Moda în fiecare deceniu, anii 1900-2000
 
1900
  Între 1900 și 1909, moda era marcată de eleganță și opulență, caracteristice perioadei edwardiene. Femeile purtau rochii lungi cu siluete în formă de S, obținute prin corsete strânse care accentuau talia și fuste largi care adăugau volum. Materialele preferate erau bogate și luxoase, precum mătasea, satinul și dantela, iar rochiile erau adesea împodobite cu broderii și volane delicate. Accesoriile elaborate, cum ar fi pălăriile mari, decorate cu flori, pene și panglici, erau esențiale pentru completarea ținutelor feminine. Bărbații purtau costume formale, de obicei compuse din jachete de dimineață, veste și pantaloni asortați, completate cu pălării melon sau cilindru. Stilul masculin era sobru și elegant, reflectând statutul și respectabilitatea purtătorului. Tendințele modei din această perioadă erau influențate de dorința de a exprima statutul social și prosperitatea, într-un context de stabilitate economică și culturală. În ansamblu, moda anilor 1900-1909 reflecta valorile și aspirațiile societății edwardiene, punând accent pe rafinament, detalii complexe și o estetică grandioasă.
 
1910
  Între 1910 și 1919, moda a trecut prin schimbări semnificative, influențate de evenimentele sociale și politice ale vremii, în special Primul Război Mondial. În prima parte a deceniului, stilurile erau încă elaborate, dar au început să devină mai simple și mai practice pe măsură ce războiul a progresat.Femeile purtau rochii cu linii mai fluide și mai relaxate, fără corsetele strânse ale deceniului anterior. Siluetele s-au alungit și s-au simplificat, iar talia s-a coborât. Rochiile de zi erau adesea confecționate din materiale mai practice, cum ar fi bumbacul și lâna, reflectând nevoia de funcționalitate. Moda masculină a devenit, de asemenea, mai practică. Bărbații purtau costume mai simple și mai confortabile, cu sacouri mai scurte și pantaloni mai largi. Uniformele militare au influențat și moda civilă, aducând un stil mai utilitar și funcțional. Perioada 1910-1919 a fost marcată de tranziția de la opulența edwardiană la simplitatea și funcționalitatea dictate de circumstanțele războiului, reflectând schimbările sociale și economice ale timpului.
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2024.05.17 12:51 bullishbehavior Extending fan wire
 
    
 
I bought a fan and the electrician said they can’t extend the wires as I am trying to use it with a 72 inch downrod. So does that mean I need to confirm before buying that the fan has wires long enough for a 72 inch downrod and thus the wires can’t be extended.
 On another note, is there any issues with using a threaded downrod on a fan that came with unthreaded? 
 
   submitted by    bullishbehavior    to    electrical  [link]   [comments] 


2024.05.17 11:32 MathematicianBig7282 why there's "!!" on every tab on jupyter lab interface
code running without issue. It weren't there idk what happened but it started to appear suddenly.What's reason and how can i solve this,ik it's probably pretty easy and stupid thing but sorry for that and thanks in advance
 
   submitted by    MathematicianBig7282    to    Jupyter  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 11:30 MathematicianBig7282 why there's "!!" on every tab on jupyter lab interface
 
    
 
Code’s running without problem.It weren't there idk what happened but it started to appear suddenly.What's reason and how can i solve this,ik it's probably pretty easy and stupid thing but sorry for that and thanks in advance
 
   submitted by    MathematicianBig7282    to    JupyterLab  [link]   [comments] 


2024.05.17 11:28 PirateLord9101 H: Tradelist W: Offers
H: Tradelist W: Offers
 H: Tradelist W: Offers
 AA/e/90, Gatling gun, Lmg
 AA/50C/25 Fixer(2x), Handmade, Tesla Riffle, Dragon, Combat shotgun, Pipe Revolver, BP Pistol, BP Plunder, Em, EPR perfect mods, AD
 AA/25A/Dur EPF
 AA/25/Dur .50, Minigun (2x) epr
 AA/E/15R Pipe Pistol,
 aa/25/90 Gamma gun, epp, flamer
 AA/25/Dur NU Laser Riffle, Fixer, Hm, Gamma gun, Holy fire
 AA/50C/15c epp, AD
 AA/Ap/25 Holy fire
 AA/25a/Dur AGL,
 AA/Pa/1s Grognaks Axe
 AA/50C/90 Grognaks Axe, NU Laser Riffle, epp
 AA/50L/25 Tommy gun
 AA/50C/15r Hm
 AA/e/15c RR (2x), Em
 AA/25/25 lmg(2x) EPR, Rail, Fixer
 Aa/25a/90rw AGL
 Aa/e/25 Pipe Bolt Pistol, Radium, Fixer
 AA/40/40 Ski sword
 AA/50c/50bs Compound Bow
 AA/40pa/50bs chainsaw
 AA/40pa/1S Blue ridge Iron
 AA/E/25 Fixer(3x), .44 Pistol
 AA/40/40 Chainsaw (2x)
 AA/25a/25 epr 2x
 AA/50h/15c EPP
 AA/50h/50bs EPP
 Aristocrat:
 Ari/Pa/40 Chainsaw
 Ari/50/25 Cryo
 Ari/E/15r Minigun
 Ari/50C/Dur CR
 Ari/25/25 Epr
 Ari/25/50bs epp
 Assassins:
 A/50c/25 Hm, Single Action Revolver
 a/e/Dur Gatling gun
 Aa25a90rw AGL
 A/25/50bs Plasma Pistol
 A/25/15r Laser Pistol
 Berserk:
 Be40/40 Drill
 Be25/25 epp
 Berz/e/25 10mm sub
 Bloodied:
 B40Pa/1a Bear arm
 B/50C/15C Hm ( 2x ), Pumpgun, .44 Pistol, Rwr, Epr perfect mods, Bow, Lever
 B/50C/25 Chainsaw, Auto Pipe, BP Plunderbuss, Handmade, Em
 B/E/25 lmg, combat riffle , AR, 10mm, Pipe riffle, Single Action Revolver, Radium
 B/25/Stealth 10mm
 B/E Black powder Riffle
 B/Ap/25 Ul Laser Riffle, Gamma gun
 B/50L/25 Hm
 B/25/Dur RR ( 2x), Agl, Ugl, Flamer
 B/e/50bs Combat riffle, BP Pistol
 B/25/15r Gauss, 10mm, EPF, Cryo,
 B/25/25 combat riffle, gatling plasma, Radium, gp, gl, Handmade
 B/Bash/50bs Minigun'
 B/50h/25 Fixer
 B/25/90 epp with alligned flamer, lmg, Gatling laser, Cryo
 B/40pa/40 chainsaw
 B/e/90 AR
 B/50l/50bs Peppershaker
 B/25/50bs Plasma Thrower, Laser Pistol
 B/e/90 lmg, Gatling
 B/50c/90 EPP
 B/25a/50bs epp
 B/50c/15r Em
 B/25a/90 lmg, gl
 Be15r fixer
 Executioners:
 Exe/50C/25 Hm (2x), Minigun, 10mm Smg, em
 Exe/E/25 Lever, Combat Shotgun, 10mm Pistol
 Exe/25/25 EPR, Gauss, Lever,
 Exe/50C/15C EM
 Exe/25/Dur Fixer
 Exe/25/15r GP
 Exe/50L/25 GAuss
 Exe/E/15r Pipe Bolt Pistol
 Exe/25/90 Radium, 10mm Smg, Hm (2x)
 Exe/50h/25 Gamma gun, epp
 Exe/e/15r Pipe Revolver
 Exe/25/50bs epp
 Furious:
 F/50C/25 NU Laser Riffle, Radium, CR,
 F/Pa/25 Chinese Sword
 F/25/Dur Minigun
 F/Bash/Dur Minigun
 F/25/25 UGatling Laser, EPR, Radium
 F/Ap/25 GP
 Gourmands:
 G/50h/25 epp
 G/E/15R Radium
 G/PA/25 DC Gauntlet,
 G/50c/25 Flamethrower, Em
 G/e/25 Hm
 G/25/25 rwr
 Instigating:
 I/50c/25 bow
 Inst/Ap/25 epp
 Juggernaut:
 Jugg/50h/25 EPP
 Jugg/e/90 Fixer, hm
 Jugg/e/25 Fixer, RR
 Jugg/25/25 Fixer, Gamma Gun, hm , Cryo
 Jugg/Pa/40Pa Chainsaw
 Jugg/e/15r .50
 Jugg/e/dur .50
 Jugg/50c/25 hm,
 Junkie:
 J/E/25 Hm, RR, Em
 J/25/15r EPR Perfect mods Alligned Auto, AGL, tommy gun
 J/SS/1s Bowieknife, Powerfist,
 J/25/15r RR(2x),
 J/50c/15c RR, Single Action Revolver
 J/25/90 .50,
 J/25/25 Western Revolver, Kabloom
 J/50l/25 epp
 Medic:
 Med/25/25 Fixer
 Med/25/15r Holy Fire
 Med/50c/25 Minigun, AR,
 Mutant:
 M/25/15r AGL
 M/Bash/Dur Minigun
 M/50H/25 EPP Perfect Mods(alligned Auto)
 M/25/25 10mm
 Nocturnal:
 N/E/25 .50
 N/50c/25 Em
 N/25/15r 10mm
 Quad:
 Q/E 10mm, Lever, Gatling gun
 Q/E/25 Lever, Combat Riffle.50, Sniper riffle, Fixer
 Q/25/15r Fixer
 Q/25/90 Hm, Em, Fixer, epp
 Q/E/15C Pipe Bolt Pistol(2x), 10mm Pistol,
 Q/25A/25 Fixer
 Q/50L/25 Fixer, Tesla
 Q/50C/15r .50, Tommy gun Gatling gun, Auto Pipe,
 Q/25/50bs Fixer, Holy fire, DB, Hm, Auto Pipe, Cryo
 Q/50C/Dur Fixer (2x), hm, EPP ,Railway
 Q/E/90 railway, .50 cal, Minigun
 Q/25/25 Pipe Revolver, Ab, EPR, Gauss riffle, tommy gun,
 Q/50C 10mm, Em
 Q/Ap/15r Fixer
 Q/25A/Dur Holy Fire, Gamma gun
 Q/25A/15r Holy Fire,
 Q/E Pipe Pistol, Hunter Riffle, Pumpgun, Combat Riffle, DB
 Q/50C/25 Minigun,Tommy, Plasma Riffle, Gatling gun, Western Revolver, Epr, Radium, Handmade
 Q/50b/25 Tesla, Hm
 Q/50l/15r tesla
 Q/50H/25 Radium, , Western Revolver,
 Q/e/15r hm(2x), Gatling gun, Em, Railway, DB, Pipe riffle
 Q/ls/25 Ab
 Q/25/15c epp
 Q/50h/15r EPP
 Q/e/50bs Rwr
 Q/25/15c Railway (2x) , EPP, Handmade
 Supressor:
 S/e/25 Fixer
 S/25/15r Fixer
 S/50c/25 Hunting riffle
 Two Shot:
 TS/50C/25 Fixer (2x), Hm (2x), Tesla, Dragon
 Ts/25/25 AR, Fixer, epp, Ultracite laser riffle
 Ts/E/Dur Minigun
 Ts/50H/25 Fixer, Radium
 Ts/25/dur Fixer, hm
 Ts/e/25 Pipe Revolver, RWR, Em, 10mm Pistol,
 Ts/Ls/25 Assaultron Head
 Ts/e/15c Lever (2x)
 Ts/25/15r Flamethrower, EPR,
 TS/50c/15c RR, Ab
 TS/50L/25 Em Ts/e/15r lmg
 Ts/25/90, Lmg
 Ts/50c/15c Plunderbuss
 Ts/e/90 Pumpgun, lmg
 Vampire:
 V/50C/15r GP, Gatling Gun
 V/50C/15r Railway
 V/e/dur Hm, Em
 V/e/25, Hm, Em
 V/Ap/25 Fixer
 V/50L/25 Fixer, RR, 10mm, Hm
 V/50C/25 Gauss, Chainsaw, DB(2x), Fixer, 10mm Pistol, handmade
 V/e Lever
 V/25/15c Hm(2x), Gatling laser, epp
 V/25/25 Gatling laser, Pipe Bolt Pistol, Epr
 V/25/50Damage resist EPR
 V/e/15r Western Revolver, Single Action Revolver,
 V/25/15r Plasma Thrower, Gatling Plasma
 V/25a/15r Plasma Thrower
 V/25/90 Gamma Gun, Flamer
 V/50h/25 epp
 Armor Pieces:
 Uny/AP/WWR mixed scout set
 Uny/AP/HTD H Leaver Set
 Uny/Mix/Sent bos Combat armor set
 As/Mix/Cav Usa Set
 Uny/7Explo/Cav FSA La
 OE/AP/Sent Usa LL
 Oe/7Exp/Cryo Fsa LL
 As/7E/AWR Raider PA LA
 Aristo/AP/WWR Trapper RL
 Aristo/AP/Stealth FSA Chest
 As/7Exp/Sent FSA RL
 Oe/7Exp/WWR X01 LA
 Bolst/S/WWR T60 LL
 Uny/Ap/Stealth Trapper RA
 Uny/S/WWR light Metal armor LA
 Uny/I/Cav Wood Rl
 Uny/1S/Wwr Heavy Raider Armor Ra
 Van/P/WWR FSA LL
 Uny/S/Limb Usa LL
 Uny/I/JWR FSA LL
 Uny/Ap/Sent Fsa la (level 40)'
 uny/ap/sneak trapper chest, trapper ra
 Oe/Ap/wwr Raider PA rl ( level 30)
 Uny/1P/Cav fsa Ra
 Uny/S/WWR light Metal La
 Uny/HungeWWR Usa Rl
 OE/1e/FDC Usa ll
 Bolst/I/sentt Trapper LA
 Bolst/S/Sent Wood RL
 Uny/L/WWR Heavy raider LA
 Uny/S/WWR Sturdy leather RA
 Uny/I/Sent Wood LL
 Uny/Cryo/Cav FSA Cp
 Uny/Cryo/Awr Fsa LL
 Uny/I/AWR USA RL
 Ari/Ap/Wwr Heavy metal CP'
 Van/Cryo/WWR Leather CP
 Van/AP/AWR Raider RA
 Bolst/led/Cav Metal CP
 Oe/1s/WWR Metal LA
 
