Your Own Kind Of Hell

Trigger warning, talks about murder and hell.

When my eyes opened, I was in the woods. This isn’t where I remember going to sleep. My head was pounding and there was burning in my side. What happened after I went to bed last night? I looked around to see if I could recognize anything around me. It was too dark to see anything around me. It was too dark to see anything significant. Everything just looked like a big mass of shadows. I looked down to my body just to make sure, for the most part, all of me was intact. I was still in my pajamas from when I went to bed last night. Just a tee shirt and some old running shorts, my feet were bare. I slowly stood and began walking. Not sure where I was going, but eventually I would find a road or a path right? What time was it? After walking for sometime, not sure how long, I found a flag tied to a tree. It was too dark to make out the color, but I assumed there had to be another one nearby. Another ribbon was found on the tree just in front of the one I stood at. These must be markers to a trail of some kind. Flags on trees mean other people, so I began to follow the fags. The sun had begun to rise behind me. As the sun lit up the forest around me, I could now see that the ribbons on the trees were red. I really wish I could remember what the red ribbons mean. I took a survival class in high school and I never thought I would need it, so that information went in one ear and out the other. Right as the sun broke over the horizon of the trees, a small village came into view. The closer I got, I could tell there was something off about the energy of the place. However, I couldn’t quite place what it was. There was a little diner with a small elderly lady sitting at one of the tables. When I opened the door to the diner, she stood to greet me. 

“Good morning, did you want a table or a booth?”

“Um…. could I just borrow your phone?”

“I’m sorry dear but I’m not sure what you are talking about. A table or a booth?”

She has to be joking right? She doesn’t know what a phone is. 

“Is this alright for you dear?”

“Yes this is fine, thank you. Are you sure you don’t have a phone I could borrow? I just woke up in the woods with no recollection of how I got there.”

“Here is the menu, I’ll be right back to take your order dear.” The old woman smiled at me and took her seat back at the table near the door where she started. Confused, I slid into the booth and proceeded to look at the menu she handed to me. This was a newspaper article. How confused was that old woman? The article on the front page was of a missing girl. She had been missing from her home for three days when police pulled her body from the river with her head missing. There have been no arrests made at this time.

“Oh that poor girl, there is no way she deserved to die so brutally like that,” I mumbled under my breath as I unfolded the newspaper to find a picture of the missing dead girl. In the bottom right hand corner of the page, was a picture of me. 

“Wait this can’t be right, it says in this article I’ve been decapitated!” I scanned the top of the page to find the date the newspaper was published, October 29, 2021. I turned to find the old woman in the diner only to see that she was already walking towards me.

“What would you be having today dear?”

“Could you tell me today’s date?”

“Why, it’s October 30th dear. Can I get you anything to eat or drink?”

“This newspaper you handed me says I’ve gone missing and that I’ve been found in the river with my head cut off.” The old woman looked down at the picture in the article then looked back up at me.

“That picture looks nothing like you dear. I wouldn’t worry too much about the logistics, we wouldn’t want you to lose your head now would we?” 

“But this is me. Look, it says my name right here under the picture. This is definitely something I need to be concerned with. Are you sure you don’t have a phone or a radio? I really need to call my friends and figure this all out.” 

The old woman looked at me with a crooked grin and said through her teeth, “I told you once before, I don’t know what you are talking about dear. There are no phones in hell. No radio to call your friends. I’m your only friend now.”

This can’t be happening. This has to be a nightmare. Wake up. Wake up. The woman lunged at me and held my hands to the table.

“Now how would you like your head served to you? Would you prefer sliced, diced, or blended?”

“I don’t think I would like any of those options and I think I’m going to go ahead and leave if that is okay with you.”

I tried to pull my hands from her grip but she just squeezed tighter on my wrists.

“Oh come on dear, you must choose one of them. I have to get you ready for your funeral. You wouldn’t want to miss it now, would you dear?” 

“I’ll only be going to my funeral the day that I die and I’m going to make sure today is not that day.”

“How heroic of you dear, but I’m afraid you are too late on the fighting back as to your already dead”

“I am already dead?”

“Yes, dead. Dead as a doornail dear. Why do you think you keep waking up in the woods every dawn?”

“We’ve done this routine before? I don’t ever remember seeing you or this place before.”

The old woman slowly let one of my wrists go. She put her hand behind her back and pulled out a hunting knife. Where in the world did she get that knife from? Has she had it with her this whole time? 

“Sadly, we have come to the part of the cycle where I cut off your head after you try and run out the door of the diner. You’ve done that the last 100 times and honestly, I’m tired of running. So dear, if you don’t mind, could we save the running and you just be a good girl and sit right there.”

I had done this at least 100 times before. No, this is insane. She is lying to you. This is just a dream. You are going to wake up any second now and it will all be over. You’ll be in your bed, in your pajamas, just like you were when you went to bed last night. I should just close my eyes and when I open them again I’ll be in my bed. As I closed my eyes I could feel the old woman’s breath getting closer to my neck. 

She whispered, “Just in case you were wondering, no one remembers you even existed. Get some rest, I’ll see you at about noon tomorrow dear.”

Next thing I know there is a cool feeling across my neck that quickly turned hot and tingly. I open my eyes. I am again in the woods. In my pajamas. Just a tee shirt and old running shorts.