The house I lived in wasn’t much, just a basic 2 story, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house in the countryside. I remember the house was 100 years old when we moved in, you would enter the kitchen and see a spare room and down the hall a bathroom to your right. Then if you kept going straight and right then you would see the living room, from the living room there are 2 doorways. One leads to the stairs upstairs. When you go upstairs you go up the spiral staircase that is half carpet half wood. You turn into a hallway and there is a long hallway,
if you turn left and go down the hall you will see 2 bedrooms. If you turn left down the hall you will find an attic right next to my room. All of my relatives lived in this house before me, including my father. So when I was little my father told me countless stories before I went to bed. One story was very odd, it was different than all the up neat stories he had told me. We did the daily routine of me getting on my dad’s shoulders and him throwing me on my bed to tuck me in. My dad sat on my bed, my wood bed frame creaking like the hinges on an old rusted door. He said to me in a low raspy voice
“Hey buddy, wanna hear a story tonight?” Of course, I nodded because I loved his stories, he told me a story of a little boy, one that lived here before any of us. He said he was doing laundry for his dad in the basement, with one of those silver wash racks where you have to scrub the germs off of the clothes with your bare hands. My father said that when the child got tired he sat in a back dark corner of the basement. And every time the child was forced to do the laundry he fell into a deeper state of sadness, and every time the child took a break the corner also got darker, almost as if the child would leave his sadness in that corner. On the last day, the child was overwhelmed with sadness, he didn’t leave the corner that day. Or ever.
My father said that the child is trapped there forever. He is still waiting to get revenge on his father for making him do his work. I was wide-eyed in my bed that night. My father went downstairs and I eventually went to bed. Every corner I stare at for too long gets darker and darker as I tried to go to sleep. It was 2017 and I was 25, living in the same house with my son and wife. But something strange happened. I was in the basement doing laundry, and I heard this crying. At least I thought it was crying. I thought of my son and immediately sprinted up the old creaky steps, I rushed to the living room and there he was, perfectly fine, playing with his toys.
I asked my wife if she heard any crying and she said no. At first, I thought I had just imagined it because my son used to cry a lot, but then again he was only 3 years old. It didn’t happen after that. My life was very simple. Get home from a 9-5 job, eat dinner, sleep, repeat. Every couple of days I would do laundry and every couple of days I would hear the same sort of crying, and every time I would run upstairs looking for my son, and every time he was perfectly fine. So I made a little plan for the next time I did laundry.
I would try and find where it was coming from, maybe it was from the crawl space and an animal was stuck. I was a big animal enthusiast growing up so I liked caring for them. I got downstairs, and I started unloading and loading laundry up. Then a couple of minutes later, the crying started again. Faint to loud, loud to faint. I started walking around, to one room, then the next, the last room I went to the crying was loud, deafening. I scanned the room and the corners. And I scanned over a certain corner, the darkest corner in the room. I remembered the story my father had told me when I was younger and one line that stood out. “He didn’t leave the corner of the basement that day, or ever”.
Me thinking of that line sent chills up and down my body, the goosebumps running up my legs to my spine. I was frozen. My eyes were locked on the corner. It got darker and darker until it almost took up my entire vision when suddenly, my wife shook me while yelling my name. “What the hell are you looking at?!” She yelled “I-“ I stuttered “don’t even say anything, it’s dinner time come and eat,” she said. I was shocked, what the hell had I just seen? It was an indescribable black. The darkest shade of black I have ever seen. When I went upstairs I felt removed, I wasn’t there, all I could think about was that damn corner, all I could dream about was that corner. The next time I went down to do my laundry is the time a dreaded, but I had to do it. I walked down the stairs slowly, but before I even got to the landing on the stairs I heard the crying, this time I knew I had to confront what was there. Somehow I built up the courage to sprint to the corner, and I did.
I sprinted at it and stopped right in front of where the walls intersected. I was standing in the corner. The crying was louder than ever, the crying sounded like it was inside my ears, and it vibrated my eardrums like speakers in my ears. I could feel my brain becoming unhinged and my teeth shaking and changing positions. This crying was so loud, that I passed out. Or I might have died, I don’t know. But when I woke up I wasn’t in my house. I woke up to an ice-cold ground on my back, and a grey and greyish blue sky. When I sat up I analyzed my area, a flat-ish area with scattered buildings around. These buildings were broken down and battered. The ground was a very dark grey with geyser-like hills protruding blue-ish grey flames shooting out of them.
I swear I almost had a heart attack the first time I woke, and the 2nd 3rd 4th, and 5th. The first time I awoke I lasted about 10 minutes before other people found me and ripped me apart while eating me in the process. The second time I lasted for 2 minutes before a tribe got some food from me too. The third time is 12 minutes. Fourth time 25 minutes. You get the idea. I had died so many times I lost track. One of the times I was alive, I found a group of people. Decently sensible people. After a couple of days, I finally asked one of the “where the hell even are we?” He answered with a bone-chilling answer a religious man like myself could hear in their whole life.“We are stuck in one of the worst places anyone could ever imagine, we are in hell.”.