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2024.05.17 11:11 ampharosluvrr every mario game i’ve played tierlist
 
    
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2024.05.17 10:58 Big_Two_6571 Is this a good prebuilt for the price (I'm choosing the i5 so it'll be £1400)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CTJ18QKP?crid=1QEPAKDWKE68Y&keywords=gaming%2Bpc%2Brtx%2B4070%2Bti%2Bsuper&sprefix=gaming%2Bpc%2Brtx%2B4070%2Bti%2Bsup%2Caps%2C169&language=en_US&th=1&dib_tag=se&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.17f26c18-b61b-4ce9-8a28-de351f41cffb&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.xQ0vL9otaGaXjL5WiHfjGKMqF63pUi8ONeTxH1xU0avtr3bgRwvitoGxSAvUDX-EXGdzqK1jO-kOwQWdM3guj2w_jwDgpn6RZDijHaHpkR-FUZCk9CVJEBAqlhMyFsXdMpbHJik_xdsufEpZsYTJrDn7LUiObEgZEWcM37kH6k29qgvJJ2mvDr9WWJTt6OoWo_Tua2lPbBAm2ZxM1q9KrJhPsK-MmGl_uCvMVI3DCsU.7uEGQeLf5GFDgfHaaVZnxEr3lBVK-Uw_qcMcfgx7qn0&sr=8-9&linkCode=gg4&linkId=f4d92ab3fb15c288ce15a3479ecb168e&tag=valentinolega-20&psc=1
 Mb for the long link, idk how to put photos on Reddit 
 
   submitted by    Big_Two_6571    to    Prebuilts  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 10:20 haemyoung_xrb Decoding Swift for Unity Devs - Live Course incl. Q&A and Mentorship
 
    
 
Tuesday, May 28, 2024 [ 10:00 AM PT / 7:00 PM CET ] 👉 Click to Register! 👈
 Are you a Unity developer who knows C# but would like to transition to Swift (Native) to start building apps and games for the Apple ecosystem? (MacOS, iOS, VisionOS)
 With the release of Apple's Vision Pro, widespread adoption might be around the corner, and there is no better time for developers to start learning Swift than today. Of course, plenty of Swift tutorials are already available, but our exclusive live course is designed specifically for Unity developers. We'll cover Swift coding concepts and workflows tailored to your C#/Unity background, helping you master Swift lightning fast and in-depth!
 —--------------------—-----
 
Is this course for you?
 
 
If you are an XR developer (you know Unity and C#) interested in bringing your apps or games to the Vision Pro.
 
You would like to learn Apple’s development tools hands-on to develop native applications for the Apple Vision Pro.
 
You have 2-3 hours of time to spend with us on a live course showing you the similarities and differences between developing with C# and Swift
 
 —-----------—-------------
 
Course Outline:
 
 
The Tools (Xcode, Reality Composer Pro) -- We begin by quickly walking through the prerequisites to get you up and running with XCode. We show some of the similarities between Unity’s component-based MonoBehaviouGameObject System and Components/Entities in Reality Composer Pro.
 
Structs, Views, and Closures (the building blocks of AVP development) -- Unity engineering is built around classes, while Swift-based engineering is built around structs. We will address the implications this has for how state is passed around. We will also look at anonymous methods, which are occasionally used in Unity development and are a central concept in Vision Pro development, which they are called "closures"
 
Nullable variables exist in C#. In Swift, the equivalent is "optional variables,” which are used frequently. We will discuss “nil”, and the “?” and “!” operators. Familiarity with these concepts is critical to understanding Swift code.
 
Enums are heavily utilized in Vision Pro code to implement state machine functionality. We cover Swift’s powerful enum feature and compare it to how enums work in C#.
 
Property wrappers are a powerful feature of Swift that enables you to trigger logic when a value is modified. Although the syntax can look strange initially, we explain property wrappers so that you can use them and recognize them in Swift code.
 
Assignment & Q&A
 
 —--------------------—-----
 
Speaker:
 James Ashley, Apple Vision Pro Lead Developer at Imaginative Universal
 James, with over a decade in spatial computing, computer vision, and machine learning, excels as a Principal XR Engineer at Project Archer, a pioneering AR startup under Walmart's innovation wing, Store No. 8. His expertise spans developing for advanced platforms like Apple Vision Pro, HoloLens 2, and Magic Leap 2. At Project Archer, he spearheaded the engineering for Walmart's Apple Vision Pro app, actively contributing from ideation to coding. James is also noted for his educational contributions to mixed reality development and his passion for enhancing user interfaces with AI.
 👉 Click to Register! 👈
 https://preview.redd.it/zck2qawa4y0d1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f337d048e0285260036e25d2269a7a70975d418
 
   submitted by    haemyoung_xrb    to    xrbootcamp  [link]   [comments] 


2024.05.17 08:54 djoou Dilimize Dair / About Our Tongue
Brief English text: 
 Our traditions are many, and one of them is our language. Yet there isn't one Georgian language, but dialects. Among us we speak many dialects that are distinct, though there aren't plenty of resources to learn them I'm afaid, off we go to our villages dear lads and lasses. Or you may learn standard Georgian and then read the linguistic literature on this topic and learn the bits (not as hard as it sounds once you get there), there are studies on dialectology of Georgian language which also cover our many dialects. How easy it sounds, right? I'll write this post in Turkish since the audience would rather take it that way. 
 Asıl Türkçe post: 
 Gürcü gelenekleri pek çok, bunlardan biri ise dilsel gelenek, yani dilimiz. Bu güzel dil aslında tek bir dil değil, pek çok lehçeden (diyalektten) oluşuyor. Lehçeler kelime hazneleri, telaffuz, gramer gibi esaslar itibariyle birbirlerinden ayrılırlar. Bizde de her yörenin insanı kendi lehçesiyle, şivesiyle konuşurdu: Acara lehçesi, Macahel şivesi, Çürüksu (Gurya) lehçesi, Şavşat'ta İmerhev lehçesi, Ardanuç lehçesi, Yusufeli lehçesi ve sair. Dilimizi, lehçelerimizi öğrenip güzelleştirmenin iki yolu var, ya paşa paşa ana babamıza, dede ninemize vakit ayırıp bir yandan işlerini hallederken bizimle muhabbet etmelerini isteyeceğiz ya da bizimkilerden bir miktar farklı olan Tiflis lehçesi üzerine esas edilmiş standart Gürcüceyi, kendi ifadesiyle Kartli lehçesini ("kartuli ena", Kartli bölgesinin dili yahut "Gürcüce" -bizim lehçelerimizde ise "gurculi ena" veya "gurcuca"-) yeterince öğrenip bu dildeki akademik çalışmalardan faydalanıp dilersek diğerlerini faydalandıracağız. 
 Bazı -facebook, youtube vs- sosyal medya ortamlarında lehçelerimize dair örnekler var az da olsa. "genatsvale.wordpress.com" dışında Türkçe hizmet sunan sistemli bir site bilmiyorum malesef (övmekle bitmez bir hizmet). Ancak "dspace.nplg.gov.ge" adresinde ve bilinen akademik ortamlarda bilhassa standart Gürcüce ile yazılmış pek çok akademik metin mevcut: 
 
