Damn It All to Hell

Chapter 20

The sound of a siren is rushing through my head with the most insistent, yet unobtrusive sense of indifference. I think I’m in an ambulance. They must be taking me to the hospital. I know I’m bleeding severely, but I don’t care. If I could’ve stayed there in Edan’s car, forever looking at his red lips and the deadened brilliance of his eyes, I would have. I wish I could’ve stayed next to him forever, watching his soul escape from the confines of his flesh. I wish I could’ve seen him for just one more second. I wish I could’ve held on a little longer. Why did they take me away?

The ambulance ride is bumpy, and people are talking loudly around my head. I want them all to just shut up and leave me to my thoughts. Don’t they know I’ve just lost the most important thing in the world to me? They’re picking and prodding at my legs, but I can’t feel anything. Their hands are covered in blood and they look concerned, but I know I’m going to live. It’s painfully obvious that I’m going to live and I’m furious about it. Of all the things in life that have happened to me already, it seems ridiculously unfair to expect me to continue living as though nothing has altered my perception of the world. I hate reality.

Edan. All I can think about is how I need Edan right now. Edan knows what I’ve been through. Edan knows what I’m going through. Edan knows...knew. Edan knew. I can’t believe he’s dead. Did they even try to save him? Why did they save me? How did they get me out of the car? Why is this happening to me? What have I ever done to deserve this? I can’t deal with this! Everything was perfect for the first time in my life, and it only lasted two days! Why this?! Why now?!

Pictures of every person I’ve ever seen dead or dying are flashing through my mind at a dizzying speed. The rapid cyclone of sights is making me sick to my stomach. I think I’m gonna puke. Why don’t these people make the thoughts go away? What the hell? I’m seeing people dying. I’m seeing people dead. I’m seeing my mother and my father. I can feel my head in my mother’s lap, my hands in her blood, my face against her dead body. I can feel the frustration of my father. I’m seeing the thoughts that were cluttering his mind as he killed my mother. I know it all!

I’m seeing the faces of everyone I’ve ever met, wincing in agonizing pain. I’m seeing the whole world tragically falling to its death. I’m seeing skyscrapers falling onto crowds of people below. I’m seeing the sun melting and raining down in smoldering meteoroids of dripping, molten lava. I’m seeing the oceans washing over the land, drowning all the terrified creatures and washing them up against piles of jagged rock. I’m seeing mountains falling to their valleys. I’m seeing the sky shattering into a million deadly shards of dissolving clouds. I’m seeing the night sky appearing behind the day sky. I’m seeing the day sky revealing the nothingness behind it. I’m seeing the storms melting into sunlight, melting into snow and rain and hail. I’m seeing thunder and lightning. I’m seeing light and dark. I’m seeing all of the blue turning to red. I’m seeing pain and destruction and rivers of blood.

The birds are falling by the dozens from the sky. All the flying creatures are being thrown to the ground and crushed beneath the falling sky. All the creatures that ever had a heart and ever knew love are spontaneously combusting from the knowledge that all hell has broken loose and all love is dead. Love is dead. Life is dead. Everything is death and darkness.

I can see the face of Satan. I can see his fiery red eyes staring into mine, laughing at my fear and my pain. He’s holding a tiny figure in his gargantuan hand. The tiny figure appears to be desperately scrambling to its feet...It’s Edan. Edan is sitting in the palm of the devil, watching me bleed to death in a misery of abandonment and destruction. Edan’s eyes are turning from blue to red to blue and back to red. They’re slowly becoming evil. All that exists is evil.

The devil is reaching out for me, picking me up with a hand of burning flame. He’s grabbing me by the hair, preparing to drop me from his grasp into the tremendous ravine of his throat. He’s going to chew me up and swallow me, all the while making sure I am alive to feel the pain. He’s growing in size to dimensions beyond the vastness of the universe, and he’s making me grow along with him by multiplying the severity of my pain. He’s throwing all of his effort, all of his greatness, all of the power he’s acquired over an eternity of domination and hatred into the task of keeping me alive, while killing my passion, and all he can do is laugh.

I hate the devil! I hate evil! I hate blood and flames and all the atrocities that have come to be my reality, my pain, my horror, my loss!...I hate everything! I hate! I hate! I hate! The entire world has disappeared into a nothingness of complete and total blackness! The fiery red of Satan and his wrath has faded into a black hole, where I remain alert and awake to hear his dying laughter as he abandons me in the endless blackness of emptiness, loss, and pain, the absence of everything good, the absence of everything, the absence, the absence...the loss...the emptiness...Edan!...help!....somebody help me!....