The Narrator

Void

Nothing.  Floating.  Blackness.  I’m curled up with the book and pencil still clutched in my hand.  It’s cold.  I can hardly breathe.  There is no need to breathe here.  I wrote in the book, it’s silent.  Even the sound of pencil and paper is gone.  Am I alone?  There is a friend here.  I get the feeling that someone is watching me.  I look around me only to see total darkness.  I can’t feel anything, even the coldness of the void is feelingless.  I mouth the words, Is anyone out there, but it’s silent and lifeless.    I think of when I was a kid.  I dreamed of being on an island in the middle of the sea.  The waves splashing and roaring.  I suddenly hear water.  I look around to see an ocean, there’s an island made of sand.  A single palm tree stands withering without light.  As I thought that, a billion stars appear above my head.  I see the moon manifest in its brilliance.  The water is cold, I can breathe but I don’t need to.  I swim to the island, the sand crunches and sticks to my wet feet.  A crab scuttles along the ground not bothering to acknowledge me.  I rise above the ground higher and higher into the night sky.  I get to a point where I can hear the sound of wind gusting past my ears.  The sun becomes visible on the edge of the horizon and I can finally see where I am.  It looks like earth.  The old earth.  The pictures of earth when it wasn’t in war or famine.  It was perfect, peaceful, and very beautiful.  I dashed to my home.  The wind ripping at my clothes, I fly faster than the earth's rotation and I’m there.  I land on my feet, “Is anyone here?”  It looks exactly how I remember it.  Few Swedish style homes all along the seaside.  Is this really Alaska?  There are homes, buildings and cities from what I saw above.  Now here there are no people, not an animal or thing alive in sight.  I fell to my knees and began to wonder what to do.  I start weeping bitterly.  I killed them all.

A sudden boom and the door is blasted open.  Ice-Ravens storm the building looking for Eddy.  Eddy’s parents are threatened with their lives right in front of him.  They were then stabbed through with spears and thrown aside like trash.  Eddy crawls to the door and escapes down the alley outside their house.  A beautiful girl not much older than Eddy picks him up and runs away.  She takes him to a basement where two parents take the child.  The girl then leaves Eddy with them and vanishes into the crowd now gathered in front of Eddy’s burning house.  Some people try to put out the fire.  Others weep for their friends passing.  Many other people riot and attack the Ravens.  Those that did were either captured or killed.  Eddy put his head into the shoulder of the mother and fell asleep with tears on the edge of his eyes.

I wake up to a rustling in a bush across from where I am standing.  I walk over and brush away the leaves.  As soon as I do that, a cat rushes out from the bush and runs off.  I guess I’m not alone.  I stroll down the street, scraping my shoes on the gravel and kicking stones left and right.  I hear a faint voice from behind me,

It repeats again, “eddy,”

“Who’s there?” I say quickly.

“eddy, it’s me,” it says, still at a whisper it sounds metallic and fake.

I tilt my head looking into the shadow of a house's basement.  “Who are you?”

“It’s Me,” it says again, this time it’s voice was dark.  Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.

I walk slowly toward the basement, “What are you?”  I say, as I start to lift the window up for its place.

A dark shadow comes out of the basement grabbing my throat, “Welcome Eddy,” it pushes me back against the wall.  We’re floating about a foot from the floor.  It’s face was pale, and it’s hands were old and ragly.  It was dead, but alive.  The ghostly darkness floated around itself like a fire.  I kicked it back and I fell through the wall.  Scrambling across the floor leaning against the wall within the building.  I rise to my feet as it crashes through the window.  I clasp my hands into fists and decorated circles form in front of them.  It punches at me and I block the disk.  It pushes against the disk with impressive strength but it also begins to turn hot red.  It screeches and pulls back.  I then pull out a rope and strap it to the creature pulling him to me.  It cry’s out screeching b****y murder as it’s body starts melting through.  I tie the rope to a post and run down the stairs and out the house.  Running down the road I’m suddenly pushed to the ground.  Sandy dirt gets in my mouth, and as I stand I spit the gritty paste to the ground looking behind me at the creature.  It grins, “Eddy, it’s time to let go,”

I grasp it’s neck with two ropes and swing my arms wide.  I duck as the shadow wips past my head.  “Let go of what?  My past?  It’s part of me, It’s what is left of who I am.”

It looks up at me, stopping itself from flying any further away.  “No, Let it go,” it rises to its feet, still floating above the earth.  “You can’t move on until you let go,”

I start to walk away, “I have nothing left to let go of,” it moves in front of me and puts its hand on my shoulder.

“You have God left, and that’s more than enough.  Promises you made were broken but not by your choice.  You would have kept them.  You can no longer keep them, there is no need for them anymore.  All that matters is that you would have kept them were you allowed.  It doesn’t matter how people respond to your deed, as long as you did it out of a good and loving heart.”  it’s voice was clear now, and calm.

I look up to nothing, “Who were you?”  There is no response.  I kneel down onto the sandy ground looking up.  I weep bitterly because of what I’ve done.  There’s always been a demon knocking at my door.  He wants in so desperately he’ll destroy everything in my life just so that I’ll let him in to ruin my friends lives.  I’m afraid I let him in, which is far worse than I could have imagined.

Set things back the way they were before I destroyed it all.  I wrote, finally, returned.