 
çveneburebis kartuli (put'k'araz'e)
 
aç'aruli dialekt'i (nijaraz'e)
 
kobulur-aç'aruli dedabrulo h'eli (h'ah'ut'aişvili) -yazı hakkında-
 
dialekt'ologiuri k'rebuli -dergi-
 
z'veli kartuli enis gramat'ika (şaniz'e) -eski gürcüce-
 
turkizmebi kartuli enis samh'rul dialekt'ebşi (çoh'araz'e)
 
samh'ruli k'iloebi - brunebisa da uğlebis z'iritadi p'aradigmebi (pağava, tsetsh'laz'e)
 
kartuli enis geograpia turketşi (çoh'araz'e)
 
kartvelur ena-k'ilota gandasebis sak'ith'ebi (put'k'araz'e, dadiani, h'aç'ap'uriz'e)
 
kartuli dialekt'ologia 1, 2 (corbenaz'e)
 
kartveli h'alh'is etnologiuri leksik'oni aç'ara (mgelaz'e ve diğerleri)
 
kartvelur-turkul samet'qvelo k'odta şerevis k'anonzomierebebi kartvelurenovani muhacirebis ştamomavalta met'qvelebis mih'edvit (put'k'araz'e ve diğerleri)
 
sit'qvats'armoebis tavisebureba t'ao-k'larcul met'qvelebaşi (surgulaz'e)
 
etnograpiuli zeda maç'ax'eli (guceciani ve diğerleri) 
 
 ve daha fazlası. 
 
 
Mixing Georgian-Turkish Spoken Codes According to Fillers (Yusufel Region, Turkey) [sic] (Dadiani, Mikautaz'e) 
 
