inside my head, “Put your arm into my mouth.” I do as I’m requested.
The monster’s grey, rocky surface-crust cracks, breaks apart, and sheds loose.
Shimmering, aqua-green scales armor its body.
Ivory horns run along the spine of its immense neck.
A large ivory horn protrudes from its forehead.
Two rows of teeth line the inside of its mouth.
I sense this creation desires to sever and take away from me Sentel.
As I hold my creature in its mouth I keep vigilant.
The attack could happen in a split second and I would lose Sentel.
This is the only opportunity I have to continue in this search for my missing mother, Kathrin.
I must use this guardian to get across, and realize what needs to be done.
The beast has to consume me. Then I’ll reach my destination where the Hector is.
“I only eat angels,” the creature reveals. “But I have never eaten a being such as yourself. So I will swallow you. But you must do something for me.”
“And what would that be?”
“You must divide my head in half, so that the one beneath it will grow out.”
In a split second I grab hold of its large horn with Sentel,
prying it away along with the large skeletal helmet attached to its head,
I then drive the ivory dagger up through its neck.
The needle-sharp-horn slides through the leviathan’s soft underbelly.
I pull the spear from the rear of its cranium.
The back of its head cracks like a coconut shell when the bone splits.
Inside of its skull is soft brain matter covered with hot, yellow slime.
The ivory spear cuts through the rest of its head like a drill.
A giant, eyeless snake-head emerges from the throat of the divided half.
The leviathan’s split portion merges to the face of the snake.
“Drink from the gland,” two voices instruct from inside my mind.
Poison leaks from a gland within a reservoir of the horn.
It has a mint taste to it, and chills my mouth.
The creature instantly lunges forward and devours me.
Its muscles do not squeeze tightly around my body as I would expect, as I’m pulled deeper in.
There is a thin embryonic sack which surrounds me and begins to fill with liquid.
The fluid is light as air when I reluctantly breathe.
An outer layer around the bubble I’m in develops, and forms into a dark purple shell.
Feverish hot and cold flashes ensue, along with delirium, from the poison I’ve consumed.
Panic ignites when the climate drops to freezing.
Desperate to escape I punch the shell, then stab it with the needle sharp dagger, with no success.
The cold feels like small parasites crawling on my skin.
I’m unable to move and feel my body condense within the frozen encasement.
Crystals on the inner shell crackle as they build, and then broaden to form a large cavern.
Sentel and Rufus stand inside the widened area while my body twirls uncontrollably.
Rufus has the frisbee in his mouth. Sentel has taken on the shape of the horn.
I am the racquetball I found in the small duffle bag.
I control my spinning and fly toward the sides of the crystal ice cave.
Striking the wall causes that portion to melt.
Unable to direct myself to the same spot twice, I bounce against different areas.
My surroundings are now a liquid bubble that I am stuck hovering in the center of.
The solution undergoes change as it vaporizes.
Recalling the notepad from my duffle bag, I shift into a crumpled piece of paper.
The vapor attracts to me, and I dissolve into a pile of mush.
Cement concrete lies below me with cracks running through its surface, for me to fill.
The wet pulp I’ve become hardens and bonds with the concrete portion.
I break the pavement apart, shaping myself into a giant creature made from the rubble.
There is a geyser in the distance, amongst the vast boneyard I stand in.
Buildings constructed of skeletal remains fill this dismal land.
Abandoned spirits dwell within the darkness of the flimsy shacks.
The ghosts monitor me as I stomp past their confines.
The environment is haunted with hopeless depression.
Drawing closer to the geyser, I feel the need to plug it.
I’m losing portions of my structure, which crumble away as I walk.
My head of stone is all that remains when I arrive at the massive jet stream.
The opening is just large enough for me to roll into.
It creates a vacuum that sucks me down.
Sentel and Rufus peer past the edge of the chasm I’m drawn into.
Reluctantly, they are left behind.
I plunge into the familiar fountain that my previous companion, Rufus, originally brought me to.
Through the pool’s depths I drift into a swirling black hole that takes me to the sun’s core.
