[ I hope this isn't too late! My boyfriend hijacked the ipad so I couldn't work on it for a while ]
Title: The Game of Fate
Prompt: #6
Words: 4,738
The only words anybody wants to hear in a world filled with nightmares is "Wake up", especially if those nightmares are as real as fetid breath brushing up against your ear. An unspeakable truth shines within the ruins of your imagination whether you know it or not, the part of yourself that has been lost in the folds of time, the part of yourself that is almost impossible to recover from beneath the miles and miles of dust and degeneration. Some arrogantly think they can overcome their fears with ignorance, while others attempt to face them head-on.
In the end, however, fate is always the last man standing.
------
Something grabbed a hold of him - something unworldly, darker even than the darkness that encroached him. Voices fluttered around him like vagrant moths seeking the light, only there was no light, nothing substantial for him to refurnish any sense of direction. The voices were muddled; they sounded like they were emitting from hundred-year old speakers with too much feedback.
Even if he did know his destination, the only two things he owned to get from point A to point B were malfunctioning at the moment; both of his feet felt like they'd been submerged in buckets full of concrete and something, this unworldly something, was bolting him in place like a goddamn hood ornament.
Still, the voices continued to drill out their sorrowful symphonies, and he was growing quite exhausted from struggling against his invisible captor. Should he just let go? Give into the darkness and float above himself in the embodiment of chattering moths? No, not yet. There's still time, he thought, though he had no idea why he thought it or what it meant.
Suddenly, a woosh of weightless wind washed over him like a tidal wave and the weight relinquished its cumbersome grip on his legs, giving them back their movement. Blinding variegation of lights flooded his path, twisting and turning in a kaleidoscope of geometric colors. The voices stopped like clockwork; it was as if he was standing in front of a stainless glass window in the early morning sunlight. It reminded him of Sunday Mass with his parents, the spectral windows and their vibrant pictures watching without judgement while they replayed their daily hymns and participated in their idolized communion. For some reason, although it never took precedence before, this memory seemed important.
"It's not wise for someone like that to know your name."
The voice wasn't really a voice at all, it was a whispery breath exhaled from the culmination of these strange lights. He was afraid to look away, for to look anywhere else would mean accepting the darkness that had embraced him not so long ago, a darkness that he was certain could only bring death and dismay.
One step forward. Two steps.
Beep, beep, beep.
Three steps.
The lights were stronger now, warm and winsome like an old friend come back to console him, but the other voices had started up again, more frantic than ever and not far behind. And the sound of moths. Thousands and thousands of moths, too close for comfort. The steps turned to sprints - he could feel himself being tugged back by the shirt tail, like a toddler is wont to do when they're having a temper-tantrum. Come back... come back... come back..., the voices crooned.
Beep, beep, beep.
That should be his alarm clock. Surely he would wake up any moment--
"Come back..."
The light engulfed him.
"Please, Bobby, oh please, come back..."
He was the light.
The dazzling series of stainless flares broke off into tiny, pale pinpricks. The anthem of beeps dominated everything else, including the phantom voices he'd heard in a faraway place - or at least, he hoped it was far away, but if he was being honest with himself he knew it was lurking just behind the curtain of his subconscious.
"He's waking up! Holy s**t, he's waking up!"
He heard receding footsteps and desperately wanted to call them back the same way they had called him back, but he couldn't find his voice and was suddenly frightful that the moths in his dreams had stolen it from him. Anxiety clutched at his heart with hooked talons, pulled it up into his throat and he couldn't breathe, why couldn't he breathe? He jerked his left arm, right arm - this was all too familiar, the way his limbs were attached to a heavy nothingness that incapacitated any chance of movement, the way his voice refused to escape from his churning mouth.
He turned his head sideways so he could see what was holding him down; a plethora of tubes and IVs married his arms to a variety of different machines, one of which he recognized as a heart monitor, the sole source of the beeping from his nightmare.
It seemed there was something else that had followed him from his nightmare. A man cloaked in black, his face obscured by a wrinkled hood the color of death - not a man, no, but Something Unworldly - stood just beyond the whirring monitors, hands folded neatly in front of him as if he were at a vigil and grieving the loss of a loved one. Not grieving, he thought. Waiting. But waiting for what? It should've been simple, of course - waiting for him to die - but if it was that simple, he would've already been dead. He was reasonably certain of that.
