Howard Bombards Strange Experience with a Talking Cat

Chapter Seven

I was scared. Terrified. Too terrified to move. Actually that was a lie, I was shaking, so I guess I could move. I was rocking back and forth in what felt like a boat, swaying against the waves. I knew we were going somewhere, somewhere dangerous. Somewhere where I might die. Suddenly I felt a hand patting me on the back, and I stopped shaking. I was still scarred out of my mind, but I stopped shaking. The trip on the boat lasted a few minutes. As we rode, I was feeling more and more apprehensious and scared. The ground below me suddenly jerked to a stop. We had grounded. I held something cool and metallic to my chest, and felt my hole-filled shoes touch the warm, wet sand. Now I couldn't hear anything, but I felt them. The explosions. All around me. Blowing up sand and other, un mentionable things against my face. Shaking the ground beneath my feet. I held the gun up, and pulled the trigger. I couldn't feel the bullet, but I sure could feel the knock-back, making me back-step a little. I stopped staggering, and started moving forward, through the land of tremors and screams. Small explosions tore up the ground, but still I kept walking. Through the sand, blood, and bodies. All while feeling the kickback of the weapon in my own hands. Suddenly, I felt a great pain in my shoulder, followed by another in my arm, and one more in the leg. I stumbled back, falling down onto something soft and warm. Another dead body. The pain was unbearable, my whole body was being torn apart piece by piece and stitched back together, only to be broken again. More and more things dug their way into me, pieces of metal, shards of glass, and other bullets. This was too much. I wanted out. This feeling was way longer then the others, and it actually hurt. Why did I try this??!! The pain of dying was real, and it was excruciating. I stayed their, in that half dead, half conscious state, with pain erupting through my skin, for at least 10 minutes. They were the longest 10 minutes of my life. I was at my wits end. My body, mind, and spirit were broken. It was over. I was dying, in both the feeling and in reality. It would never stop. It couldn’t. It was too painful to ever completely stop. But then a miracle happened, on the brink of utter defeat. It stopped. The feelings, the emotions, and most importantly of all, the pain. It was gone. There was only blackness.

I awoke out of the feeling with a sudden jolt. I was back! Back in the real world! After an eternity of pain, I had come back into the land of the living. I looked down at the jar I has holding. It was empty, never to be used again. I tucked the empty jar under my arm and started walking back through the store. The multitude of jars around me no longer interested me. Sure, feeling others feeling was nice and fun, but it wasn’t worth it. Those were others feelings. I’d rather have my own adventure through the plains, riding on horse back. I’d rather command my own army, or roll through the grass in the local park. This was the first thing I learned when trying to bring back red into my life. The second thing, well the second thing I learned, the hard way, is that no matter how bad an experience is, you cant just wish your way out and expect to be done with it. You have to push through. Now, I only realized these lessons once I got home, for now I was just focused on getting back to the car, finding cat, and moving on. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I wanted to get as far away as possible. I had just had the most horrifying, scary, and painful experience of my 35 years in life, and I had had enough. Perhaps if I was paying more attention, I would have seen that the whole store had changed color. It was all now a bright red, all the candy in the jars gaining the same red tone. As I walked, I found my self still clutching the empty jar I thought of what I had just experienced. I had faced the thought of death before, but never cared too much about it. Now I knew the fear, and pain, that dying brings along, and I was afraid, but also strangely calm. I had survived, and pushed through. Stopping a few meters in front of the door, my thinking was interrupted as Pop-out said to me

“Leaving in such a hurry? Don't you want to buy anything? We have great prices, and an even greater selection of feelings!”

“Then how do you explain this?” I said as I held up the jar to Pop-outs face.