There I prevent the dark funnels on the sun’s surface from turning.
The star’s energy intensifies, and incinerates all matter in the universe.
I’m stretched out thin, like a cord, extending from the sun’s cooling center to one remaining chunk of rock, in the entire solar system.
The cord I’ve become snaps in half and I’m standing in front of Jim.
His creature is hiding.
It is watching from behind my stepfather’s eyes. I feel naked without my companions.
Jim’s mouth gapes open, and the hyena’s muzzle forces out.
“I devoured your true father’s flesh, and left his bones to live forever,” the creature snarls.
I see the nightmarish event of what happened to my biological father play out as the demon reveals its testimony with firsthand clarity.
I am drawn into the descriptions and live the ordeal that the hyena narrates.
There is a powerful and familiar connection with the man which I disemboweled.
I tug at his innards and tear him into parts.
His soft portions are consumed by my unending hunger.
My stomach is heavy. I lay unable to move while his skeletal remains draw together and then crawl away through this land that is littered with bones.
I experience what Mathew, my biological father, endures and must go through.
He is confused and disoriented.
He is mentally devastated, unsure of what hope remains for aspirations to be accomplished.
The skeletal piles he crawls past beckon him to come and be a part of them.
“Here you will never be alone,” they promise.
“We will build a great monument that will house us.
“Here you will be forever safe in our numbers.”
His companions (the two Aspects that travel as part of him) instill the strength to persevere.
The three come to a circular concrete slab in the ground, and burrow through it.
The rubble binds to their bare skeletons, taking the form of a serpent-like being.
Emerging from the lower surface of the giant cylinder, water rushes up from the pit to the cavity.
My father recoils and waits within the ancient volcanic den, from behind the rising jet.
Grateful for his creature’s aid, Mathew grants it primary control over their decisions.
It gives itself the name Hah-Van-Sah.
Lost angels approach the plateau. There the great leviathan strikes from beyond cover.
Consumed angels are used to renew its body, developing below the full scale rocky scab.
The remains of that heavenly host are sent to the boneyard, where their spirit is cursed to dwell.
Hah-Van-Sah knowingly waits for a being, other than the ones it has always used to absorb.
016
: Through Sheol, Pt 3
So much of this place feels like I’m in a dream, as I’m once again standing before my stepdad.
I’m back at the place that Adelle said I need to get to, “the other realm, where the cascade canyons are. Vera Boas…” Maybe now I can finally discover what the Hector is.
The tiny ice parasites I’ve unknowingly gathered from my father’s stomach crawl on me.
Like fleas they swarm to Jim’s body.
Plunging their sharp pointed heads into his skin, they feed on his energy.
He rolls on the ground, his creature’s hyena muzzle extending further out his mouth, howling, while he franticly tries to get them off, but his attempts force their thorn-like-heads in deeper.
With my unaccompanied left hand I reach down and grab hold of the creature’s muzzle.
It squirms within Jim’s skin to get free.
The serpent’s fang disengages from my palm, piercing into both of their skulls.
This is a parting gift that Sentel, my other lost companion, has left me with.
The poison spreads through Jim and the occupying creature’s body. The fleas illuminate green.
Jim and his hyena creature shrivel to a blackened rock that the fattened parasites burrow into.
I retrieve the chunk from the ground and place it into my duffle bag.
The golden dog-tag around my neck heats while glowing. His voice is faint as I let Rufus out.
The frisbee has formed into a muzzle around Rufus’ mouth. I’m prying at it but it won’t budge.
I’ve no idea what’s to be done, with Rufus staring expectantly up at me.
While pondering the faint words he just shared, the land mass I occupy undergoes development.
“The universe is what you make of it,” my canine guardian-angel offers as parting advice.
It’s sickening to realize I’ve used the last of my Aspect’s conserved energy.
The reflective image of Rufus fades softly before it completely disappears.
Now I know where the dark depression I experienced while in the banishment realm comes from.
The image of Rufus was only a projection of my former guardian. My worries have come true.
Sentel and Rufus are left behind in the banishment realm, just as the