Limbo

 I am not sure for how long I was asleep. I just woke up and I am somewhere that I have never been. That I have never seen. I feel cold. I feel solitude. I feel silence. I feel peace. I feel the light. I feel the darkness. I feel calmness. I feel bizarre. What is going on? Where am I? To whom can I ask questions and seek answers.

 I see no souls around me. It seems like a vacuum. No sound. I can hear myself in my mind only. I am trying to move forward towards the light. I have been walking for three hours and it seems like I will never reach it. It feels like when someone is walking towards the sunset and he knows that he will never reach the sun. It is just an illusion. That is how I am feeling now.

 Let me walk to the opposite direction. If I walk three hours in the opposite direction to the sun, I will only be back to my starting point. So, let me walk six hours now. After six hours, I feel like I am approaching this dark dome but I am not reaching it. There is something abnormal here. This is not a dream. I did pinch myself and I am still here. Between the day and the night. Between the dark and the light. Am I a prisoner of time? Am I a prisoner, period?

 This place feels like timeless. I have my watch on me. I bought this watch a decade ago. It always worked well. My watch shows 7:11 PM. It seems stuck. The hands of my watch stopped moving at that time.

 It this is dream? Am I in the future? Did I time travel? I can’t recall what happened before I got here. I can only remember that I have walked now nine hours without reaching a destination. Odd, I don’t feel tired at all.

 I see some sort of a circular mural closing on me at a constant speed. It is closing on me and I have no where to run. Will it crush me? It cannot end like this. I have trouble breathing and now I feel I am having an asthma attack. However, I do not recall going through such an experience. I was always healthy.

 Where am I now? Did I hit the wall? I feel I am walking now but I am not controlling it. Someone else is. I recognize the house. This is the house of Steven! But…what…the hell I am doing here? Why can’t I talk, and why can’t I control my body?

 I see Julia coming closer to me and kissing me with passion! Julia is the wife of Steven. There is nothing I can do to stop this nonsense.

 As Julia leaves the house for work, me feet are walking toward the master bedroom and I see myself in the mirror. Wow!!! I am in Steven’s body! What the hell is going on??? Am I trapped in his body???

 I remember before I was in that alien place, that Steven was planning to buy a new house and a new car. He had just married and he was living with Julia. They were both living at Julia’s parents’ place. They were trying to save money for a house. It had been a year since they got married. I was invited at their wedding and it was a great event.

 Steven was a childhood friend. A great friend. Till…now…now…I remember…

 I see myself, well, Steven, sitting in front of his laptop. I see all the bets he had played. I can see the emails back and forth between him and myself. I am crying inside while I see the emails, he is going over them…

 I look at the time on his laptop on the bottom right. It reads 11:58 AM and the date is August 4^th. I remember when I saw Steven the last time to pay him. This was six months ago. What happened in the last six months and why am I stuck in his physical body?

 It is coming back to me…gradually. I was riding a wave. I was up by 10K. I was not losing. I never had a direct link to the bookie. Steven was the middle man. I had to go trough Steven to place a bet. When I reached that large sum of over 10K, on the plus side, I never got paid. He kept telling me that he was waiting on the bookie to pay him off.

 As time passed, I kept playing and I started losing my bets. There were all sports bets. He kept telling me he was winning but he never divulged the teams he picked and how much he was up.

 Then one day, after several weeks, I was down by 36K. I told him I did not have that kind of money. I gave him small amounts on a weekly basis. Then he threatened me that the bookie will come after me. He even gave my number to the bookie. That bookie kept calling me every day. I was pressured. I was worried. I took out a loan from the bank and gave Steven 25k. I was still down. For many months, he did not harass me. I was blocked to place any bets through him.

 Then one day, Steven started calling me every day. Then it was the bookie’s turn. I did not have that kind of money to pay them off. I was in the negative with the banks. I had more liabilities than assets. My parents were retired. I did not have close friends that were well off financially to lend me 11k.

 I remember now…I hung myself in my apartment on February 10^th at 7:11 PM. I did not have the money or a way to secure it. They were threatening me and my family. The worst thing is you know what? Is that it hurts more when a close person betrays you than a total stranger.

 As I am sitting and going over the emails, I see that Steven is writing an email to his brother and it says that this trick of pretending that there was a bad ass criminal bookie got Aaron scared to death. Literally. He mentions in the email that there was no bookie.

 I see him going through his financial statements. He bought this house with his wife a few days before I said goodbye to this world. I also see that he bought a new Mustang this summer…

 I did not need him to confess. I am seeing the true story from his point of view, literally.

 Am I back to the physical world to avenge? Bookie or no bookie, I know I did lose that money. The teams, the parlays I picked, I just kept losing. It became a vicious circle. I drowned in my debts. What I don’t grasp is that I treated Steven like a brother and this is what I got in return for being his friend.

 Will I rest now? No. I am about to take control of his mind and body…I hope. I see a sign. My face is showing on the laptop. As a reflection. Steven screams out of his lungs and gets up. Right at that moment, I got control of his body.

 Would Steven would have done such an act with a family member? I kept asking that question. I rendered so many favors to him. Giving him my time and sometimes money from my own pocket to help him.

 I will not kill him but I will make him suffer…how? Financially… by the same amount I lost to him. Always be careful. Even with your best friend or friends. I learned the hard way. I hope after my mission, I can be allowed into the light…