The footsteps were returning and so was his dread. The mysterious hooded figure didn't disappear or disperse as he expected it to do, but it melted into the sterilized tiles of the hospital floors starting from the top of its head and continuing downward in the form of an oily-black substance, a slithering liquid that seeped into the cracks and crevices until there was nothing left.
"He's confused, Mrs. Ulrich. He may have some memory loss at first. Don't be surprised if he doesn't remember--"
"I can hear you," he finally croaked, relieved that his ability to speak was restored, albeit not to its former glory. "Wh-Where am I?"
The chalky overhead lights were stabbing knives into his eyes, so he squinted them shut. This did nothing to alleviate the newborn migraine now drumming out a Platinum record in his head - not Frank Sinatra, but a heavy death metal band.
A woman with a chubby but beautiful face enfolded his limp torso in her arms and sobbed into his disheveled hair; he felt like he was going to suffocate but was too weak to unhinge her - thankfully, the doctor did it for him. A younger girl - Robin, he remembered, her name is Robin and she's my sister - clutched at his arm affectionately; she had tears in her eyes and a shaky smile.
"What do you remember?" The doctor asked, stooping to shine a small flashlight in first one eye, then the other, switching between the two.
That was a loaded question. He remembered the voices... no, that was a dream, wasn't it? He remembered the darkness and the abhorrence and the Unworldly Something, the strain of lights spraying over him like small stars gushing from a broken water pipe. Most of all, he recalled the message sent to him through the disgruntled waves of his subconscious. "It's not wise for someone like that to know your name."
"Mom," he finally mustered. "Robin... where's Dad? I thought we were going hiking."
They stared at him for what was perhaps the longest moment of his life before his mother broke the silence, glancing questioningly at the doctor who, in turn, nodded. The corner of Bobby's mouth turned down involuntarily as if his mind was preparing him for the worst.
"Robert, you died," she trembled.
"Mom!" Robin exclaimed. "Bobby, you're fine, that's all that matters. You... had a tumor. They removed it but you never woke up from surgery and..."
"You've been comatose for a year today," his mother finished, her words still quaking.
All of them, even the doctor, looked baffled. It was as if they were staring at a dead man come back to life, and it wasn't an expression he took too lightly.
None of it made any sense to him. Wasn't he just walking out the door of his apartment to scream at the obnoxious teenagers across the way for blaring their stereo at three o' clock in the AM? Wasn't he supposed to wake up early for the anticipated hiking trip his family took annually through the hills? There were so many questions that sprang to his lips but they couldn't make up which one to impart first so he remained silent, trying to untie all the tedious knots that formed in his head.
The abnormal visitor he'd glimpsed earlier had all but evaporated from his thoughts in the midst of the excitement of his new cognitive state, but the ominous prediction that something bad was going to happen, and soon, was still preening itself like a proud peacock somewhere deep inside of him.
After hours of slowly-versed explanations and tear-filled embraces, his mother excused herself to fetch a cup of coffee from the cafeteria, leaving him and his sister alone in the room. The only sounds stirring were the incessant chirps of the surrounding machines and routine squeaks of plastic wheels as the nurses made their around-the-clock rounds with their little medical carts.
"We were here to take you off life support," she cracked the ice. Hell, she didn't just crack it, she pulverized it.
"That's nice," he conferred, gazing unblinkingly up at the ceiling. He couldn't remember why, but he was mad at her. Not because she was blunt about the decision to cut his life short on the day he regained consciousness, but it had something to do with his pre-coma days. It must've been menial - maybe she disagreed with the way he dealt with their parents' separation or forgot an important dinner meeting, neither of which would've bothered him now or in the past. So what was really chewing a hole in him?
"'Thats nice'? We were about to kill you, and all you can say is 'That's nice'? How typical."
"Do you really want to argue now? Right now? Go get some coffee, you look tired. I think it's past visiting hours anyways," he retorted in a voice still hoarse from disuse.
He was frustrated that he couldn't go home right away, angry that he was still tied down to a bed he'd been occupying for too many days and too many nights; some of this flaked off and landed on his sister, but he was too stubborn to apologize, even after his ordeal. Maybe he didn't deserve a second chance. Maybe the only reason why he coincidently roused on the day of his assisted death was to make amends with Robin.
"I forgive you," she said in a faraway voice. "I forgive you."
She looked so stricken that he was going to apologize, whether or not it was to save his own a** from slipping back into a karma-induced coma or because he truly felt bad for her disquieted disposition was yet to be determined, but she stomped away before he could say anything. It was probably better that way. He felt more alone with them in the room, but perhaps that was because he was subconsciously enjoying his own company for the past three hundred and sixty-five days and had grown accustomed to it. He had always been a solitary individual.
