When a tragedy happens, it’s the weirdest thing. There’s no music to build tension. There’s no foreboding presence. There isn’t something stitching together inclinations that maybe anything else aside from the ordinary is ever going to happen. The moment it does, however, the moment a travesty rears its foul maw and bares its fangs of misfortune and grief, it comes and goes in the blink of an eye. It quickly leaves only the bystanders and survivors to witness the wake of its unpredictable rage.
The first day I saw him, my mother had just passed away. I was 17 when it happened, nothing more than a background character in a school full of similar souls. I lost my mother to a fire at my high school, which claimed 9 lives. I remember it was a cold day in November, and there was a buzz among the students for the 4 day weekend we were granted in light of Thanksgiving. We were all eager to leave for the break but this prospect hung in the shadow of semester finals which stood between us and our reprieve.
My mom worked as the English teacher for juniors, situated on the lowest floor of the school. We all liked to call her room The Dungeon regardless of the teacher or class offered because the classroom was simply in the basement. The walls that edged the descending stairs were clad in exposed water and gas lines which sat in contrast against the concrete walls. The stairs had that weird rubber or maybe vinyl appearance that all together led to a classic prison presentation.
I was in my science class that morning, working in a small team with my best friend and some girl we used to know. Our assignment for the day? Dissecting baby pigs and identifying their organs. Just kidding. I can’t honestly recall much else of that day except that we were working on our finals.
Everything that followed happened so quickly. It was awesome in the way that it was awe-inspiring, but the awe was for the abject fear that ensued.
As I recall, we were wrapping up the evidence needed for our report when suddenly my ears popped like I had rolled down the window in a fast-moving car. This was immediately followed by a jarring vibration experienced by the whole classroom and a deafening, concussive force that stole the breath from my lungs. A shower of water followed immediately after. As I swiftly rose from my desk, my chair shot backward and clattered with a startling force against the table behind me. I noticed the blaring fire alarm as my hearing quickly crawled back to my awareness. Our teacher, Mr. Smik, wasted no time and rushed us out of the classroom.
We were orchestrated by the teachers like frightened animals, herded towards the nearest exit. Down the hall and to the left, downstairs to the lower level, and then outside. When we rounded the corner with my mothers’ classroom coming into full view, I was greeted by a conceptual nightmare. I was suddenly and firmly frozen in place. My heartbeat seemed to stop, and yet it was beating harder than it ever had before. I was simply the bystander who was now left to bear witness to this wake.
My mother’s classroom door, blown off its hinges, lay against the opposing wall in a splintered heap. The space between the door and frame was filled with an enraged inferno, desperately and forcefully bellowing from within.
I don’t know what I thought when I ran into that fire. I don’t know if I thought I could save her like some invincible superhero or if I was simply running in because I needed to. I don’t know. I broke through the wall of flame and smoke, and immediately past the door frame, the fire was no longer burning. I descended the staircase in a manner fitting of an infant, erratic, frantic, and without coordination.
I lost my footing halfway down the stairs and fell with abandon, but I was lost in adrenaline and hardly noticed, regaining my balance on the last few steps.
It was almost cold once I reached the bottom step.
I heard someone crying in the room and even though it was almost pitch black inside the veil of smoke, a small window lit the desk where my mom would sit. The person wailing in apparent agony was adjacent to her desk, however.
I broke out in a nervous sweat as I began my search for this crying person, gagging on the smell of burning flesh and hair. It didn’t take long for my eyes to dilate accordingly and to return my gift of sight. I still wish they would have failed me just that once. The images seared themselves deep into my psyche, burnt bodies and their wayward limbs littered the floors. Some were smoldering like paper as a thin line of bright red crawled greedily up the blacked skin and turned to ash.
That mouth-watering feeling crept through my throat as it does when you’re about to throw up. I heaved at the site but managed to hold it in. Through a power only granted to me in the fight of fight or flight, I averted my attention to the crying coming from an overturned desk in the corner of the room.
“That has to be my mom.. she’s still alive!” I thought.
I reached for the desk, almost tripping over the chest of a less fortunate husk. I heard someone yelling at the top of the stairs for me to come out because they had detected a gas leak. I wish I had listened.
