Morbid Fantasy

Chapter 4

there's a cool concrete slab underneath my feet where my chair is sitting, and then from as far as I can see, there's just a flat field of daisies. 

no other flower.

the only thing remotely different is their colors, blue, yellow, pink, orange. 

the sky was cloudless, and everything was eerily silent, no birds chirping, or grasshoppers singing, not even bees buzzing, I was expecting them to swarm this beautiful nectar-filled paradise. 

Why the fuck would that man bring me here? 

if he wanted to unsettle me, it was working. 

I cupped my hands around my mouth like a megaphone and yelled into the distance, "Hello? is anyone there?!" 

no one answered of course. 

I reached down to untie my feet from the ropes still binding them to the chair when a hiss from my right side startled me into looking up. And right in my face was a fucking snake, one of those venomous ones. its little maraca thing on the end of its tail shaking in anticipation.

I slowly got up from my chair and backed away. "Good snakey," I held my hand up as if that would keep it calm.  "Good snakey, I'm just going to go now and you can hunt for some nice field mice. ok?" It just tilted its head and slithered closer. 

"Stay snakey, stay." as you can tell, I'm a very very experienced animal whisperer. 

hah. sarcasm. 

even though I wasn't threatening, the fucker still launched its springy body at my throat and clutched tight. pain laced through me as blood dripped down my neck and the venom spread through my veins.

my stupid heart stopped.  

...

I woke up to the blindfold over my eyes again. 

I could feel the concrete cooling my toes, and sending shivers down my spine. I checked, and my wrists and ankles were tied with rope to the rickety wooden chair as before, and still, everything was silent. Silent as the dead. 

my heart pounded rapidly against my chest, like a bird flapping its wings, which shouldn't have been possible since I could have sworn that snake finished me off. 

my breathing quickened as I tried to undo my ropes again, I wanted to see if the daisy field was still there and to see if one of my fucking nightmares was actually coming true. 

one of my night screamers involved me waking up in a field of some sort and just dying and coming back over and over until I actually go insane. it usually takes around 100 deaths to get me that far, but that's not possible so I'm just going to leave it. 

this cant is happening. 

I pinched myself, didn't work.

slapped my face, no dice. 

I was trying to avoid taking my blindfold off because that's the only thing separating reality and the horror movie I'm probably in. 

even if this was a creepy version of my fucked up imagination, I still bolted when I heard the tell-tale hiss of the snake that killed me the first time. 

and when I stepped off the cold cement, I landed not on soft dirt, but roots and dead leaves. 

my stomach filled with dread.

not this, not right now. 

I prayed to whatever gods were watching and prayed that this wasn't real. 

my blindfold caught on a tree branch and ripped away from my face. 

the gods weren't being very considerate. 

a dead forest met my widened eyes, and familiarity filled up my thoughts. this was the forest of my dreams, the same forest in them all. the hard ground was blanketed by a thin layer of newly fallen snow, and the trees were spindly and black as coal. the sky gray as wet stone. 

I saw smoke in the distance, past a few hundred yards of rotten twigs. it smelled of home. 

don't go there. that's where the sugar witch lives. So I left the promise of warm blankets and coffee behind. 

so I headed straight through the cold, still with no shoes. 

cruel. 

a juicy apple dangled from one of the trees, so out of place in this dead world. 

my stomach rumbled, and then I was reminded of how hungry I am. I haven't eaten since supper, and it was surely noon by now. 

I wonder if my mom woke up to me missing, maybe called the police to help look for her only child left, or maybe she already gave up, wallowing in her sorrows because her whole family was taken from her. 

I reached for the apple and bit into it, savoring the juicy taste as it went down my throat. 

but when I looked down at the apple to take another bite, it was black and rotted down to the core. 

I dropped it and fell onto the fluffy snow, and the last thing I saw was someone appearing through the bushes and walking towards me slowly like I was a wounded animal that needed rescuing. maybe I did. because my vision was blurring and the world died in a flurry of winding colors.