Night dropped like curtain-call after the last act. It had always been his favorite time of the day.
-------
Bobby sat outside in the courtyard within the confines of his wheelchair listening to the parade of cicadas conducting their own symphonic orchestra and the soft hum of various bug-zappers that hung in the trees around him. For some reason, he did not remember being wheeled out there or where his mother and sister had capered off to. Did Robin leave in frustration at her brother's unwillingness to appease her? Did she somehow convince his mother that he was in a rotten mood and wanted to be left well enough alone? Somehow, he doubted that. His mother was headstrong and violently overprotective of him. It often caused a rift between the two siblings, because she favored him over Robin.
A bug turned to crisp as it hit the zapper, retrieving him from his reverie.
There were moths, of course. They brought him back to the nightmare that had lasted a lot longer than he thought.
As soon as the moths had captured his unwavering attention, the tree-lights began to flicker out one by one, gradually engulfing him in dim darkness; the white lights of the hospital barely touched the vicinity of his parked wheelchair. Something that sounded like an old building cackling under the weight of time and gravity cut through the air around him. Plumes of smoke wafted from his nine o' clock so thick that he had to pull the front of his hospital gown up over his mouth and nose, but his eyes still watered and burned.
He reached for the safety lever with his free hand. It would not budge.
The frightening sound of crackling fire filled the air. He shoved himself weakly from the wheelchair and began to crawl toward the lights of the hospital, his fingers digging into damp moss and dirt. Just as he was about to pass smooth out, the smoke receded just as quickly as it had started, drawing back into the darkness.
Something else emerged from the darkness, however - it made him miss the smoke. Sweat seemed to drip from every orifice.
"Have you come to finish the job?" He coughed, still feeling the affects of an invisible fire that he was starting to wonder had ever existed in the first place. This creature was indubitably playing tricks on his mind.
"What is your name?"
Its voice cracked like the embers from the aforementioned fire, only weaker.
"Are... Are you Death, then?" He would not tell this Thing his name. The faraway voices had told him not to - color him superstitious, or just plain paranoid, but if this creature had migrated from his dream then the warnings had to reverberate with some sort of truth.
The cloaked figure stepped closer, dried leaves crunching beneath its feet. It reached out to him, pulled his face up so that he was staring directly into a swirling black cloud of smoke encased inside its draped cowl. The hand that touched his face wasn't entirely solid; it trickled along his cheek and felt like slick oil. The smell of burning flesh conquered the air around him, striking a lightning storm of fear into his heart.
"Don't you understand...?" It was his own voice now, reflecting back to him. His own screams ripped not from his mouth, but from the creatures'. Surely, Bobby was going mad.
Smoke choked him again.
This Unworldly Something was exhaling it into his face as if he were dragging on three cigarettes at once, only it wasn't the smell of cigarettes, it was the smell of festering dead bodies.
Anger rose up in his chest. That, coupled with revulsion, spurred him into action. Jerking his chin from the Thing's cold, vaporous grip, he began to drag his body in a different direction, not completely in use of his legs at the moment but filled with enough adrenaline to maneuver everything else fairly well.
It was in vain, however. It materialized in front of him like a long shadow, stretching out its arms as if beckoning him to try harder, try harder. It was mocking him. Its laughter was a babbling brook, thin and warbled.
This time, the screams did come from Bobby. This time, the creature slipped the hood from over its head and showed him that the game of fear had only just begun.
After the smoke dissipated from the hollowed contours of its ravished face - a familiar, ravished face - Bobby didn't have time to panic, nor the strength to try and fling himself from the horror. He could only lay there on his belly in the earth's soil and stare, petrified and simultaneously in awe.
In the calmest voice he could muster (it quivered despite his efforts), he said: "I understand now. I remember."
The scant light of the half-moon streaking through the foliage of the treetops fell on the visage of his adversary. It was his own face staring back at him, only badly burned. Flesh peeled away like the skin of a potato, exposing bone as white as the moon that revealed it. Black flakes of cooked skin petered down and joined the scattered leaves on the ground.
Bobby closed his eyes and remembered.
------
"It's not wise for someone like that to know your name. He can find out where you live. He can kill you, Bobby. Don't be stupid!"
"Go home. You're stupid if you think you can save me by following me here. I'm dead either way, right? Inoperable. The doctor said in-Goddamn-operable! You shouldn't be here. You're not the one who's dying."