I was almost to the desk when I looked down at another body. This one was slightly larger than the rest. It didn’t take long for me to understand that this was my mom.. missing the right side of her face.. her eyes showed a milky white, and her jaw was slacked and opened wide. She had no arm.. or leg.
Dead…
My mother was dead at my feet.
The crying erupted from behind the desk again, with no audible words.. just sobbing. I left my mom’s side to help this person. It hadn’t fully dawned on me at this point that no one could have survived this disaster.
The crying was filling my head. It blocked out the sounds of the fire alarm, everyone screaming for me to get out.. it was like I was lost in a daydream in which the crying was the forefront focus. It blocked out everything.
I reached the desk and tentatively peered behind it, and focused on an illuminated figure curled up in the corner. It had blackened skin like the rest of them and almost no hair. It trembled, facing the corner of the wall, Its body lightly convulsing like it was being electrocuted, arms held out beyond its sides with its hands limply hanging from the suspended forearms.
“HEY,” I yelled, “We have to get out! There’s a gas leak!”
The figure didn’t respond. I thought maybe the explosion damaged its hearing.
I reached over to him and grabbed his hand. He stopped crying immediately when our skin touched.. the trembling stopped but his body kept jerking. He slowly turned his head towards me.. it limply followed his neck in quick little snaps as it turned. And then I saw his face.
Leathery skin stretched across his bony skull, and his wide eyes were like my mother’s.. a milky grey and white. Browned teeth showed through a slacked jaw, no lips.. a withered nose sat broken upon his face. He was naked.. the leathery skin continued down his nude frame. Some of the skin was falling off at points of stress.. from which an infected-looking, foul-yellowed fluid oozed forth.
I looked at him in shock, his body jerking and heaving… he shuttered as his head rocked and rotated like a newborn to face me. I looked into its eyes as it took a rattled, strained breath.. and bellowed a sound unlike any I’d ever heard. No, that’s not the right way to portray this sound. The sound created a feeling inside of me that wasn’t exactly mine. I was forced into a feeling of absolute grief. Pure pain. I felt absolutely and completely overwhelmed with guilt unlike any I had ever known.
I threw myself back from the desk and fell upon my mother’s corpse. A cloud of ash rose from her smoldering body and washed over my face as I gasped. I inhaled my mother’s ash. I vomited on myself as I rose to my hands and knees to crawl away, tears streamed forth like a ruptured dam that threatened my existence. I crawled and then ran once I found my footing. I ran out of that room through the fire. I ran through the school. I ran out passed my classmates. I kept running. I ran and ran and ran until my legs couldn’t carry the weight of my body and my experience anymore.
The police found me collapsed in a local park. I remember the cold, crisp grass caressing my face, leaving behind wet stains from its melting lash in the throws of my despair. I thought I would have at least run towards home. Instead, I ran in the opposite direction. The officer that found me sat with me in the field for a while and just listened to me sob. He didn’t offer me any words of advice, nor words of encouragement. He didn’t rush me even when we both were shivering to our core once the cold seeped through our skin and lay with our bones.
I fell asleep in that field, wishing the air would escape from around me the same way it escaped my lungs between gasps for air my lungs unwillingly forced upon me. I awoke while he drove me home. I remained in my mother’s home for a short while at the mercy of my aunt and uncle who were awarded temporary custody of me. I was offered a life insurance payout that was locked in a conservatorship. I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, however, so I’ll thank my stars because my aunt didn’t take my money.
She pulled out the settlement as soon as it was released to her and gave me a big stack of cash, definitely too much for a 17-year-old to have while attempting to remain a responsible member of society. I was quickly awarded emancipation in light of the funding and I began to fuel an addiction that left the hole in my soul full of even more regrets.
Another few months passed by in the blink of an eye, probably because I was always strung out riding a line between high and barely conscious. As anticlimactic and foreseeable as it was, I ended up overdosing on heroin. I was found by my aunt in my home on my couch. my arm was shoved down between the cushions, searching for the remote that was actually on my coffee table. I had passed out like that and vomited in my stupor. I vaguely remember her scream once she walked through the doorway. I’m sure I looked just like the death I was longing for.