 gibi az sayıda İngilizce çalışma ile Türkçe literatürde bazı gramer ve sözlük kitapları ile çok az sayıdaki akademik eser de listeye dahil edilebilir. İnternette kimi örneğini bulabileceğiniz, seçmeli Gürcüce dersi (yasal olarak kendine has bir komedi vakası) için hazırlanmış ders kitapları malesef standart Gürcüce ile hazırlanmış. Standart Gürcüce için işinize yarayabilir ancak dedeniz ninenize okusanız pek bir şey anlamazlardı okuduklarınızdan, haberiniz olsun, lehçe farkı o düzeyde yani genelde. Yine de hazırlayanların emeği geçenlerin eline sağlık, nankörlüğün lüzmu yok. 
 Dilin genel konuşulma durumu şöyle: köyde doğup büyümüş ve bugün (2024 yılı itibariyle) ekseriyeti yaşlılığa yakın orta yaşlı ile hayli yaşlı kesim tarafından temsil edilen grup -pratik yapıp konuşma alışkanlığını canlı tuttukları sürece- Türkçe kadar iyi bilirler Gürcüceyi, ancak çoğu basit muhabbet dışında nadiren kullanıyor dili. Onların erken yaşta veya gençken şehre göçmüş çocuklarının çoğu Gürcüce'yi duyup anlayabiliyorlar ancak konuşmaları zayıf, pratiğe ihtiyçları var hızlanmak için. Onların şehirli çocukları ya birkaç kelime biliyorlar ya da hiç bilmiyorlar. Bu konuda basit ama iyi temsil kuvvetine sahip kısa ve öz bir çalışmayı "Türkiye'deki Gürcüler ve Konuşurlarını Kaybetmekte Olan Dilleri - M. S. Ertek (2013)" adlı değerli makalede bulabilirsiniz. 
 Dil ev hayvanı değildir, muhabbet kuşu değildir evde konuşup yaşatasınız. "Dilini evinde istediğin gibi konuş, dışarda konuşma" demek "dilini unut, dilin yok olsun" demektir. Dilin yaşaması için tam teşekkülünü koruması, dilin ifade gücünün korunması ve hayatın her alanında kullanıma hazır olması icap eder. Dili yıllarca duymadan veya dizinizi kırıp eşek gibi çalışmadan öğrenemezsiniz, öğrendikten sonra kullanmadığınız takdirde de hiçbir işe yaramaz ve unutursunuz, vaktinizi israf etmişliğinizle kalırsınız. Gürcüce, az önce bahsettiğim ikinci jenerasyona değin bu memlekette tam teşekkülünü korumuş, ikameye ihtiyacı olmayan bir dildi, Gürcücemiz; şimdi ise yok olmak üzere, diğer tüm geleneklerimizle beraber. Meraklıları için şimdi basit bir kılavuz yazıp bırakıyorum buraya, olur da öğrenmek isteyen olur ve işine yarar diye. 
 St. Gürcüce (standart Gürcüce) 33 harf ve bunlara karşılık gelen seslerle yazılıp konuşuluyor. Asomtavruli denen eski yazı, zaman içinde birkaç kez tarz değiştirip bugün Mh'edruli ya da Mrglovani denen son şeklini alıyor, bu sistemde kelimeler neredeyse her zaman yazıldığı gibi okunur ve söylendiği gibi yazılır (sağdan sola). En eski tam metin örnekleri 5. asırdan olsa da kuvvetle muhtemel Gürcüce birkaç asır evvel yazılmaya başlamıştı ve civarda yazı geleneği -başka dillerde olacak şekilde- çok daha geriye gidiyordu; yazı ihtiyaç doğrultusunda icat olunup kullanılır. Gürcü dilinin bilinen akrabaları sadece Lazca, ona çok benzeyen Megrelce ve bir de Svanca. Eski Gürcüce muhtemel ki önce bugün Türkiye'nin kuzeydoğusunda izole oldu ve Lazca ile ayrıştı, sonra konuşanları bugünkü doğu Gürcistan'a ve sonra oradan bugünkü batı Gürcistan'a göç ettiler (ve bu hamleyle Lazca ile Megrelce konuşanları birbirlerinden coğrafi olarak kopardılar). 
 Pek çok lehçesi olan Gürcüce'yi şimdi genel özellikleri ile tarif edeceğim ki olur da öğrenmek isterseniz neyle karşılaşacağınız hakkında bilginiz olsun. Arada kendi lehçelerimize dair de birkaç istisnadan bahsetmeye çalışacağım farklılıkları vurgulamak için. Aşağıda kimi kuralları verirken basitçe geçiyorum ancak verdiğim kuralların istisnalarının olduğunu lütfen unutmayın, dilin tüm gramerini burada aktarmam zaten teknik olarak mümkün değil, Türkçe'den farklı olarak çok düzensiz ve istisnalı bir dil Gürcüce. Kartvelian gibi sub'lardan da yardım alabileceğinizi unutmayın. Elbette bir İngilizce, Almanca, Arapça değil ancak artık Gürcüce yaşızabileceğiniz yapay zekalar bile türedi, kaynak miktar ve kalitesi yeterli düzeye erişti. 
 Gürcüce'yi Türkçe ile benzerliği üzerinden tarif etmek mümkün. Türkçe gibi, kelimeler "isimler, isimleri niteleyen sıfatlar, isimlerin yerine onları temsil eden zamirler, fiiller, fiilleri niteleyen zarflar, kelimeleri bağlayan edatlar, cümlecikleri bağlayan bağlaçlar, ve 'hey!' gbi ünlem ifadeleri" şeklinde sınıflanabilir. Bir de bunlara gelen "ek"ler var tabii. Bunları Türkçe üzerinden örnekleyeyim ve açıklayayım. 
 İsim: 
 cümlede herhangi bir işi yapan yahut o işten etkilenen "şeyler"dirler: Ev (sah'li), kedi (k'at'a), pencere (pancara), kadın (kali), sik'ete (iyilik) ve sair. 
 Cümlede işlevlerine göre hâl ekleri alırlar, Türkçedeki gibi: "k'at'as vh'edav." (Kediyi görüyorum.) veya "k'at'a h'edavs." (Kedi görüyor.) 
 İsimler yalın hâl, yönelme hâli, araç hâli, zarf hâli, yapan hâli (ergative case), sahiplik hâli ve seslenme hâlinde bulunurlar. 
 Genelde yalın hâlde isme -kökü ünsüzle bitiyorsa- -i eki getirilir -ve ünlüyle bitiyorsa ek gelmez-. Yönelme hâlinde -s eki gelir -bizim lehçelerimizde bazen bu hâl, ekin olmayışıyla belli olur, Türkçe'deki yalın hâl gibi-. Araç halinde -it eki, zarf hâlinde kökünün ünsüz/ünlü ile bitişine göre -ad/-d eki, yapan hâlinde keza -ma/-m eki, sahiplik halinde keza -is/s eki ve seslenme halinde de -o veya -v eki getirilir. Sırasıyla -kökü "k'at'a" olan- kelimenin çekimi: k'at'a (kedi), k'at'as (kediye), k'at'ait (kediyle), k'at'ad (kedice), k'at'am (kedi), k'at'is (kedinin), k'at'av! (kedi!) 
 İsim çoğul olacaksa köküke -eb eki gelir, sonra hal ekleri gelir: k'at'ebis (kedilerin) -evet bu bir istisna misal, kökteki son "a" düşüyor-. 
 (ismin yalın, yönelme ve yapan halinin hangisinin özneye, dolaylı nesneye ve dolaysız neseneye denk geldiği fiil çekimine göre değişen bir durum, yukarıdaki tarif ismin şimdiki, geniş ve gelecek zamana göre çekildiği durumlar için geçerli) 
 Yalın hâl, yönelme hâli ve yapan hâli isimlerin özne veya nesne oluşlarını belirtir. Şimdiki zaman ve gelecek zaman ile çekilen fiillerde özneler (işi yapan şeyler) yalın hâlde, dolaysız/doğrudan nesneler (yani işin üzerlerinde yapıldığı, değiştirilen şeyler) ile dolaylı nesneler (işin kendisi için/uğruna yapılan şeyler) yönelme halinde çekilirler. Dolaylı ve dolaysız nesneler arasındaki fark bağlamdan çıkar (Türkçe'de ise dolaysız nesneler belirtme hali alırken dolaylı nesneler yönelme hali alır genelde): 
 Me megobars k'at'as gavugzavnep. (Ben arkadaş(ım)a kedi göndereceğim) -Macahel şivesinde "gönderirim"- 
 Fiil geçmiş zaman yahut dilek kipi ile çekilirse özne yapan hâl, dolaysız nesne yalın hâl ve dolaylı nesne yönelme hâli ile çekilir: 
 K'at'am tagvi megobars gaugzavna. (Kedi fareyi arkadaş(ın)a gönderdi.) 
 Fiil -mışlı geçmiş ile veya bundan türetilen diğer zamanlarla çekimlenirse özne yönelme hâli, dolaysız nesne yalın hal eki alır ve dolaylı nesne bir ek (yani edat) ile belirtilir: 
 K'at'as tagvi megobaristvis gaugzavnia. (Kedi fareyi arkadaş(ı) için (yani arkadaşına) göndermiş. -Macahel şivesinde "... megobaristin guugzavniya"- 
 Sıfat: 
 Türkçe'deki gibi, isim olan şeyleri niteleyerek onları birbirlerinden ayırt etmeye yardımcı olurlar: lamazi (güzel), ç'k'viani (akıllı), tsarieli (boş), çkari (hızlı), k'argi (iyi) ve sair. 
 İsimleri nitelerler, Türkçe'dekinden farklı olarak niteledikleri isme hâl olarak uyarlar: 
 Lamazi kali ç'k'vian biç's uqurebs. (Güzel kadın akıllı oğlana bakıyor.) 
 Dikkat edin, Türkçe cümlede eğer aynı kural geçerli olsaydı "akıllıya oğlana bakıyor" diyecektik. Türkçe'de böyle bir durum yok: akıllı oğlan, akıllı oğlana, akıllı oğlanı, akıllı oğlanda, akıllı oğlandan. 
 Sıfat isme uyarken isim çoğul da olsa çoğul olmaz, ancak hâl açısından uyar: 
 ç'k'viani biç'i (akıllı oğlan) ç'k'vian biç's (akıllı oğlana) ç'k'viani biç'it (akıllı oğlanla) ç'k'vian biç'ad (akıllı oğlanca, akıllı oğlan edasıyla) ç'k'vianma biç'ma (akıllı oğlan) ç'k'viani biç'is (akıllı oğlanın) ç'k'viano biç'o (hey akıllı oğlan!) ve keza ç'k'vianma biç'ebma (akıllı oğlanlar) 
 Sıfat, isim gibi yalnız görünebilir, o zaman isim gibi davranır ve ek alır, aynı Türkçe'deki gibi: Lamazi ç'k'vians uqurebs. (Güzel, akıllıya bakıyor.) 
 Zamir: 
 ben, sen, o gibi şeyler, Türkçe'deki karşılığıyla: 
 me (ben), şen (sen), is (o), çven (biz), tkven (siz), isini (onlar). 
 ve çemtavi (kendim), şentavi (kendin) mistavi (kendi), çventavi (kendimiz), tkventavi (kendiniz), mattavi (kendileri) 
 ve igi (şu), igini (şunlar), es (bu), eseni (bunlar) -ve sair- 
 ve bunların kendi hâl çekimleri var. Örneğin me zamirinin sahiplik çekimi "meis" değil "çemi", ancak eğer isim gibi davranırsa (Türkçe "benimki" gibi) o zaman "çemisi" olur. Hâl çekimleri bir ölçüde isimlere benzer ancak ayrıca öğrenilmesi lazım. 
 Şe, çemi megobari am gogostan lap'arak'i unda. (Hey sen! Benim akradaşım bu kızla konuşmak istiyor.) -konteksti salladım, uydurun bir şeyler- 
 Edat: 
 İngilizce preposition diye geçen elemanlar bu edat dediğimiz arkadaşlar işte. Kullanıldığı kelime grubuna spesifik bir anlam katar ve böylelikle anlamı derinleştirirler. Türkçe'den "sonra, sadece, rağmen, ile" gibi örnekler verebiliriz. Bunlar genelde ismin tek bir hâli ile kullanılırlar, misal "senDEN sonra" derken olduğu gibi 'sonra' edatı ayrılma hâli ile beraber kullanılır. Gürcüce de böyledir, bazı örnekler: 
 lap'arak'is şemdeg (konuşmanın ardından, lap'arak'i + sahiplik hâli) kaltan (kadınla, kali + yönelme hâli) megobris mier (arkadaş(ım) tarafından, megobari + sahiplik hâli) zğvaşi (denizde, zğva + yönelme hâli) magidaze (masada, magida + yönelme hâli) sah'lis mimart (eve doğru, sah'li + sahiplik hâli) 
 ilgili hâl ekleri eklenirken bazı çekimler istisna oluşturup öyle günümüze gelmişler, örneğin eskisen "zğvas şida" gibi kullanılan edat, ifade değişe değişe "zğvaşi" şeklinde kullanılır olmuş. 
 Pisuna dedis z'uz'usk'en midis. (Kedicik anasının memesine -doğru- gidiyor.) 
 Bağlaç: 
 Cümlecikleri veya ifadeleri aralarındaki ilişkiyi gösterecek şekilde birbirlerine bağlarlar, Türkçe'deki "ama, çünkü, belki, yine de" gibi ifadeler örnek verilebir. Örneğin: 
 tu (eğer) - st. Gürcüce'de gelecek zaman çekimiyle kullanılır-, magram (ama), albat (acep, belki), ikneb (belki, olur da), ase (böyle), isev (yine) ve sair. 
 Mitkvams, magram ar gah'sovs. (Söylemiştim, ama hatırlamıyorsun.) 
 veya İkneb ar gamibrazebs. (Belki beni kızdırmaz.) 
 Ünlem: 
 Bunlar herhangi bir hissi, duyguyu muhataba aktarmak için kullanılan ifadelerdir, Türkçe "vah vah!" gibi, misal bunun st. Gürcüce karşılığı "vai me!" olur. 
 Vaşa, çvenma bavşvebma gaimarcva! (Yaşasın/Hah, bizim çocuklar kazandı!) 
 Zarf: 
 Fiilin nasıl gerçekleştiğine dair bilgi verirler, benzer bir eylemi diğerinden ayırmada yardımcı olurlar. Türkçe'de "çabuk, iyice, doğruca, birden, aniden" gibi örnekleri vardır, çok çeşitlidirler. 
 Çkarad modio. (Çabuk gel, dedi.) -çkara da denebilir- 
 veya K'argad iqavi! (İyi ol! -veya- İyice ol!) -Hoşçakal, demek için de kullanılır- 
 veya Sah'lşi ertad movdiodit. (Eve beraber dönüyorduk.) 
 Fiil: 
 "Ğmertma degveh'maros" diyerek çalışmaya başlamanız tavsiye olunur, Gürcüce'yi nevi şahsına münhasır yapan konu fiillerdir zira. Türkçe'ye büyük oranda benzer ama daha düzensiz ve çok daha nüanslıdır Gürcüce fiiller. Türkçe gibi zamana ve özneye göre çekilirler, etken/edilgen farkı ve dönüşümü vardır, farklı da olsa keza kipler mevcuttur; ancak bundan öte Gürcüce fiiller kökleri itibariyle görüntüde biraz veya tamamen değişken olabilirler (Türkçe "DE-" kökünün "Dİyorum" şeklinde çekilmesi, biraz bozulmaya örnektir), fiilde doğrudan nesne ve dolaylı nesne de özne gibi eklerle gösterilebilirler, bazı ekler bazı fiillerde normal işlevlerinin ötesinde beklenmedik fonksiyonlar gösterebilirler ve sair. Biraz açayım. 
 Daha önce ismin hâlinin özne ve nesnelerle olan bağlantısından bahsetmiştim, bu hâllere tekabül eden ve fiile önden ve sondan veya hem ön hem sondan eklenen ekler vardır, keza bu eklerden bir dizisi misal -mışlı geçmiş zamanda (yönelme hâlindeki) özneye karşılık geliyorken şimdiki zamanda (yönelme halindeki) dolaylı nesneye karşılık gelebilir: 
 Mİ-tkvams (BEN söylemişti-M) ancak; Mİ-ts'ers (o BANA yazıyor) -hatırlayın, fiilde nesne gösterilebilir, bu ikinci fiilde sondaki "s" sesi üçüncü tekil şahsı (O) özne yapıyor- 
 bu özne ve nesne eklerinin tümüne "şahıs eki" denir. V-serisi, M-serisi, U-serisi ve E-serisi şahıs ekleri vardır ki bunların bazen kombine edilmesi gerekir ancak her kombinasyon -Baskça'nın aksine- mümkün değildir. Bir de az kullanılan H-serisi ekler vardır ki bunlar bizim lehçelerimizde kaybolmuşlardır. 
 V-tkvi (dedim) V-tkvi-t (dedik) tkv-a (dedi) tkv-es (dediler) 
 veya mi-qvar-S (ONU seviyor-um) gi-qvar-VAR (BENİ seviyor-sun) u-qvar-S (ONU seviyor) 
 veya damalavS (O onu saklayacak) daUmalavs (o onu O KİŞİDEN saklayacak) daİmalavs (o KENDİNİ saklayacak) daVmale (BEN onu sakladıM) daMİmalavs (BEN onu saklamışıM) daimaleba (o saklanacak) daEmaleba (o O KİŞİDEN saklanacak) daMEmaleba (o BENDEN saklanacak) damalulan (onlar saklanmışlar) daVmalulVAR (BEN saklanmışıM) daVmalviVAR (BEN ondan saklanmışım) [sanırım anladınız, daha da karışıklaştırabilirdim ama galiba gerek yok] 
 Kökünde "e" ünlüsü olan bazı fiilerde bunu "i" 'ye çeviririz geçmiş zaman çekimlerinde: "uk'BENs" (onu ISIRıyor) ama "mik'BİNa" (beni ISIRdı). 
 Az sayıda bazı fiiller çekimde tümden değişirler: "zis" (oturmakta), "sh'edan" (oturmaktalar). 
 Bazı fiillerde nesnenin sayısı, yani işlemin tek şeye veya tek sefer mi yoksa birden fazla defa veya birden fazla sefer mi yapıldığı şahıs ekleriyle değil, fiil önekleriyle (verbal prefixes) belirtilir, misal "da-" öneki dolaysız nesnenin çoğulluğuna delalet edebilir bazı fiilerde: "gak'ida" (onu astı) ama "dak'ida" (onları astı). halbuki bu normalde şahıs ekleriyle belirtilir: "gmadlob" (sana teşekkür ederim, -bana sevabın dokundu anlamına gelir aslen-) ama "gmadlob-T" (SİZE teşekkür ederim, -eski anlamıyla bana sevabın-IZ dokundu demek-). 
 Bu pek sayılı fiil önekleri fiilin anlamını değiştirebilir, fiile tamamlanmışlık anlamı katabilir, fiilin işlendiği yer-yönü belirtebilir yahut fiilin zaman çekimini değiştirirken kullanılabilirler -varlık ve yokluklarıyla-. Keza nadiren geçişsiz bir fiili geçişli yapabilirler. 
 "davts'er" (yazacağım) ama "v'ts'er" (yazıyorum), veya "movdivar" (geliyorum) ama mivdivar (gidiyorum) gibi, yahut "gadavts'er" (yeniden yazıyorum) gibi. 
 Kip çekimleri de mevcut, ancak detaylıca bahsetmeme gerek yok sanıyorum. Buraya kadar anlattıklarımla bizim lehçelerimiz arasında farklılıklar olduğunu unutmayın lütfen, araya bazılarını sıkıştırdım sadece, çoğu Macahel şivesinde zaten okuduğunuz üzere. Neyle karşılaşacağınıza dair fikriniz olsun yeter. 
 "vak'eteb" (yapıyorum) lakin "vak'etebineb" (yaptırıyorum), veya "vh'at'av" (resmediyorum lakin "vah'at'av" (onun üzerine resmediyorum) gibi. 
 Sentaks ve sair: 
 İsimler çoğul halde çekilirken st. Gürcüce'de ekstra bir dizi ek kullanılabilir, yani onlarda ismi çoğul halde çekmenin iki yolu vardır ve bu ikinci yolu resmî/dinî/ilmî hususlarda kullanırlar: "turkebis carebi = turkta carni" (Türkler'in orduları). İsim çoğul değilken tek set ek vardır, ayrım yoktur. 
 Sıfat ve zarfları üstün halde göstermek için "upro, uprosi, met'i, umet'esi" (daha, pek daha) gibi edatlar kullanılabilir ve yerine göre karşılaştırmada sıfat ve zarftan sonra "vidre" (İngilizce "than", Türkçe "-e kıyasen/-den daha") getirilir: "şeni tma upro grdzelia vidre çemi tma." (Senin saçın daha uzun benim saçıma kıyasen.) -Macahel şivesinde upro yerine impo denir-. Burada "vidre" kullanmayıp kıyas edilen nesneye "-ze" edatı getirebilirsiniz, o zaman cümle aynı anlama gelecek şekilde şöyle kurulurdu: "şeni tma upro grdzelia çem tmaze". 
 Gürcüce'de cümle düzeni Türkçe gibi dağınık olmakla beraber bazı kalıplar daha sık kullanılır. Bazı kalıplara bazı durumlarda daha çok başvurulabilir (özne-nesne-yüklem). 
 İsimden fiil, fiilden isim, sıfattan fiil, fiilden zarf ve sair elde edebilirsiniz ancak bunu en iyi dilbilgisi kitaplarından öğrenmelisiniz, Türkçe kadar çeşit barındırır, ancak düzenlidirler diyemem. 
 Evet/Hayır sorusu, son hece vurgulanarak sorulur. 
 Yukarıda verilen zamir ve zarfların soru versiyonları olduğunu unutmayın: 
 Vin şedis? (Kim giriyor?) veya Rodis moh'da (Ne zaman oldu?) gibi. 
 Sayıların çoğu sıfattır, eklerle detaylandırılırlar: 
 sami (üç), mesame (üçüncü), mesamedi (üçte bir) ve sair. 
 Birler ve onlar basamakları 20'nin katları şeklinde sayılırlar, 10'un katları şeklinde değil: 
 ori (2), rva (8), ati (10), tormet'i (12, on-iki-daha) -eskiden "atormet'i" şeklindeydi ama baştaki "a", yani "ati (10)"nin a'sı düşmüş zamanla- 
 otsi (20), otsdaoth'i (24, yirmivedört) ama otsdaati (30, yirmiveon) ve otsdateksvmet'i (36, yirmi-ve-on-altı-daha) 
 atas rvaas otsdatsh'ra (1829, bin sekizyüz yirmi-dokuz-daha). binler ve yüzler basamakları yönelme hâliyle çekilir. 
 Bazı kelimelerin kısaldığını bilin: misal "rom" (-öyle- ki) edatı "ro" diye kısaltılabilir, ya da "ra vitsi" (ne biliyorum/bileyim) ifadesi "ravi" diye kısaltılabilir: 
 Me ro şentan viqavi... (Ben ki seninle iken...) 
 veya Dialekt'ologiao, me es ravi biç'o? (Lehçebilim mi, ben ne bileyim onu evlat?) 
 [Burada gördüğünüz gibi bir ifadenin sonuna "-o" eki gelince o ifade doğrudan aktarma anlamı/işlevi kazanabilir.] 
 "Bilmek" fiili hangi zamanla çekilirse çekilsin özne-dol.nesne-dol.sız.nesne hâl dağılımı geçmiş zaman çekimi gibi yapılır, misal: 
 Datvma itsis rom tsiqvi sul t'quis. (Ayı bilir ki sincap hep yalan söyler.) -Macahel şivesinde sincap "teyini" veya "t'riya" olur- 
 Kendinden sonra ünsüz gelip kelime başında olan, ve kendinden önceki ünlüye ulama ile bağlanmayan "m" ve "v" seslerinin telaffuz edilmediğine şahit olabilirsiniz. "vk'ith'ulob" (okuyorum) ile "k'ith'ulob" (okuyorsun) arasında telaffuz farkı duymayabilirsiniz. Keza "mtsiva" (üşüdüm) ifadesini de "tsiva" şeklinde işitebilirsiniz. 
 Lehçelerimize Dair: 
 Büyüklerimiz her taraftan göçmüşler; Çürüksu (Guria), Batum, Macahel, Acara, Livane, Yusufeli, Şavşat, Ardanuç, Ahıska ve başka yerler... Hepsi kendilerine has bir şive veya lehçeyle konuşurlardı. Ufak bir şehirli ve eğitimli azınlık hariç pek Türkçe bilenleri yoktu. Buralara varınca kimi okulda, kimi de komuşularında işlerine yarayacak kadarını öğrenmişler. Bu mevzuya yukarıda değinmiştim, ancak lehçelerimizin detaylarına ya ilgili makalelerden ya da büyüklerimizden öğrenebiliriz. Bu bir yana, şimdi diğer mevzular.
 Her şeyden önce bizim lehçelerle Tiflis'te duyacağınız Gürcüce arasında ciddi telaffuz varkı vardır. Daha sert konuşurlar, bizim t' k' p' ç' ts' gibi 'ejective/patlatmalı' seslerimiz yumuşaklıktan ötürü onların d g b c dz seslerine benzer. Onların q sesi bizimkine kıyasla çok daha kuvvetli ve gırtlaksıdır. Bizim lehçelerimizde daha yavaş konuşulur ve cümleler kısa ve öz tutulur, araya kelime sokuşturulması -"yani, ee, bilirsin, işte, şey" gibi- pek hoş karşılanmaz (idi eskiden). 
 "a e i o u" ünlüleri ağız geniş açılmadan telaffuz edilir ama Fransızca konuşur gibi çok kısılmaz da. Dil rahat tutulur ve ağzın çok önüne ya da arkasına gitmez. 
 "b c d g h j l m n s ş v y z" sesleri sakince telaffuz edilir, genel olarak konuşurken Rusça, Fransızca, Ermenice konuşur gibi ağızdaki kaslar çok gerilmez. Türkçe karşılıkları ile aralarındaki fark yok denecek kadar azdır veya yoktur. 
 "r" sesini eskiler "i" ünlüsünden evvel geldiğinde neredeyse "y" 'ye asimile ederlerdi dolayısıyla "lap'arik'op" (konuşuyorsun) kelimesini "lap'ayk'op" diye duyardınız, diğer r sesleri de Amerikan "r" 'si kadar geriden olmasa da dil damağın tepesine değmeden yuvarlanarak çıkarılırdı. Yeni nesiller Türkçe "r" gibi damağa bir kez hafif vurdurarak Türkçe "r" gibi telaffuz etmeye başlamışlar. 
 "ts" sesi Almanca'daki Z sesine ve Rusça'daki Ц sesine denk gelir, keza İngilizce "tsunami" denirken duyabilirsiniz. "t" sesini pat diye çıkarırız, "sssssss" gibi sürekli çıkaramayız, ancak "t" sesini "sssssss" gibi sürekli çıkarmaya çalışırken "s" 'ye birazcık benzetirseniz; yani "t" derken diliniz üst dişlerinizin hemen arkasına sertçe vuruyorsa onu bu sefer daha gevşekçe ve yumuşakça vurduğunuz takdirde "ts" sesini çıkarabilirsiniz. Pratik şart, duymak lazım. 
 Yalnız bu sesi, yani "ts" sesini ve dahi "t k p ç" seslerini çıkarırken bir miktar "hhhhhhh" sesi de çıkarmalısınız eş zamanlı olarak. Abartmadan yalnız. Avcunuzu ağzınızın hemencik önüne koyun, "k" deyin, eğer sesi düzgün çıkarıyorken aynı zamanda elinize nefesinizin vurduğunu hissediyorsanız doğru yapıyorsunuz demektir. Ancak abartmayın, flüt çalmıyorsunuz. Kalan sesleri çıkarırken bunun neden önemli olduğunu anlayacaksınız. 
 Ama önce "q" sesinden bahsedeyim, ve "h' ile ğ" seslerinden. Bizim lehçelerimizde bu ses, Arapça gaf sesine benzer şekilde çıkar, Kürtçe'de de olan boğazsıl q sesini biraz "g" sesine benzetircesine çıkarırsanız, iyi iş çıkardınız demek. Ancak Tiflis'te bu sesi duyduğunuzda insanların boğazlarında ufak patlamalar olduğunu sanabilirsiniz, ya da boğulayazdıklarını. Duymadan anlamanız zor, o yüzden dinledikçe öğrenirsiniz diyeyim, o gırtlaksı gaf sesini daha şiddetli bir şekilde çıkarıyorlar demem yeterli sanıyorum. Keza ğ sesini Paris Fransızcası'ndaki r sesi gibi çıkarırlar, gargara yaparken çıkardığınız ses yani, ama rrrrrrğğğğğğ diye sürekli çıkarmayacaksınız, o Almanca'daki r'ye kaçar. h' sesi de bunun titreşimsiz versiyonudur. Titreşimli-titreşimsiz ses farkını sürekli sss-zzz diyerek anlayabilirsiniz, bunu yaparken elinizi boğazınıza koyun. Z sesinde boğazınız titreşir. Keza, ğ sesini çıkarırken bu titreşimi keserseniz h' sesini elde edersiniz. Bu, Arapça'daki hırıltılı ha'ya karşılık gelir, "iyilik" anlamındaki "khayr" kelimesinde olduğu gibi. Bunu eğer k sesine benzetir gibi ve daha yumuşak/sakin, daha az rahatsız edici şekilde çıkarırsanız lehçelerimizdeki h' seine ulaşırsınız, keza onun titreşimli hali bizim ğ sesimize denk gelir. 
 " z' " sesi de keza "ts" sesinin titreşimli versiyonudur. 
 "k' p' t' ç' ts' " sesleri, patlamalı seslerdir. Türkçe "hayıyok" anlamında "ı ıh" derken boğazınızda yaptığınız hareket, patlatmadır. Bu sesleri, yani k p t ç ts 'yi çıkarırken patlatma yaparsanız, bunu şiddetli yaptığınız takdirde st. Gürcüce karşılıklarını çıkarabiliyorsunuz demektir. Biraz daha zoru, bizim lehçelerimizde mevcut. Zira biz bu sesleri yine patlatarak ama daha sakince çıkartıyoruz. Öyle ki g b d c dz ile ayırt etmek yeni duyanlar için zor oluyor, ancak bu seslerin farkı, evet, titreşimli-titreşimsiz mevzusu. düz k p t ç ts seslerinden bir diğer farkı, ki ayırt etmeyi kolaylaştırıyor, bu sesleri (k' p' t' ç' ts') çıkarırken ağzınızdan hava çıkmaması. Deneyin, dinleyin, alışırsınız. 
 Bizim lehçelerimizde olan/korunan bazı kelimeler st. Gürcüce'de yoktur, keza tam tersi de geçerli. Örneğin orada "diah' " evet demektir, biz onların gayrıresmi durumlarda evet demek için kullandığı "ho" kelimesini kullanırız sadece. Bazı kelime ve ifadeler benzer ama farklı anlamlara gelirler, bazılarının tamamen farklıdır anlamları. Bizim lehçelerimiz modernizasyon sürecinde Türkçe'nin etkisinde kalmışken st. Gürcüce belli oranda Rusça etkisinde şekillenmiştir. Lehçelerimizin bir farkı da kalıp ifadelerden kaynaklanır. Bizde kelimeler ve kalıplar eski manaları korunarak günümüze gelmiştir çoğunlukla, aynısı st. Gürcüce için yer yer söylenemez. Bizde korunan bazı gramer kalıpları mevcuttur st. Gürcüce'de kaybolmuş, keza tam tersi geçerli (Macahel şivesinde şimdiki-geniş-gelecek zaman çekimindeki üçlü ayrım st. Gürcüce'de geniş zamanın şimdiki zaman çekimiyle ifade edilmesiyle ikiye düşer, kronojik açıklamasını bilmiyorum). 
 Öte yandan ilginç bir şekilde Türkçe'den geçmiş bir kip varmış sanıyorum Düzce Gürcüleri'nin şivelerinde; "modisene" (gelsene) ifadesini "modi" (gel) + "-sene" (Türkçe'deki -sene/-sana) şeklinde türetmişler misal, malesef kaynağı hatırlamıyorum. Keza rahmetli nineme kahverengi ne demek diye sorduğumda bi an hatırlayamayıp "ts'itelimsi" (kırmızımsı) demişti, "ts'iteli" (kırmızı) + "-imsi" (Türkçe'deki -ımsı/-imsi) diye türettiğini çok sonra fark etmiştim. Başka benzeşmeler az da olsa Rusça'dan Gürcüce'ye olacak şekilde orada da gerçekleşmiş sanıyorum. 
 Kartvelian sub'ında bir sürü kaynak mevcut, ancak gramer için H. Arason'un ve G. Hewitt'in, fiiller için T. Makharoblidze'nin kaynakları altın değerinde haberiniz olsun. Garnett Press'in (2006) Gürcüce-İngilizce sözlüğü de hayli kapsamlı. Hepsine ve daha fazlasına dijital olarak ulaşabilirsiniz. Rusça kaynaklar İngilizce kaynaklardan, onlar da Türkçe kaynaklardan daha fazlalar. Yazıdaki hatalar bana ait, affola.
 net'a sakmem gigiqolayos da gigitavos ğmertis nebit; mşvidobit mk'ith'velebo.
 
