Cutting toward Calvary

Chapter 4

I'm in a white room. Actually, it's more like my spirit is in a white room and I'm looking down upon myself. I'm wearing the black, floral dress that I had once worn to my friend Elizabeth's funeral. Before me, in slow motion, black and red rose petals rain onto the floor of the white room. My admiration for the beautiful storm of petals fades quickly when I see Elizabeth walking toward me in her "death dress."

 

I'm immediately swimming through foggy flashbacks of finding Elizabeth dead, facedown in the woods, and lying stiff on the autopsy table.

Yes, I found her myself, but I don't mention it too often. Her screams haunt me at night anyway.

I had been drunk that night. When I found her, I was out for a walk blowing off some steam, when my anguish led me to a forked path in the woods. I decided to take the one foreign to me.

The longer I traveled down the path, the thicker the canopy of trees became, making it unusually dark. Also, an eerie silence crept up my spine as if death itself was nipping at my ankles.

Scarlet droplets and splotches dotted the bushes on the right side of trail. Pretty sure it wasn't Kool aid. Taking a step forward, my foot sank into a puddle, not a water puddle, but a blood puddle. When I looked down and realized what it was, I stared straight ahead, scared stiff, and saw that their was a distinct trail where someone had  been dragging something out into the deep recesses of the woods.

My thoughts were interrupted by a high pitched voice.

"My baby," says Elizabeth.

"What?" I reply.

"Did they save my baby before I died?"

Oh my God. She was pregnant, with James's baby!

"No Elizabeth, the baby must've died with you. I'm sorry."

A silver tear streams down her cheek. They say there are no tears in heaven, and if this isn't heaven, why all the white?

"Forgive me, Alexa. I betrayed our friendship and your trust by being with James behind your back. If I could change it all, rewrite the past, and have things the way they used to be, I would."

My chest, which was about to burst open, untightened a bit.

"Do you really mean that?"

"No you skinny slut," She spat out mischeviously. "You are one sorry excuse to existence. You don't deserve air."

Her body began to shudder and her tears turned to blood.

She continued,"I made sweet love to him and I'd do it again if I could. He gave me the ride of my life, literally. He rocked my world."

She laughed hysterically and touched herself, showing me the things that he done to her, while their moans filled the room.

Blood seeped out of every opening of her body and the room faded to a deep scarlet.

I blushed and ran toward her, forcing her shoulders to the floor.

"I told him I didn't like being on bottom, and now I'm telling you too."

She turned into one of the two men who had kidnapped me so long ago. He rolled over on top of me and added, "Alexa, you're forgetting the lesson I gave you."

His hands slid down my body, when I grabbed them and head banged him aggressively.

"No! This is not real! It's a dream!" I shout.

The man faded back to the horrific sight of Elizabeth covered in dirt and blood.

"You can't fight the darkness, Alexa. It's coming for you. It's coming and it won't stop until it gets you," She said.

She shrieked wildly and leaped off of me as the creature that had been disguising itself in her skin ripped out from beneath her flesh.

It's body was as red as a boiled lobster, splotches with black debris and ruins. A face as ugly as sin was staring at me with charcoal eyes and the most evil expression I've ever known.

A heat wave hit me as it turned around and smacked me across the torso with its barbed tail.

I woke up in a cold sweat and my side was stinging like no other. I lifted up my shirt to see that I had a large, bloody laceration, but isn't that impossible? It was just a dream, yet I have this huge wound and scratches.

Tears began to stream down my face like a river. I'm insanely scared and confused. I've just encountered the devil himself.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a deep voice tells me, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Light conquers the darkness."

Who was that?

Through the silk curtains in my room, I realize that the sun is rising up over the mountains. It's such a beautiful sight. I tell myself it was just a dream and get up to begin the day. After all, it is Sunday, and I get to go to church and see my long lost childhood friend.

Just when I thought I may be able to steady my mind a bit, I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, to step on a single black rose.