May [H.S]

00

•••

Somewhere in California...

Metal, choking sensation permeated through my lungs and out of my nose. My body is nonexistent in judgment, with the saturating, profound, and sickening stench. A state of paralysis only the hardest of drugs could match. Hysteria held me by the roots of my hair, each and every ounce of rationale ripped from my conscious being. The pound of my heart, heave of my chest. Quiver and shake of my trembling limbs, a nightmare recreating over my open wide eyes.

No- wake up. Please wake up.

Thick, red liquid pools out in front of my paralyzed eyes, gruesome, metallic, an odor that sends gagging sensations down my throat. A hand squeezing the delicacy of my windpipe. Spiders of electricity shooting long draw-out shivers of my spine. Each more nauseating than that last.

It was just like the movies, splattered all over. Only to be described as grotesque— crime scene. A mind-boggling mess of human bodily functions, scarlet was all I could see in my line of vision.

Blood. The same shade of red-lipstick-covered angels I dreamed about regularly. Red.

Cerise, cherry. Gushing in places unseen, a horror film reenacting right before my very eyes. The only part that the movies forgot to leave out was how suffocating and cold blood was. A smell that would now stain my nightmares as much as my clothes. A wine spill on a white pristine dress.

God, it reeked.

The glow in my irises reflects a smoldering flame, encapsulating the mounds of blood before me. I can't move, stuck in the puddle of cold, thick, awful-smelling substance. Freeze, fight or flight, easier said than done. All I can do is stare, hoping my eyes fly open to the sight of dusty blue skies.

Wake up. A voice murmured from within, Wake, they shouted at me this time, a honeyed tone echoing in my eardrums. Discreetly rumbling from my skull. Mellifluous, sweet nothings. Tucked in gracefully with a hint of French.

C'est l'histoire de la vie.

I suppose.

The growing heat snaps me out of the occurring nightmare, fire before me had grown immensely. Roaring with waves of such delight, colors reflecting onto the bloodshot green that admired them. No rhyme nor rhythm, nothing could control the conquering massacre.

Sucked into the dangerous beauty of burning fuel, sunset apricot orange, blood red. I dwindle into a chasm of delirium.

Fire. Slews of it.