His sister was sad. She was so sad and he was too furious at the cards God had dealt him that he couldn't register it.
The dispute was exchanged on a street corner that was dark save for a lone light pole winking a feeble hello from the other side. They were alone. The buildings lining the street were mostly decrepit, keeping watch with vacant, shattered windows and boarded-up doors. Graffiti illustrated the chipped brick walls with graphic words and colorful gang signs.
"Go back with me," she pleaded, tugging on his shirt sleeve. He gave her such a scowling look that she literally recoiled, as if he had physically struck her. It wasn't hard to be intimidated by his towering stature; he dwarfed her in size. She was as small as her namesake.
They were always close and amiable in the past, but tonight was different. Tonight was his last night to live.
It was maddening, to have some chum with a degree in medicine, a guy you'd perhaps shoot the breeze with at the bus stop or sit beside on the train while you're reading a book, somebody who was instantly forgettable, announce in a pseudo-concerned voice that you had only months to live. That was only an estimate, of course. He could keel over any day now.
Would he be privy to a bedridden existence for the last remainder of his life, undergoing a series of headachy tests that would likely be a waste of time? No. Time was precious, and he had very little of it.
They proceeded onwards, Bobby in the front and Robin only ten steps behind. Careful not to poke the sleeping lion, mouse.
They finally reached their destination without another word between them. The steps leading up to the small hovel - for that was the only word that could describe this spineless, drab thing, a hovel - were surprisingly sturdy, despite being supported by four breeze blocks.
He chanced a glance behind him before knocking on the the yellow, splintered door and saw something that made him hesitate, and it was not his sister. There stood perhaps the only building on this side of town that wasn't gnawed by time and neglect. He saw a church.
The stainless glass window facing him displayed an entanglement of designs, of dancing cherubs and angels. There was a candle or lantern flickering just inside, for the vibrant colors scintillated to the light of a moving flame.
He wanted to turn back now; it was as if the cherubs, the angels, were judging him for where he stood. And why should this guy have a trap-house in front of a church? Had he no good soul to speak of? Bobby supposed that anyone whom sold drugs to kids was practically without morality.
It was the sight of his sister standing at the foot of the crippled stairs, one hand poised as if to pull him back, that made him change his mind, but he would not put her fragile life in danger. No, she was but a small robin... and she needed to fly away.
"Go home now or I'll tell Mom about your little escapade with Dante at the lake."
She narrowed her eyes.
"Nothing's more important than your safety, Bobby. Please..."
"I'm a grown man. If you don't leave, I'll never forgive you. I'll be on my deathbed with a grudge."
She chewed on her lip for a minute that seemed like hours. He wondered if the junkie was watching them from the blinds, if this sibling dispute would impede his intended business.
"If I don't see you in an hour, I'm coming back. With cops."
"Yeah, that's a swell idea. Bye."
Her feet barely touched the ground as she turned tail to depart. She seemed glad to be convinced that her presence there was unwanted, and he didn't blame her. Even the dim church window seemed malevolent.
For the second time, Bobby raised his fist to knock, but his earlier paranoia at being watched was confirmed as the door creaked open before his knuckles touched the weathered door. A slither of light fell on the stoop where he stood. The stench of stale cigarette smoke and spilled beer hit his face like a whirlwind, but he maintained sense enough not to stumble back from fear of causing offense. He opted instead to reach his hand out for a good handshake.
The man - if you could call him that, he was too boyish to be older than seventeen - gawked openly at the outstretched hand for a moment before turning to the side to pardon entrance. Bobby retracted his hand and wiped the beaded sweat that had accumulated there off on the leg of his ragged jeans. He wasn't one to enjoy awkward moments like this, but they didn't particularly bother him, either.
"You must be Bobby," the kid said. A wet cigarette hung loosely from the corner of his chapped lips and moved as he talked. Bobby, who was almost entranced by this eccentricity, nodded; he'd never seen someone covered in so many tattoos. The drug dealer didn't have a shirt on. The most prominent tattoo was the one just above his waistline, a moth with a mouthful of sharp, jagged teeth. He didn't know if the anatomy of moths even required mouths, but was fairly certain that they didn't have teeth. No, not at all.
"Nice ink," said Bobby casually. "I don't have any, but I've always wanted the ace of spades. Right there." He used his fingers as a protractor on his wide shoulder to indicate the size he supposedly wanted this ace of spades, but the kid had already turned away laughing.