   submitted by    djoou    to    Chveneburi  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 08:51 PirateLord9101 H: Tradelist W: Offers
H: Tradelist W: Offers
 AA/e/90, Gatling gun, Lmg
 AA/50C/25 Fixer(2x), Handmade, Tesla Riffle, Dragon, Combat shotgun, Pipe Revolver, BP Pistol, BP Plunder, Em, EPR perfect mods, AD
 AA/25A/Dur EPF
 AA/25/Dur .50, Minigun (2x) epr
 AA/E/15R Pipe Pistol,
 aa/25/90 Gamma gun, epp, flamer
 AA/25/Dur NU Laser Riffle, Fixer, Hm, Gamma gun, Holy fire
 AA/50C/15c epp, AD
 AA/Ap/25 Holy fire
 AA/25a/Dur AGL,
 AA/Pa/1s Grognaks Axe
 AA/50C/90 Grognaks Axe, NU Laser Riffle, epp
 AA/50L/25 Tommy gun
 AA/50C/15r Hm
 AA/e/15c RR (2x), Em
 AA/25/25 lmg(2x) EPR, Rail, Fixer
 Aa/25a/90rw AGL
 Aa/e/25 Pipe Bolt Pistol, Radium, Fixer
 AA/40/40 Ski sword
 AA/50c/50bs Compound Bow
 AA/40pa/50bs chainsaw
 AA/40pa/1S Blue ridge Iron
 AA/E/25 Fixer(3x), .44 Pistol
 AA/40/40 Chainsaw (2x)
 AA/25a/25 epr 2x
 AA/50h/15c EPP
 AA/50h/50bs EPP
 Aristocrat:
 Ari/Pa/40 Chainsaw
 Ari/50/25 Cryo
 Ari/E/15r Minigun
 Ari/50C/Dur CR
 Ari/25/25 Epr
 Ari/25/50bs epp
 Assassins:
 A/50c/25 Hm, Single Action Revolver
 a/e/Dur Gatling gun
 Aa25a90rw AGL
 A/25/50bs Plasma Pistol
 A/25/15r Laser Pistol
 Berserk:
 Be40/40 Drill
 Be25/25 epp
 Berz/e/25 10mm sub
 Bloodied:
 B40Pa/1a Bear arm
 B/50C/15C Hm ( 2x ), Pumpgun, .44 Pistol, Rwr, Epr perfect mods, Bow, Lever
 B/50C/25 Chainsaw, Auto Pipe, BP Plunderbuss, Handmade, Em
 B/E/25 lmg, combat riffle , AR, 10mm, Pipe riffle, Single Action Revolver, Radium
 B/25/Stealth 10mm
 B/E Black powder Riffle
 B/Ap/25 Ul Laser Riffle, Gamma gun
 B/50L/25 Hm
 B/25/Dur RR ( 2x), Agl, Ugl, Flamer
 B/e/50bs Combat riffle, BP Pistol
 B/25/15r Gauss, 10mm, EPF, Cryo,
 B/25/25 combat riffle, gatling plasma, Radium, gp, gl, Handmade
 B/Bash/50bs Minigun'
 B/50h/25 Fixer
 B/25/90 epp with alligned flamer, lmg, Gatling laser, Cryo
 B/40pa/40 chainsaw
 B/e/90 AR
 B/50l/50bs Peppershaker
 B/25/50bs Plasma Thrower, Laser Pistol
 B/e/90 lmg, Gatling
 B/50c/90 EPP
 B/25a/50bs epp
 B/50c/15r Em
 B/25a/90 lmg, gl
 Be15r fixer
 Executioners:
 Exe/50C/25 Hm (2x), Minigun, 10mm Smg, em
 Exe/E/25 Lever, Combat Shotgun, 10mm Pistol
 Exe/25/25 EPR, Gauss, Lever,
 Exe/50C/15C EM
 Exe/25/Dur Fixer
 Exe/25/15r GP
 Exe/50L/25 GAuss
 Exe/E/15r Pipe Bolt Pistol
 Exe/25/90 Radium, 10mm Smg, Hm (2x)
 Exe/50h/25 Gamma gun, epp
 Exe/e/15r Pipe Revolver
 Exe/25/50bs epp
 Furious:
 F/50C/25 NU Laser Riffle, Radium, CR,
 F/Pa/25 Chinese Sword
 F/25/Dur Minigun
 F/Bash/Dur Minigun
 F/25/25 UGatling Laser, EPR, Radium
 F/Ap/25 GP
 Gourmands:
 G/50h/25 epp
 G/E/15R Radium
 G/PA/25 DC Gauntlet,
 G/50c/25 Flamethrower, Em
 G/e/25 Hm
 G/25/25 rwr
 Instigating:
 I/50c/25 bow
 Inst/Ap/25 epp
 Juggernaut:
 Jugg/50h/25 EPP
 Jugg/e/90 Fixer, hm
 Jugg/e/25 Fixer, RR
 Jugg/25/25 Fixer, Gamma Gun, hm , Cryo
 Jugg/Pa/40Pa Chainsaw
 Jugg/e/15r .50
 Jugg/e/dur .50
 Jugg/50c/25 hm,
 Junkie:
 J/E/25 Hm, RR, Em
 J/25/15r EPR Perfect mods Alligned Auto, AGL, tommy gun
 J/SS/1s Bowieknife, Powerfist,
 J/25/15r RR(2x),
 J/50c/15c RR, Single Action Revolver
 J/25/90 .50,
 J/25/25 Western Revolver, Kabloom
 J/50l/25 epp
 Medic:
 Med/25/25 Fixer
 Med/25/15r Holy Fire
 Med/50c/25 Minigun, AR,
 Mutant:
 M/25/15r AGL
 M/Bash/Dur Minigun
 M/50H/25 EPP Perfect Mods(alligned Auto)
 M/25/25 10mm
 Nocturnal:
 N/E/25 .50
 N/50c/25 Em
 N/25/15r 10mm
 Quad:
 Q/E 10mm, Lever, Gatling gun
 Q/E/25 Lever, Combat Riffle.50, Sniper riffle, Fixer
 Q/25/15r Fixer
 Q/25/90 Hm, Em, Fixer, epp
 Q/E/15C Pipe Bolt Pistol(2x), 10mm Pistol,
 Q/25A/25 Fixer
 Q/50L/25 Fixer, Tesla
 Q/50C/15r .50, Tommy gun Gatling gun, Auto Pipe,
 Q/25/50bs Fixer, Holy fire, DB, Hm, Auto Pipe, Cryo
 Q/50C/Dur Fixer (2x), hm, EPP ,Railway
 Q/E/90 railway, .50 cal, Minigun
 Q/25/25 Pipe Revolver, Ab, EPR, Gauss riffle, tommy gun,
 Q/50C 10mm, Em
 Q/Ap/15r Fixer
 Q/25A/Dur Holy Fire, Gamma gun
 Q/25A/15r Holy Fire,
 Q/E Pipe Pistol, Hunter Riffle, Pumpgun, Combat Riffle, DB
 Q/50C/25 Minigun,Tommy, Plasma Riffle, Gatling gun, Western Revolver, Epr, Radium, Handmade
 Q/50b/25 Tesla, Hm
 Q/50l/15r tesla
 Q/50H/25 Radium, , Western Revolver,
 Q/e/15r hm(2x), Gatling gun, Em, Railway, DB, Pipe riffle
 Q/ls/25 Ab
 Q/25/15c epp
 Q/50h/15r EPP
 Q/e/50bs Rwr
 Q/25/15c Railway (2x) , EPP, Handmade
 Supressor:
 S/e/25 Fixer
 S/25/15r Fixer
 S/50c/25 Hunting riffle
 Two Shot:
 TS/50C/25 Fixer (2x), Hm (2x), Tesla, Dragon
 Ts/25/25 AR, Fixer, epp, Ultracite laser riffle
 Ts/E/Dur Minigun
 Ts/50H/25 Fixer, Radium
 Ts/25/dur Fixer, hm
 Ts/e/25 Pipe Revolver, RWR, Em, 10mm Pistol,
 Ts/Ls/25 Assaultron Head
 Ts/e/15c Lever (2x)
 Ts/25/15r Flamethrower, EPR,
 TS/50c/15c RR, Ab
 TS/50L/25 Em Ts/e/15r lmg
 Ts/25/90, Lmg
 Ts/50c/15c Plunderbuss
 Ts/e/90 Pumpgun, lmg
 Vampire:
 V/50C/15r GP, Gatling Gun
 V/50C/15r Railway
 V/e/dur Hm, Em
 V/e/25, Hm, Em
 V/Ap/25 Fixer
 V/50L/25 Fixer, RR, 10mm, Hm
 V/50C/25 Gauss, Chainsaw, DB(2x), Fixer, 10mm Pistol, handmade
 V/e Lever
 V/25/15c Hm(2x), Gatling laser, epp
 V/25/25 Gatling laser, Pipe Bolt Pistol, Epr
 V/25/50Damage resist EPR
 V/e/15r Western Revolver, Single Action Revolver,
 V/25/15r Plasma Thrower, Gatling Plasma
 V/25a/15r Plasma Thrower
 V/25/90 Gamma Gun, Flamer
 V/50h/25 epp
 Armor Pieces:
 Uny/AP/WWR mixed scout set
 Uny/AP/HTD H Leaver Set
 Uny/Mix/Sent bos Combat armor set
 As/Mix/Cav Usa Set
 Uny/7Explo/Cav FSA La
 OE/AP/Sent Usa LL
 Oe/7Exp/Cryo Fsa LL
 As/7E/AWR Raider PA LA
 Aristo/AP/WWR Trapper RL
 Aristo/AP/Stealth FSA Chest
 As/7Exp/Sent FSA RL
 Oe/7Exp/WWR X01 LA
 Bolst/S/WWR T60 LL
 Uny/Ap/Stealth Trapper RA
 Uny/S/WWR light Metal armor LA
 Uny/I/Cav Wood Rl
 Uny/1S/Wwr Heavy Raider Armor Ra
 Van/P/WWR FSA LL
 Uny/S/Limb Usa LL
 Uny/I/JWR FSA LL
 Uny/Ap/Sent Fsa la (level 40)'
 uny/ap/sneak trapper chest, trapper ra
 Oe/Ap/wwr Raider PA rl ( level 30)
 Uny/1P/Cav fsa Ra
 Uny/S/WWR light Metal La
 Uny/HungeWWR Usa Rl
 OE/1e/FDC Usa ll
 Bolst/I/sentt Trapper LA
 Bolst/S/Sent Wood RL
 Uny/L/WWR Heavy raider LA
 Uny/S/WWR Sturdy leather RA
 Uny/I/Sent Wood LL
 Uny/Cryo/Cav FSA Cp
 Uny/Cryo/Awr Fsa LL
 Uny/I/AWR USA RL
 Ari/Ap/Wwr Heavy metal CP'
 Van/Cryo/WWR Leather CP
 Van/AP/AWR Raider RA
 Bolst/led/Cav Metal CP
 Oe/1s/WWR Metal LA
 
