(Content Warning: Drug Use)
I have been sober for twenty years. I’m forty three now, but when I was in my twenties, I was an addict. It started out with weed, then psychidellics, then cocaine, and finally heroin. I was at rock bottom, I didn’t have anywhere to sleep, I was high all of the time. I was selling my body for money. All I wanted to do was get my fix. I always told myself, “just one more time, then I’ll stop.” But I couldn’t stop. As soon as that needle went into my arm, I knew I’d keep doing it.
The last time I used, I died. I remember that I was sitting on a dirty couch, there was all types of stains on it, blood, shit, piss, it was disgusting. I held the spoon over the candle, and I remember the excitement that passed through my body as I was ready to shoot up again. I hadn’t eaten anything in two days, I was skinny and pale with dark circles under my eyes. I remember being able to feel my ribcage. Now I realize how awful that feeling was.
I tied the rubber tube around my arm and pulled it tight with my mouth, I remember shaking as I put the needle closer and closer to the vain in my forearm. Just as I was about to inject myself, I thought I heard a voice, it was the voice of a woman. “You are loved” she said, I can only assume now that it was an angel, trying to get me to stop doing what I was about to do. I played it off that I was hearing things that weren’t there, but there was someone there, trying to take care of me, looking out for me.
I injected myself and I could feel the warmest feeling wash over my body. It felt like I was laying on warm sand on the beach. I felt bliss, and happy. Looking back now, I realize that I wasn’t at the beach, I was in a dark, disease filled basement, killing myself. I imagined that I was on a canoe, in the middle of the ocean, the warm sun was beating down on me, and I was smiling. I closed my eyes.
When I opened my eyes, I was laying on an old mattress, stained with blood. It was no longer warm, it was sweltering hot, my skin felt like it was on fire. I pushed myself up and looked around me. I was in some sort of prison cell. I could see a flickering light from outside of the cell.
I stood up and walked over to the obsidian cell bars and placed my hands on them. I screamed and jumped back, looking at my hands to see that they had burned from the touch of the bars. The skin on my palms boiled, and sweltered, turning a crimson red.
I approached the cell bars again, making sure not to touch them. I could see now what the flickering light was, it was coming from a giant pit. I’m not sure how big the pit was, but if I had to guess, it was as long as three football fields, and as deep as two. I looked in terror as I saw people in the pit, they were screaming, begging to be set free, to be let go. They were all on fire, many of them had third degree burns, some of them no longer had any skin. I could feel a tear fall down my cheek, those people were being tortured. That moment I realized that I was in Hell and that pit was the lake of fire.
Just above the lake of fire was a person. No not a person, some sort of being, a creature. It had the legs of a goat, the arms of a man, the head of a dragon, and the wings of a bat. It was Satan. In front of him, was a ball of light, he was moving his arms around it, like he was caring for it, or molding it. Inside the ball of light was a child, a baby with hooved feet and a six burned into his forearm. I looked on in terror at what I was seeing. My hands began to sweat and I was shaking in fear of what I thought was happening. I knew where I was, I knew that I was in Hell. I knew that the creature above the pit was Satan. I tried to think of what he was doing, what he was creating.
The screams of the people burning in the pit was messing with my head, I was going crazy and wanted to gouge my own eyeballs out. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Then the thought came into my head. I was putting two and two together. I backed away from the cell bars and sat down on the mattress. It’s the Antichrist, that’s what Satan was creating, he was creating his own child.
The door to my cell creaked open and in walked what I can only describe as a demon. It was tall, about seven feet tall with long legs, grey, decaying skin and curled horns protruding out of it’s forehead. It’s eyes were a bright orange. Saliva drooled from it’s open mouth, it looked hungry. “Fresh meat” it bellowed in a low scratchy voice. As it grew closer, I backed away, when a light appeared above me and a voice spoke. It was the voice of the woman, “take my hand” she whispered, I did as I was told and took her hand. I remember being pulled out of the dark and into the light.
That’s when I opened my eyes. I was in the back of an ambulance. Two EMT’s were beside me, one was holding an IV bag. “We got him!” the one shouted. “Good to have you back buddy, are you okay?” he asked. I didn’t respond, I was strapped down, but I leaned up and looked at my hands to see a burn mark on each hand that was starting to blister. It was real, all of it was real, Hell, Satan, The Antichrist, The Angel.
I was in the hospital for a couple of weeks. I overdosed in the basement and someone was there to call an ambulance. I was only dead for three minutes but it felt like thirty. After I was released from the hospital, I went to rehab and got clean. I have a good paying job now, a wife and a daughter. I’m thankful for being given a second chance at life. But I still have nightmares about what I saw down in Hell. My wife believes in what I saw, and she thinks that it was a for a reason. I can’t help but think, did Satan ever unleash his spawn into the world? And how would we even know? I mean, the Antichrist could be walking among the population right now. It could be anyone. I’m telling you this, because I needed others to know, I need people to know what I saw, the terror that I felt.