My jaw dropped, and I started crying, as a religious man I was crushed at the idea that God would ever let me down here. I’ve been praying every night for the safety of my family. And god spits in my face and sent me down here anyways. This group I was with protected me for a while and fed me food. Well, the food was usually human but I pretended it wasn’t. And every night I thought of my beautiful wife and adorable son. That didn’t last long though. As my group got ambushed by scavengers while we were sleeping. The next time I woke up was in a building.
With the same landscape as the many other times. And crusty lips opening, the dry sand-paper like mouth. So I made my journey. I was on my way to the top of the building, checking every room in the meantime. Usually, nothing was found in the rooms but occasionally I found a bit of rotten food or old distilled water. I found a lot of old ragged clothes, which I put on because it was freezing in hell. Every time I breathed I could see my breath like it was an ongoing winter. I eventually got to the top of the old decrepit hotel. The railing on the roof had a thin layer of condensation on it, from the cold weather. I peered over the railing and looked around the wasteland, looking for any source of food, or some kind of civilization. And I found one, I could barely make it out. All I could see was a tent and maybe some people. I ran down the stairs of the old hotel.
Almost tripping down the cold slippery steps. I got to the old glass sliding door and busted through it, desperate for some kind of interaction. I ran and ran and ran until I couldn’t run anymore, I missed my wife and son so much, that’s all I ever thought about was them. When I was getting shredded alive all I thought about was them. I eventually made it to the people. They were nice, some of them were from my last group. Which was nice, I didn’t realize how many friends I would make down here. We all hated it down here, but not all of us were religious. Some people died coming down here. Some people came in their sleep.
But nobody was like me. Or even remotely close to my story. They all didn’t believe me, but I eventually convinced them that it was true. I still don’t think they believe me though. Anyways, my group was walking around the wasteland, trying to find scraps of resources that we could use for something. What we found was worse.
A group, this group was three times the size of ours, and theirs had more weapons, resources, and willpower. My group had been starving for days, so the majority of them gave up. Then we got picked off, one by one… Until I was the last one, terrified for my life. As I was about to take a brutal hit from an ash rock club, then a shot of light hit the club, bursting it into a million different pieces, everyone including me was shocked. But more of the men were about to strike me. But they stopped when an explosion of light came down from the sky. It was blinding as if it were dark and gloomy in hell.
This light was pure white. I soon saw a hand peer out of the white-filled wormhole. Now… god doesn’t look what people imagine it to be. Some Christians think god is a remnant thing whose shape has no real shape. Or some think he looks like a man, a man that “Never forgets to reapply sunscreen. I’m sorry but everyone’s wrong. Well god stopped the attackers in their tracks, as his giant luminescent arm went down, It grabbed me. Tight. Very very tight. His robes were ripped, and his pale white, peeling skin was waving in the wind. Like an American flag. When he brought me up to the clouds, there was no temple. No gateway to ‘Heaven’. No, there were only these… ‘Angles’. The angles had one giant eye. That was peering at me from the clouds, they had bird-like feathers that were pure white. The eye was dry and never blinking. And their feathers were old and falling off, as their skin was peeling. I looked away from them and saw god himself.
Looking down at me as his little pet. His face was absurdly horrific. It had gashes in it, his eyes bulging while his lips were chapped to the point of bleeding. Scars from picking at his face and puss pouring out of his pores.
It was sickening to look at. I passed out. And when I woke up I was in bed. But I wasn’t the same person. I was older. My house had been damaged from aging. And my family moved out. I ventured outside to a totally different time. The grass wasn’t green as it was wintertime. I walked into the town we lived close to, bare feet and only a robe on to cover up my nudity. I walked into the local gas station. Everyone glanced at me with surprised looks on their faces. I asked the worker “What’s the date today ma’am.”, she responded back with a polite “Well sir it is the 15th of December.” I was starstruck, had I been in hell that long, “Of what year?”. I asked. What she said next nearly made me have a heart attack. “Sir, the year is 2054, do you need me to call someone for you?” I fell to my knees as she said this, and tears started to run down my face. Someone touched me on the shoulder and flashbacks of hell ran through my head,
I ripped his stomach open like it was another day in hell. Right, when I did it I analyzed him and started to cry over his lifeless body. When the cops got there I gave myself up. No point in running right? Obviously, they didn’t believe my story, or that I saw God himself. It’s been about a week since that happened, and I have been transported from mental hospital to mental hospital. Right now I am located at the ‘Ohio Hospital for Psychiatry’ but I do not plan to stay here so don’t go looking for me, I will be long gone. I haven’t slept for days. I can’t get the image of the thing we call god out of my head. It was terrifying.
Nobody here believes me either, not even that I went to hell. But I will tell you one thing I know, god… he has two roles. One is to be god, the almighty figure. The alternative is to be the devil. I will tell you one thing folks, there is no devil. No nightmares lurking around any corners. There is no angle watching over you, there are only gods watchers, and a sick game he made. For us religious men. The truth is, there is no devil. Because God is the devil.