   submitted by    PirateLord9101    to    Market76  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 08:13 CIAHerpes I remember the night I died and saw the Bardo.
There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
 The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality. 
 His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
 “What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
 “He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
 “You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
 “Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
 “History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
 “Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
 “Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
 I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
 As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
 “She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
 “Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch. 
 “Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
 “That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting. 
 I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
 “OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
 “Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
 “Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on. 
 I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
 “You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
 I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
 “Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars. 
 I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
 “Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
 “I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
 I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
 Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
 The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
 Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
 ***
 I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
 The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
 “You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
 “Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
 “As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
 ***
 The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
 A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair. 
 He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
 “Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
 “My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
 “Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
 “So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals? 
 “Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
 “After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
 “Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them. 
 “His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
 Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
 “And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
 “How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
 ***
 The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
 The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
 Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate. 
 Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
 As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
 Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
 I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
 But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms. 
 I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong. 
 I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
 “The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
 “How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
 “Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
 “What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
 “Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.” 
 ***
 Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
 I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
 Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
 Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
 But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
 Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
 The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger. 
 I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” 
 Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
 The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic. 
 “It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!” 
 A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
 A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
 “Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
 I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
 She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
 It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
 ***
 I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
 “Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
 “Again!” another voice yelled.
 “Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
 The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
 Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
 “It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
 At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
 “Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
 I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
 I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
 And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.
 