I was put on suicide watch once the story came to light. My therapist thought that what I saw there was a manifestation of my mind. Like something I created to personify the hell, I had lived in for those few meager minutes.
My weeks turned into months, and progress became a slow burn on my road to emotional recovery. No matter what I was taught, what tools I was provided, and what mental gymnastics I performed, I kept sinking deeper and deeper. The craving for substances kept its sick claws locked tightly around my heart.
Over the next year, I found myself slipping into a reclusive lifestyle. I had dropped out of school that winter and became a shut-in. My life became a blur in the face of depression. I traded one vice for many more, watching porn and gaming all day, loathing my existence late into the long and lonely nights. My experience from school never left me. I had such vicious night terrors, unrelenting and boundless in their pursuit of my rest.
At my emotional lowest, I stopped caring to meet my basic needs. My body was constantly utilizing kyphosis to keep me alive. I was a vile wreck, becoming the personification of that which was my mind. I was a mirror of my mentality. I was losing the battle.
Do you want to know the truth about depression? It’s not some “woe is me, I’m sad” bullshit. Depression is the opposite of happiness. Happiness is proactive and engaging. It has to be created and earned to be nurtured and it will grow. Depression is everything happiness is not. Depression comes from stagnation. Depression isn’t cured and isn’t wanted. It’s torn into being, whether you had it from birth and sat on the genetic time bomb, or it was thrust upon you against your will. Depression is the absence of emotion that we innately use to protect ourselves. “If I can’t feel, I can’t hurt.”. It’s the absence of feeling the desire to care. It is apathetic. Dark and abysmal. Alone and unafflicted. I can’t care to eat, I can’t care to meet new people, I can’t care to shower or brush my teeth. I can’t care to keep up with living. I’ve learned and lived this hell. I hope you never have to, too. If you are? I know it’s hard to care, but please talk to your friends and family, or ask someone for help. People will be there for you, you just have to find them.
But I digress.
My life started a journey in a new direction, birthed from the ruptured, hemorrhaging existence that I unknowingly came to find comfort in. It was so simple, that spark. I laughed. Not like a chuckle or a little nose smirk. A belly laugh. The sound was foreign to my ears. I was confused but oddly excited. I was so proud of myself. Soon after that, I went from a reanimated corpse to an animated individual. My new addiction was growth. I chased this feverishly. I built myself up and created a dam that could withstand the deluge of my mind, I calmed the rancor that consumed me without fail. I regained control. One step at a time, hand over hand I crawled a feeble yet unstoppable ascent up that mountain.
I knew I had to leave my home to continue my growth. Without a second thought, I left my home to my aunt, packed up, and moved out to Florida.
Florida was great for a short time, I lived in a small vacation cabin by myself in the Everglades. I established myself as a transfer student waiting until next year for my college courses to begin. This was a lie, but one I found some comfort in telling. Thankfully I didn’t have to tell it often as no one lived around me for miles.
My lot was on private property which was owned by a pleasant couple who were never home. A dense and humid forest surrounded my establishment. This was a treat for me because it gave me time to confront my thoughts and ultimately contributed to my road to recovery from that night. Sure, it was the same reclusive lifestyle, but here I was free. Also, something about 80f in winter was better than I thought it would be.
The forest surrounding me was beautiful, lush, and vibrant. You could frequently hear the birds sing, and bugs whine late into the evening as the sun departed the sky and lay to rest beyond the western horizon. It was a welcome change from the stark nights of my hometown. I would even go fishing occasionally at an ocean-fed creek just a few minutes from my house. It was exactly what I had wanted.
My life was mine again. The thoughts of that night, though painful, were easier to experience. I think I was almost able to say “I’m happy”.
Until I heard that crying again.
A few times a week, I would wake up to his crying in the woods late at night, and his lonely howls would penetrate the thin walls of my home. I thought maybe the crying was just a relapse of depression.. like PTSD in soldiers. I would stay awake and listen to it, focusing on it as if I was going to find some words within the rattling gasps.
But it kept getting closer.. every week the sound would get louder. I would lay awake in bed and find myself begging for it to stop. It was the same way it was in that school. It filled my head and blocked out everything. It forced me to feel a torrent of forgotten pain. My dam was fracturing. My rancor was waking up. My battle returned with a windfall that left me breathless. I broke so quickly. So quietly. Like sand in the palm of my hands, my joy slipped away through my fingers. My laugh died in my throat. My mind, so quickly, broke.