"They call me Mothman," he said nonchalantly. "On account that Methman's already taken." He had a drawn-out southern cadence that would otherwise be pleasant if it weren't for the fact that this kid was about to sell him coke, but he bet many folks had been lulled by it. Bobby would not be fooled.
"Was that your girlfriend?" Mothman asked, pulling a black hoodie from a hook beside the door. It was two sizes too big for him. He yanked the hood up so Bobby could barely see his face.
"No," he responded simply, no details involved. He refused to condemn his sister to his own self-inflicting cause.
"That's nice."
A deep-throated dog barked loudly from somewhere in the back. By this time, Bobby had positioned himself on the dilapidated couch and riffled through his front pocket for the crumpled-up twenty-dollar bills he'd stashed there earlier. The dog alarmed him only a bit. Mothman was far more intimidating.
The wiry and untamed drug-dealer disappeared into the kitchen after grabbing Bobby's money from his hands. At this point, he just wanted to leave. With or without the drugs. There was something peculiar about the way Mothman's eyes moved from side to side in his head. Why did his friend recommend this crazy a*****e?
There was a lot of rustling in the kitchen. Something was sloshing, like water in a bucket.
All of a sudden, everything went mad. One second, Bobby was twiddling his thumbs on the couch that smelled of dog urine and ashes, and in the next the kid was skirting the bare wall beside him with a large, red fuel container. He was pouring it out while the cigarette still hung from the corner of his twitching mouth.
"What are you doing?"Bobby began to panic. No, he was twelve miles past panic; he was almost delirious with terror. "Whaddyadoing, whaddyadoing?" His speech became rapid and nonsensical. He was already up and off the couch, headed toward the door.
The Pit Bull, apparently sensing trouble, bounded out of nowhere and knocked Bobby to the floor before he could suss out his exit strategy. It snapped its jaws closed just inches from his face; it could've taken off his entire nose.
"Rosco!" Mothman reprimanded, relieving himself of his gas-pouring duties long enough to snap his fingers. The dog emitted an elongated whine from the back of its throat but did not remove itself from Bobby's frozen body. He was afraid to move on account of the dog's mental status being as incompetent as its owners'.
"I heard you and your little girly talking. I heard some s**t I didn't like. Cops? Who the ******** are you, to bring the law dog down on me? Well, meet my own law dog, friend."
Mothman snapped his fingers again and the dog's viscous jaws clasped onto Bobby's shoulder. He screamed in agony and tried to pull the thing's head away with both his hands to no avail. The dog jerked from side to side and tore a chunk of flesh and tendons away. He began to cry hysterically, still weakly trying to shove the big hunk of Cujo off him.
This had been a mistake. A really big mistake that was now going to cost him his life. He thought he'd made peace with his impending death, but not like this. He did not want to leave the world as a scorch-mark upon this earth, nor did he want to be a pile of ragged dog-scraps.
"Please!" He shouted. Blood gushed like a geyser from his wound.
Bobby craned his neck back so that his eyes, once pools of a dark, muddy brown, now red with tears and splashed blood, could just make out the figure of Mothman's hooded physique with the empty gas can poised theatrically in his outstretched hand. His smile was haunting.
A shrill whistle brought Rosco off his target and leaping to his owner's side, his tongue lolling almost comically out of his large red mouth, saturated by Bobby's blood. He tried to roll over without success. A sharp pain strummed nightmarish lullabies through the entirety of his body, and even the hope for his continued existence, however short, couldn't pry him from the spot. The only thing he managed to do was wrap the hand of his uninjured arm around the gushing wound. Sweat drenched his face and trickled into his eyes, burning them. But it wouldn't burn as much as the fire. Not by a long shot.
Mothman expelled smoke from his dragon-mouth and flicked the cigarette into the long puddle of gasoline before retreating out the front door, his loyal companion right at his heels. The last thing Bobby remembered was the choking heat and the billowing column of smoke that all but encompassed him.
And the hooded face of his killer, laughing out smoke like a choo-choo train while he tipped the fuel container over, maniacally setting Bobby's life on fire with the gentle cast of one damn cigarette. His sister's warning, "It's not wise for someone like that to know your name", wailed like the sirens of the speeding fire-trucks inside his head.
------
When he opened his eyes in this dark, wet spot that was his own afterlife, his own death, he let the smoke engulf him, let it carry him away into the midnight wind like a bad memory that has been forgotten.
The game of fate was over, and fate had won.
Checkmate.
100
200
100
