A Stranger In A Strange Land

Untitled Part 1

Prologue

Pain was a familiar companion, one that I had long accepted would be a constant. I had forgotten what it was like not to hurt. I still was not prepared for the tsunami of agony and loss that slammed into me, the current grabbing me in a Titan's grip, sweeping me away. I was drowning, lost in a vortex of death, of the screams of trillions of voices, the waves crashing into my mind and pulling me deeper, deeper, deeper into the abyss until I was trapped, unable to tell up from down. Not that I had been able to tell that for months, or maybe even years, by now. Not with their hooked claws ravaging my mind on a constant basis, feeding on all of my self-doubts, forcing me through a mental gauntlet where black was white, right was wrong, truths were lies, and everyone I ever loved was gone.

I knew the moment when everyone I loved was truly gone. Their voices were among many, so many, in the tidal wave of screams burying my psyche.

After that, I got my wish. There was no pain. There was nothing. I knew nothing. It was oblivion and it was Hell, barely better than the claws and the twisted labyrinth my mind had become.

There was no telling how long I was in that state. A few minutes? Days? Years? Decades? Time had no meaning in Hell. Time didn't exist, nothing existed, there was only the darkness, the screaming silence of the void. I screamed, a sound that wasn't a sound, a gesture without meaning.

I didn't want to leave.

Warmth came, warmth and softness. A hand stroked my filthy tear-stained cheek, lips and tongue pried my mouth open. A taste flooded over my own tongue, filled my throat, suffocating, sent electricity into my sinus cavities.

I opened my eyes against the glare of the first light I'd seen in forever. A beautiful face, dark blonde hair over a sapphire gaze. Blood covered his face, poured out of his nose. I perceived other wounds. One wing had been ripped off. A gaping hole in his chest was the fatal one.

"Live," he rasped and then fell.

And I screamed.

Fire arced through me, and I howled, my back bowed and my limbs rigid. Lightning zapped my bones and flames consumed every cell. Where I once saw only darkness, I now saw light, blinding and nerve-searing. It bathed me even as it became me and I became it, the light and the fire engulfing my very being, my heart, mind, body, and soul.

It was unrelenting agony.

It was glorious.

There was nothing again. After a while I slowly cracked my eyes open. I saw flames that became more defined as my vision cleared. I tried to move but my muscles screamed at me. My very bones hurt, but I knew I had to move. They might come back.

There was no they however. Just scorched ground and bodies. Some of them at least were them but not all.

Get out, run, while you still can, before they return, before their hooks dig back into your mind and send you under...

No. It didn't matter how much I hurt, I had to get away. I ran. Instinct took over and I tore blindly down the rocky corridor, running through flames and smoke without a care, way past caring about being burned. No burn could come close to the suffering I'd already endured.

I saw light and I ran toward it. I was running too fast and crashed into the stone walls numerous times. A particularly sharp stalagmite sliced my hip open and my blood gushed all over my pelvis and down my leg, soaking the ground I ran on. I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.

I heard voices, shouting. They knew I was free and were coming for me. No! I turned away from the voices and ran, the stone walls forming a maze that didn't quite rival my inner labyrinth.