The uncontrollable sobbing returned nightly as the sun departed, leaving me alone to face this manifestation.. or creature. Entity. The wailing filled my nights until I was no longer able to sleep. I could only sleep during the day. The day was safe.
One night, I awoke from a nap that turned into full blown sleep. I felt like I was awoken by something, though it was silent outside. I looked at the time.. 1:26 am.. the middle of the night.. but no crying at least.
I quickly got out of bed and looked out of my bedroom window. Nothing.
“Maybe.. it was just a raccoon trying to get into my trash,” I thought. I made myself some coffee to help keep me awake through the night. Coffee had become the only thing I would drink. I made some food.. well.. canned salted potatoes with a hint of chicken dumplings and brought it back to my room. I sat down and addressed my fears as I had tried to do nights prior.
Lately, I’d been convincing myself that maybe I’m witnessing him because I hadn’t gotten over the events of that day. Maybe it was a symbol of the worst day of my life, a catalyst upon which my normalcy lay flayed in some blood eagle like fashion. Maybe it’s just that my subconscious had unintentionally held onto what could have been and manifested as that in my day-to-day life. I became bold at this rationalization and told myself to go open the front door.. like that was going to make the fear end. I figured if I had confronted the atrocity of my own making, I could also make it go away.
I set my food and coffee down as I arose from my seat and shuffled to the front door. There was no crying tonight, it was just calm and peaceful. I placed my face in front of the window on the door as I had been every night before, honestly not expecting to see too much aside from an eerie shadow. But there it was, staring through the little glass window back at me. Face-to-face. Separated by not even half an inch of glass.
An eruption of screams washed away the silence and shook my house. My kitchen light showed through and illuminated his face. It’s a face I can never forget. His jaw was chattering, gaping, and closing between breaths. As he exhaled, a sticky fog clung in Rorschach patterns to the otherwise unblemished glass. His eyes stared straight ahead at nothing as though he was lost in the grip of indefinite madness. He quivered again as he took several slow, unsteady steps backward and crouched on the ground just feet from my door. He was real.
I screamed at him out of reaction. It was guttural and primitive. There were no words I could offer my emotions to appease this sickening sensation.
I was angry.
I was scared.
I was sick of not sleeping, not having MY life! I moved across this god damned country to get away from THIS and here it was, huddled up near feet from the only comfort I had left. This was some sick fucking joke my brain was playing on me.
“LEAVE ME ALONE!” I managed to yell, my voice cracking as I started to sob.
“LEAVE ME ALONE PLEASE!” my voice sounded more like a dying animal, unrefined and shrill.
It kept screaming outside of the house as it rose to its feet again. Standing upright, it walked in slow and sporadic movements back towards my door.. it arched awkwardly backward like the abdominal muscles lost the ability to keep the torso upright, tearing the skin as it leaned. Yellow liquid again seeped from the wounds.
“LEAVE ME ALONE” I yelled again with a level of emotion I hadn’t felt in years, but my plea fell on rotted and deaf ears.
It reached my door.
I had rehearsed this moment in my earlier days of coming to the forest. Over and over I would think about what I would do to end my maddening reality. I didn’t want to kill myself though, so I had made this “thing” the effigy upon which my mental decline rested, and that which should be eradicated.
In my panic and on instinct, I grabbed at the fire axe hanging above my table and mechanically threw my body at the thin door that separated us
A wordless and loud scream of fear, disgust, and hatred erupted from between my clenched teeth as I crashed through my door.
That thing was hit by the door, the force unapologetically colliding with it. It fell backward, and a feral gasp emitted from the bottom of his throat. I was going to kill it now.
“kill it.”
“Kill me.”
“Candle”
“KILL”
The words echoed on an asynchronous loop inside my mind.
I fell down the steps as my unbraced momentum carried me forward, flailing as I fell to the unforgiving earth. I found myself on my feet before I even processed that I even fell. But then I was face to face with it, its breath was too hot, too sticky. The smell of rot and decay filled my nose. I recoiled in fear at the smell and close proximity. I backed up until I was pressed against the wall of my house. I lost my nerve. I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t capable.