   submitted by    CIAHerpes    to    ZakBabyTV_Stories  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 08:13 CIAHerpes I remember the night I died and saw the Bardo.
There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
 The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality. 
 His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
 “What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
 “He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
 “You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
 “Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
 “History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
 “Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
 “Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
 I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
 As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
 “She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
 “Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch. 
 “Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
 “That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting. 
 I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
 “OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
 “Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
 “Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on. 
 I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
 “You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
 I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
 “Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars. 
 I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
 “Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
 “I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
 I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
 Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
 The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
 Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
 ***
 I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
 The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
 “You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
 “Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
 “As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
 ***
 The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
 A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair. 
 He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
 “Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
 “My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
 “Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
 “So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals? 
 “Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
 “After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
 “Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them. 
 “His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
 Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
 “And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
 “How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
 ***
 The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
 The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
 Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate. 
 Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
 As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
 Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
 I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
 But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms. 
 I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong. 
 I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
 “The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
 “How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
 “Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
 “What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
 “Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.” 
 ***
 Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
 I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
 Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
 Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
 But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
 Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
 The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger. 
 I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” 
 Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
 The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic. 
 “It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!” 
 A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
 A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
 “Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
 I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
 She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
 It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
 ***
 I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
 “Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
 “Again!” another voice yelled.
 “Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
 The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
 Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
 “It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
 At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
 “Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
 I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
 I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
 And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.
 
   submitted by    CIAHerpes    to    horrorstories  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 08:12 CIAHerpes I remember the night I died and saw the Bardo.
There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
 The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality. 
 His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
 “What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
 “He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
 “You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
 “Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
 “History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
 “Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
 “Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
 I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
 As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
 “She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
 “Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch. 
 “Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
 “That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting. 
 I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
 “OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
 “Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
 “Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on. 
 I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
 “You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
 I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
 “Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars. 
 I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
 “Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
 “I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
 I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
 Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
 The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
 Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
 ***
 I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
 The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
 “You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
 “Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
 “As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
 ***
 The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
 A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair. 
 He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
 “Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
 “My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
 “Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
 “So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals? 
 “Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
 “After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
 “Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them. 
 “His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
 Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
 “And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
 “How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
 ***
 The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
 The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
 Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate. 
 Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
 As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
 Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
 I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
 But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms. 
 I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong. 
 I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
 “The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
 “How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
 “Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
 “What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
 “Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.” 
 ***
 Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
 I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
 Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
 Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
 But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
 Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
 The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger. 
 I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” 
 Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
 The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic. 
 “It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!” 
 A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
 A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
 “Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
 I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
 She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
 It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
 ***
 I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
 “Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
 “Again!” another voice yelled.
 “Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
 The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
 Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
 “It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
 At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
 “Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
 I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
 I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
 And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.
 
   submitted by    CIAHerpes    to    Horror_stories  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 08:12 CIAHerpes I remember the night I died and saw the Bardo.
There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
 The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality. 
 His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
 “What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
 “He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
 “You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
 “Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
 “History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
 “Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
 “Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
 I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
 As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
 “She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
 “Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch. 
 “Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
 “That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting. 
 I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
 “OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
 “Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
 “Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on. 
 I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
 “You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
 I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
 “Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars. 
 I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
 “Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
 “I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
 I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
 Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
 The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
 Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
 ***
 I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
 The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
 “You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
 “Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
 “As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
 ***
 The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
 A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair. 
 He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
 “Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
 “My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
 “Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
 “So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals? 
 “Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
 “After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
 “Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them. 
 “His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
 Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
 “And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
 “How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
 ***
 The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
 The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
 Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate. 
 Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
 As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
 Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
 I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
 But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms. 
 I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong. 
 I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
 “The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
 “How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
 “Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
 “What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
 “Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.” 
 ***
 Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
 I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
 Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
 Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
 But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
 Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
 The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger. 
 I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” 
 Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
 The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic. 
 “It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!” 
 A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
 A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
 “Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
 I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
 She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
 It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
 ***
 I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
 “Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
 “Again!” another voice yelled.
 “Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
 The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
 Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
 “It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
 At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
 “Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
 I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
 I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
 And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.
 
   submitted by    CIAHerpes    to    LighthouseHorror  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 08:11 CIAHerpes I remember the night I died and saw the Bardo.
There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
 The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality. 
 His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
 “What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
 “He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
 “You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
 “Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
 “History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
 “Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
 “Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
 I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
 As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
 “She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
 “Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch. 
 “Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
 “That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting. 
 I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
 “OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
 “Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
 “Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on. 
 I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
 “You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
 I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
 “Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars. 
 I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
 “Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
 “I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
 I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
 Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
 The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
 Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
 ***
 I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
 The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
 “You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
 “Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
 “As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
 ***
 The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
 A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair. 
 He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
 “Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
 “My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
 “Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
 “So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals? 
 “Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
 “After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
 “Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them. 
 “His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
 Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
 “And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
 “How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
 ***
 The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
 The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
 Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate. 
 Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
 As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
 Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
 I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
 But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms. 
 I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong. 
 I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
 “The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
 “How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
 “Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
 “What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
 “Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.” 
 ***
 Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
 I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
 Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
 Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
 But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
 Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
 The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger. 
 I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” 
 Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
 The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic. 
 “It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!” 
 A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
 A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
 “Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
 I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
 She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
 It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
 ***
 I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
 “Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
 “Again!” another voice yelled.
 “Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
 The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
 Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
 “It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
 At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
 “Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
 I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
 I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
 And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.
 
