Previous Posts:
Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V
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Summer came, light and warmth seeped into every inch of the funeral home. The layer of dusted cold melted away. Smiles were easier to come by, a peace and flow returned to the office space. The calls from the coroner’s office became routine. I didn’t dread the white bags, orange tags, nor the rush to the scene. In fact, I started to dread very little. The layers seeped away, the constellation of bruises that laced my ashen skin faded from their putrid green. Slowly seeping into light brown reminders of my time in the cold.
As they faded to barely perceptible shades of yellow, almost hidden in my darkened skin, I moved in with Emily. Our life reached tranquility. I’d turn to see her face in the morning, glowing blue eyes welcoming me to a new day. Her face replaced the one I used to paint to welcome in a different kind of mourning.
Fear was no longer a daily routine. I still saw it, glowing in the shadows. Lurking and hovering over those of the forgotten. I wondered if I started to understand its place in my life. I came to the conclusion it was meant to help me understand and care for the dead and their families.
Removing, replacing, and caring for the violent marks of unattended deaths brought me a sense of purpose. I found myself researching the medical supplies I saw on a body. What was the purpose of the intubation tube? The Intraosseous vascular drill? I inspected the arteries and vascular system as I embalmed. I engulfed myself in human anatomy. I’d google and google and google. I was fascinated by the tools left by EMS, and their attempts to fight the dead. It was a fight I wanted to join.
In the absence of cold, fear, and dread I gained hope - and bravery. I decided to return to school, wanting to fully understand the world of those who fought against death. I enrolled in school in the fall semester, transitioning to working only 2 or 3 days at the funeral home. I learned how to cover and block the oozing pulsating blood that I was once so fearful of. I came to recognize and learn the beats of the heart, lungs, and souls of my patients. Life was so overwhelming; its warmth was a direct contrast to the cold that had been so all consuming only a few months prior.
I left the funeral home the same month I had started the year prior. My time there would only be remembered in the anecdotes whispered over drinks at a party. I came to the conclusion that it all wasn’t real. The monster was a reflection of my fear, as I had once assumed. It was my teen mind’s way of understanding and familiarizing itself with death. It was an exemplary force of depression, manifesting itself into existence. This belief extended and propelled itself for the last couple of months, until six days ago - when I first decided to share my story.
I had woken up to cold, goosebumps radiating down my neck and along my spine. It rang of familiarity, sending reminders of rot into my mind. I closed my eyes, seeing images of broken teeth, blackened flesh, warm bodies of blood spilled onto dirty forest floors.
The early gray sky shot peeks of pale light across our bed. A ray illuminated Emily’s face. Her chest rose and fell, peaceful sleep keeping her eyes dancing under closed lids. A smile played around her lips, warmth and happiness showing through her. She exuded warmth even in the depths of sleep.
It took my a moment to notice the cold that held my waist and pinned down my arms. I felt it’s hands tighten, chaining me to the bed. “It’s back,” I thought to myself. The urge to speak, to wake Emily enveloped me. But when I tried to scream, it only formed a knot in the back of my throat. I felt the scream build and fester, trying to claw its way out. I tried so fucking hard to get out. I tired so hard to will my mouth to open, to fight the creature with might and strength.But I was frozen, fear had iced itself in my blood. Beads of chilled sweat formed on my brow. Its chuffs made of bone and rotting flesh were not necessary. I couldn’t move. It sensed my thoughts, understood the paralysis. It swiped its index finger along my forehead, mirroring the motion I had seen months prior. The motion the creature had reserved for the dead. A terrifying thought passed through me, had I joined the dead? Was it here to take me? To guide me on my path to the temperature controlled semi? How could I have thought it was gone forever? How could I have thought I was safe.
I was tired with all of my will to move. I gathered every memory of Emily’s laugh, every moment of light and warmth that I could. I tried so desperately hard to fight the cold. But that only made it worse. I felt as though I had been subjected to the fridges, stopped in the tracks of my body’s natural response. It forced me farther into the icy depths of paralysis. Was this death?
Its nails dug into my body, the places in which it used to always hold. Sharp red blood drew, contrasting the dots of green that once marked me. The crescent cuts of its fingernails sent swirls of rich iron into the air. I started to choke on the scent of my own blood. I tried harder to move, fighting with every grain of my strength against its overbearing weight. The whisper first formed on the base of my neck, the hairs raising in awareness. The voice was harsher than I remember, the layered symphony of voices hissing in anger. “Missed me?”
It flung me off the bed, my head meeting the sharp edge of the nightstand. The crack in the base of my skull was already apparent, snapping just as the mirrors of the funeral home once had. The same sharp rich blood dripped and pooled into my collar bones. The metallic taste permeated the air. How had Emily not woken? How had she not heard the impact?
A sickening realization hit me harder than the impact of the nightstand. It froze her too. I fatefully tried to move again. I wanted to go to her, I wanted to cradle my throbbing skull. I needed to apply pressure to my wound.
It had other plans. My legs had landed precariously in front of me during the fall. It grabbed onto my ankles, and started to drag. Slowly. As if intending for each inch to inflict as much torture as possible. My pajamas provided little coverage, simple shorts and a tank top. I felt the carpet send burns into my skin, stripping it down to the layer of white. The scream inside my throat built, but my lips were sealed. Causing the pleads I so wanted to scream to ignite inside my head. The sound of my own mental pleads built a piercing headache between my eyebrows. It kept dragging me - inch by excruciating inch - towards the bathroom. I sent silent pleads to Emily to wake, for her warmth to ward off the cold. I begged for it to at least let her go.
As we reached the bathroom, the tiles soothed my skin. It paused. I lay limp on the floor - little life left in me.
“Stand.”
I couldn’t. My head was sending me in a swirling vision of black and green. The room precariously swayed. The pain was so unbearable I felt high. As my body released as many chemicals as possible to fight the creature’s impact. It kicked my head into the tile. A lump formed on the top of my forehead.
“I SAID STAND”
It laced its hands under my armpit and yanked me into the upright position. I clung to the counted, my lays threatening to give way under the weight of my pain. I forced my head down. I wouldn’t give it the satisfaction of looking it in the eyes.
“Look at me”
I kept my eyes towards the floor. Focusing on the blood dripping against the white stone. I vaguely thought to myself, “I need a doctor.”
It wrapped its hands around the base of my neck, sending shocks into the now gushing wound in the base of my skull. My head was brought to face the mirror. My own face gazed back at me, my eyes lighting with tears and fear. They streamed down my face, cutting traces into my pale skin. Blood was staining the tan tank top I had worn to bed, blue developing bruises marked the places it had gripped. Crescent moon cuts laid in each bruise, with small lines of blood streaming down each. I couldn’t bring myself to look past myself, not wanting to meet its green eyes. Its thorns cast shadows over me, causing swirling shadows over my hunching body. I felt it lean down, a non-existent mouth breathing into my ear.
The mirror broke more as it spoke, splitting my vision into a thousand pieces. Glass shards scattered on the counters and floor. Thick brown blood leaked out of each crack, slowly seeping down the crystal surface.
“Look at me” It’s fingers worked Thier way into the cut in my neck. I felt it’s fingers push inside my flesh. I felt the presence of its darkness inject into my bloodstream.
I slowly looked up, finally acknowledging its presence in the mirror. I saw its thorns tilting towards my face, its sharp points threatening the sanctity of my eyeballs. its eyes pointed to my profile, shinning brighter in acknowledgment.
I waited for the next infection of pain. I prayed to a foreign God to kill me, to spare Emily. A breeze picked up my hair, forming the beginning of its words,” Turn around”