It then screamed and heaved and shook in front of me.. its milky eyes still looking beyond me.. hands outstretched. And with the scream, courage returned to me, rage returned to me. It was the same as it was all that time ago in the school. I was feeling something that I wasn’t actually feeling. It was my feelings, but I wasn’t the one feeling them. It’s so hard to explain.
I embodied these feelings though, and let them wash over me, and consume me.
“kill” The word was on repeat in my head
I sprung forwards and swung my ax with a primal scream, burying the blade deep in its side. The feeling of bone deflecting the axe upwards was a sensation I still haven’t forgotten. Blood and other fluids spewed from the wound and it took a few sideways steps in retaliation against the momentum of my assault.
It stopped crying, shaking.. even breathing. Time froze as he finally looked at me. I was rooted in place by my fear. We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. Eyes locked. That breath returned with a vengeance. Nothing happened beyond that, we just stood there. My bones began to thaw, and my mind, once racing in terror and fevered rage, was now feeling… pride? No.. it was something else, but a victorious emotion nonetheless I think.
I somehow didn’t notice it had reached out and gently gripped my arm, only becoming aware of it myself once it started to speak.
“I never.. meant to.. scare you..” he said in this torn-up voice, struggling between shallow breaths
“I’m sorry.. this has to.. happen to.. you..” it said
Its eyes welled up in pain while it clutched at the axe in the new laceration with its ragged hand.
“Please… kill… me…” It wheezed.
It took the ax with its other hand and brought the blade to its neck.
“Kill me… candle… kill. NOW!” The final word sounded like an explosion in my head as it put its hand on my face.
Everything went black for a fractured moment once I swung my axe.
“Kill it” Was all I could think.
I swung with everything I had and hit something solid, metal?
Everything was dead quiet, but I smelled a familiar mustiness that reminded me of high school. In an instant, my vision came rushing back, accompanied by an intense sense of vertigo.
I was in my mother’s classroom. I looked to my left and saw her, and she saw me. I glanced over my shoulder, the entire class was staring at me. I looked back to my hands in reaction to the sudden attention, the strangeness of the situation momentarily lost on me. I then noticed that the axe was buried in the gas line, and an audible hiss was apparent in the silence. I looked back to my mom and upon her desk sat a single burning candle.
The Candle the candle the candle candle candle candle The Candle– I let go of my axe without allowing time to think anymore, and sprinted towards the desk to blow it out.
But I was too late.
The classroom ignited; It shook the entire foundation… I was blown into the wall and fell limply behind a desk. My body was blackened from the blast, and my bones were broken, but I held on to my consciousness. I don’t know how but I was moving toward my mom before I knew it. My mom just laid there torn to pieces but still alive. I crawled the best I could to her side… my body in shock. I reached for her hand but instead found the limb which was forcefully ripped from its host. She reached out her remaining and found mine, gripping it the best she could.
“Mom!” I sobbed
“Mom… I’m sorry!” I cried over her;
“I’m so sorry, Mom!”
“I.. love you…” She whispered, trying her best to smile until her grip lost its force and slipped away as gravity took a stronger hold on the now limp limb.
I collapsed once more, resting my head on her searing shoulder. Flames lept forth from her burning clothes and scorched my eyes. I didn’t care.
I felt bile rising in my throat again.
I dragged myself away and to the corner of the room behind a desk
my arms at my side covered in my mom’s blood.
I didn’t want to touch anything…
my hands..
me.
I killed my mom.
I shook in the corner.. screaming in pain and sorrow.
Someone spoke from behind me.
“HEY’ he yelled, “We have to get out! There’s a gas leak!” and he grabbed my hand. I turned towards him and realized he was me.. and I.. I knew
I had become the nightmare.
I screamed
and he ran.
It’s been several days since then. I write this with what little autonomy I have left. I beg you to please search for me.
Find me.
Save me from me.
I feel the grasp upon my self-control beginning to wither. This persistent and overwhelming compulsion to find “me”, the me that isn’t this wretch, is becoming all-consuming.. and I don’t think I can hold myself back for another day.
I need to break this cycle.
This needs to be stopped.
He needs to reach the candle.