   submitted by    CIAHerpes    to    TheDarkGathering  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 08:11 CIAHerpes I remember the night I died and saw the Bardo.
There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
 The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality. 
 His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
 “What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
 “He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
 “You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
 “Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
 “History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
 “Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
 “Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
 I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
 As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
 “She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
 “Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch. 
 “Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
 “That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting. 
 I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
 “OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
 “Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
 “Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on. 
 I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
 “You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
 I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
 “Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars. 
 I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
 “Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
 “I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
 I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
 Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
 The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
 Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
 ***
 I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
 The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
 “You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
 “Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
 “As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
 ***
 The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
 A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair. 
 He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
 “Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
 “My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
 “Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
 “So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals? 
 “Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
 “After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
 “Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them. 
 “His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
 Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
 “And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
 “How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
 ***
 The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
 The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
 Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate. 
 Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
 As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
 Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
 I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
 But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms. 
 I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong. 
 I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
 “The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
 “How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
 “Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
 “What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
 “Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.” 
 ***
 Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
 I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
 Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
 Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
 But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
 Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
 The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger. 
 I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” 
 Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
 The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic. 
 “It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!” 
 A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
 A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
 “Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
 I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
 She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
 It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
 ***
 I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
 “Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
 “Again!” another voice yelled.
 “Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
 The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
 Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
 “It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
 At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
 “Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
 I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
 I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
 And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.
 
   submitted by    CIAHerpes    to    CreepsMcPasta  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 08:10 CIAHerpes I remember the night I died and saw the Bardo.
There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
 The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality. 
 His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
 “What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
 “He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
 “You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
 “Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
 “History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
 “Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
 “Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
 I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
 As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
 “She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
 “Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch. 
 “Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
 “That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting. 
 I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
 “OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
 “Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
 “Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on. 
 I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
 “You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
 I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
 “Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars. 
 I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
 “Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
 “I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
 I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
 Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
 The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
 Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
 ***
 I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
 The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
 “You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
 “Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
 “As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
 ***
 The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
 A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair. 
 He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
 “Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
 “My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
 “Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
 “So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals? 
 “Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
 “After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
 “Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them. 
 “His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
 Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
 “And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
 “How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
 ***
 The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
 The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
 Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate. 
 Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
 As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
 Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
 I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
 But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms. 
 I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong. 
 I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
 “The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
 “How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
 “Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
 “What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
 “Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.” 
 ***
 Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
 I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
 Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
 Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
 But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
 Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
 The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger. 
 I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” 
 Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
 The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic. 
 “It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!” 
 A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
 A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
 “Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
 I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
 She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
 It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
 ***
 I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
 “Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
 “Again!” another voice yelled.
 “Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
 The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
 Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
 “It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
 At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
 “Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
 I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
 I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
 And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.
 
   submitted by    CIAHerpes    to    scaryjujuarmy  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 08:10 CIAHerpes I remember the night I died and saw the Bardo.
There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
 The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality. 
 His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
 “What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
 “He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
 “You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
 “Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
 “History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
 “Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
 “Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
 I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
 As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
 “She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
 “Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch. 
 “Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
 “That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting. 
 I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
 “OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
 “Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
 “Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on. 
 I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
 “You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
 I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
 “Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars. 
 I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
 “Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
 “I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
 I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
 Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
 The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
 Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
 ***
 I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
 The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
 “You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
 “Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
 “As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
 ***
 The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
 A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair. 
 He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
 “Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
 “My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
 “Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
 “So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals? 
 “Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
 “After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
 “Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them. 
 “His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
 Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
 “And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
 “How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
 ***
 The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
 The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
 Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate. 
 Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
 As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
 Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
 I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
 But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms. 
 I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong. 
 I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
 “The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
 “How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
 “Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
 “What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
 “Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.” 
 ***
 Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
 I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
 Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
 Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
 But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
 Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
 The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger. 
 I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” 
 Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
 The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic. 
 “It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!” 
 A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
 A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
 “Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
 I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
 She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
 It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
 ***
 I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
 “Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
 “Again!” another voice yelled.
 “Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
 The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
 Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
 “It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
 At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
 “Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
 I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
 I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
 And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.
 
   submitted by    CIAHerpes    to    mrcreeps  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 08:09 CIAHerpes I remember the night I died and saw the Bardo.
There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
 The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality. 
 His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
 “What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
 “He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
 “You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
 “Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
 “History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
 “Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
 “Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
 I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
 As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
 “She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
 “Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch. 
 “Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
 “That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting. 
 I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
 “OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
 “Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
 “Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on. 
 I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
 “You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
 I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
 “Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars. 
 I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
 “Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
 “I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
 I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
 Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
 The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
 Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
 ***
 I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
 The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
 “You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
 “Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
 “As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
 ***
 The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
 A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair. 
 He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
 “Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
 “My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
 “Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
 “So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals? 
 “Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
 “After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
 “Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them. 
 “His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
 Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
 “And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
 “How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
 ***
 The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
 The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
 Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate. 
 Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
 As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
 Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
 I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
 But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms. 
 I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong. 
 I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
 “The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
 “How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
 “Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
 “What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
 “Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.” 
 ***
 Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
 I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
 Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
 Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
 But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
 Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
 The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger. 
 I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” 
 Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
 The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic. 
 “It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!” 
 A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
 A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
 “Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
 I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
 She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
 It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
 ***
 I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
 “Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
 “Again!” another voice yelled.
 “Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
 The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
 Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
 “It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
 At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
 “Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
 I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
 I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
 And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.
 
   submitted by    CIAHerpes    to    creepypasta  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 08:09 CIAHerpes I remember the night I died and saw the Bardo.
There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
 The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality. 
 His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
 “What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
 “He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
 “You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
 “Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
 “History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
 “Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
 “Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
 I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
 As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
 “She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
 “Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch. 
 “Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
 “That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting. 
 I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
 “OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
 “Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
 “Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on. 
 I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
 “You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
 I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
 “Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars. 
 I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
 “Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
 “I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
 I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
 Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
 The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
 Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
 ***
 I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
 The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
 “You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
 “Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
 “As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
 ***
 The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
 A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair. 
 He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
 “Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
 “My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
 “Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
 “So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals? 
 “Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
 “After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
 “Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them. 
 “His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
 Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
 “And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
 “How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
 ***
 The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
 The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
 Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate. 
 Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
 As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
 Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
 I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
 But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms. 
 I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong. 
 I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
 “The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
 “How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
 “Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
 “What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
 “Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.” 
 ***
 Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
 I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
 Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
 Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
 But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
 Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
 The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger. 
 I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” 
 Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
 The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic. 
 “It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!” 
 A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
 A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
 “Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
 I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
 She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
 It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
 ***
 I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
 “Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
 “Again!” another voice yelled.
 “Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
 The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
 Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
 “It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
 At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
 “Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
 I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
 I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
 And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.
 
   submitted by    CIAHerpes    to    stories  [link]   [comments]


2024.05.17 06:22 Dependant_Ad8749_5 Evil CEO's Plan
Event Pass Pages.
 Page 1.
 Mrs. Catnap (Skin)
 Baby Catnap (Back Bling/Pet)
 Wife's Energized Pole (Pickaxe)
 Wife Attack (Contrail)
 Playcare Train (Glider)
 Wife Stance (Built-In Emote)
 Mr. Cat And Mrs. Cat (Emoticon)
 Cat's In Great Love (Spray)
 Light Purple Wife (Wrap)
 Catnap's Lullaby (Music Pack/Jam Track)
 First House (Loading Screen)
 Page 2.
 BullTrap (Skin)
 Bull Pendant (Back Bling)
 Hooves Of The Bull (Built-In Pickaxe)
 Dark Bull Fall (Contrail)
 Imagined Bull (Glider)
 Growing Aura (Built-In Emote)
 *Huff!* (Animated Emoticon)
 Catnap Vs BullTrap (Spray)
 Black Bull (Wrap)
 BullTrap's Tale (Music Pack/Jam Track)
 Legend Of The Dark Critter (Loading Screen)
 Page 3.
 CEO Of Playtime Co. (Skin)
 Pandora Corrupted Staff (Back Bling)
 Pandora Corrupted Staff (Pickaxe)
 Flying CEO Drones (Contrail)
 CEO's Suit (Glider)
 Suit Of The CEO (Built-In Emote)
 Last Pandora Descendant (Emoticon)
 Spirit Of Pandora (Spray)
 CEO Tech (Wrap)
 Pandora Medley (Music Pack)
 Sandstorm Draws Near (Loading Screen)
 POIs: CEO's Lair, Bullish Boulder.
 NPCs: Catnap (Gametoons), Mrs. Catnap, Miss Delight (Gametoons), Morse Coded Delight.
 Bosses: BullTrap, CEO Of Playtime Co.
 Henchman: CEO Drones, CEO Robots.
 Items: Catnap (Gametoons)'s Claws, Catnap (Gametoons)'s Medallion, Morse Coded Barb, BullTrap's Thunder Shotgun, BullTrap's Medallion, CEO Of Playtime Co.'s Ranger AR, CEO Of Playtime Co.'s Suit, CEO Of Playtime Co.'s Medallion.
 Challenges.
 Weekly.
 Week 1: CEO's Arrival.
 Destroy CEO Robots Or Drones (20)
 Sabotage CEO's Detonating Bombs At Home Sweet Home, The School, And The Playhouse (3)
 Collect Items Of The Smiling Critters (8)
 Buy Catnap (Gametoons)'s Claws And Medallion (2)
 Deal Damage With Catnap (Gametoons)'s Claws (250)
 Travel Distance With Catnap (Gametoons)'s Claws (400)
 Week 1 Reward: Mrs. Catnap (Vengeful Warrior)
 Week 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 And 9 Coming Soon.
 Story.
 Part 1: CEO's Intentions.
 Stage 1: Establish A Device Uplink On The Battle Bus (1)
 Stage 2: Collect Weapons (3)
 Stage 3: Take Down CEO's Drones (5)
 Stage 4: Defeat A CEO Robot (1)
 Stage 5: Collect CEO Documents (5)
 Part 1 Reward: CEO's Oath (Loading Screen)
 Part 2 Coming Soon.
 
   submitted by    Dependant_Ad8749_5    to    TheOfficialAltFn  [link]   [comments]


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