The disease had sharpened my senses –not destroyed –not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily –how calmly I can tell you the whole story.-Edgar Allen Poe, The TellTale Heart

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A Story About Ezekiel Roberts

The motley shadows pocked the surface of the inner door.  Slowly, in what appeared to be a trick of the mind, the shadows shifted and moved, coalescing into a singular form as shadow took the shape of a faintly human outline.

“Nurse!  Nurse, can I get some help over here to restrain the patient?”  I fought against the doctor’s will.   “Mister Roberts!  Please calm down!” The doctor pressed his considerable weight down on my arms.   “How are they able to loosen these restraints?”

Struggling to get free from the doctor, my mind was struggling to get free from the shadow.   “Get your hands off me! Let me up!” I shouted. I could partially see through the rift while it had me tied down with chains to the face of a boulder, leering at me.  I couldn’t see much of its mass, only a darkening of the corner of the room.

“What did he just say?” Asked the doctor. “Those eyes- I could see those eyes looking out from the corner.”   The doctor spun around to look but he saw nothing.  “The eyes! The eyes!  Do you see the eyes!”   I screamed, jerking to pull myself free of the straps.  I slammed my head, back and forth, from left to right, in a panic to escape.  The bed scooted about the room as, I with tongue stretching upwards to be free, screamed.

“Nurse!  Call in an orderly, now!”

“Okay, Doctor Glidden!”

The creature moved from the corner and approached bedside, covered in thick and billowy, black smoke.  Its musculature flexed and tensed as it moved.  And then it spoke to me.  Hello, Ezekiel Roberts.

I ceased activity as I looked up into the doctors’ eyes.  “Did you hear-”  My focus shifted slightly, from the doctor’s eyes to the shape approaching from behind him.

This demon was a beast of a creature.   I could see that it flowed with power while it stood over me, near the bed.  “Hold his arms down so I can insert the needle.”  Said the doctor.

The beast raised his muscled arms, as if it were instructing me to look at something.

Oddly, my curiosity overpowered my fear.  My breathing slowed.  My mouth unlatched and hung open.  My body spread out onto the bed sheets; flesh and fiber mixing atoms at the edges.  In that moment, I became completely relaxed.  All my thoughts, with sharp edged focus, watched the images flashing across the black eyes of the dark lord.

And then, I saw in the vision how heaven collapsed and was broken off and fell to the earth.   Fiery and ablaze, like a second sun, it fell.  I saw how the earth was swallowed up in a great abyss, mountains, hills, and oceans sank into it.  And thereupon a word fell into my mouth, producing a scream that erupted from it and shot straight into the sky.

A horrible roar erupted from the abyss.  Drums and marching feet.  Creatures wearing gold armor and creatures wearing silver armor crawled out from it.  Legions on either side gathered under the dark sky.  Metallic insect like creatures buzzed about overhead.  Three hundred and thirty two  soldiers, with a general, on either side watched with the flying creatures many eyes.  Huge beasts, cloaked in gray skins that glittered in the evening light, roared as their bellies crawled across the ground.

I looked to either side before the sound of a thousand trumpets cracked the skies like lightning.  Each human like creature was covered in billowy smoke as they looked through black pools of death.

Then before me, the creatures flashed and rushed toward each other like a wave before the shore, gathering height, mass, and volume as it crests toward the shore.  Mixing their blood in pools along the ground, that flowed into and flooded the area forming a crimson lake.  The armies crashed into one another.  Glaives and swords slashing wildly at flesh.  The sounds of anguish filled the air.

I cried out, shaking my head wildly in despair before turning my face into the pillow as I sobbed, heavy sobs, “Save us!!!  No, no, no.  Please someone save us.”

And then the creature’s voice spoke again.  Mr Roberts, you have been chosen.   In a second the feeling of despair and nausea subsided.  Feeling lucid as ever, I listened to his prophetic words as they fell upon an unbelieving ear.  I didn’t believe in any type of religious, hocus-pocus.  “What do you mean chosen?”  I said.

“Who is he talking to doctor?” Asked the nurse.

“I think the methadone is taking effect.”

You have been chosen as the vessel to save this world by my hand.  I may be an unbeliever, but the words did, however, fall upon an ambitious and enterprising ear.

I am unsure if historical accounts are accurate when they speak about native american tribes welcoming European invaders as returning gods, but I was certain there wasn’t room for anymore gods in this world.  I would embrace his prophecy, and be the one this demon prophesied.  This power would be for my gain to become a god.

It’s monstrous hands held me down.  Mr. Roberts,  you are the one I’ve been waiting for, the prophesy foretold, spoken of.   You will carry me into the world of men and I will be their master.  It opened it’s mouth to consume me.  But it is I who consumed it.  Drifting in and out of elusive sleep, I contemplated what wonders I would perform.

At the edge of consciousness, I heard the faint crackle of thunder cutting the horizon in half.  The future felt dark in a way that I could feel it, but not see it; smell it, but not taste it’s…immediacy.  A desire was growing within me to become the beast’s god, to become it’s master.

Looking to read more about these characters’ stories?  They can be located in this category:  hyper-reality

by malakhai jonezs
(c) Copyright 2017