful sleep weighed on them. Turmoil and Indecision were unwanted guests whom I would soon be showing to the door. They were never invited nor ever welcomed in the first place.

The bathroom door creaked open, my foot crossing the threshold only to glide through something tacky and wet. Reflectively, my hand brushed the light switch while my brain screamed at me to flee.

Blood. There was so much blood. The tile gleamed with it as though it were fresh paint. “No…no-no-no-no-no.”

“Sarah.”

“No.”

“Sarah….it is time.”

“No..no I can’t. This-this isn’t…I just can’t!” My voice pushed against the blood like a tidal wave, but it may as well have been a ripple.

The demon laughed and I knew what it meant. Just as I knew I was the Fool too blinded by my own ways to find the path out of this one.

The beast lunged. Sinewy threads coiled around my ankles yanking me through the bathroom door. I scrambled for purchase on the bathroom frame, but it was no use. With a cry of fear and frustration I was dragged into the yawning darkness. I fell and fell and fell all the while the demon called for my choice.

“Choose!”

A choice. One I simply could not make. Because this was not how it was supposed to go.

“So be it.”

And so I fell.

{Deep ragged breath}