The Choice

Trigger Warning: Drugs, Suicide, substance abuse, mental health

The world spun around Markus in vibrant colors. A whirlwind blur fascinated his drug-filled eyes, joyful music filled his ears, and the memories were lost in the mix. Everything was a haze and he was finally free from the pain. The moment the memories returned, he took hold of another needle feeling the table beside him, and rammed it into his arm feeling the release and groaned with pleasure, and another. He never wanted to return this time.

Everything went dark and the vibrant world of drug-induced madness disappeared leaving with it nothing but pain and solitude. This wasn’t what he wanted. “Give me back the haze,” he yelled angrily.

A loud thudding came from the darkness and the world shook around him. He stumbled backward falling on his behind. From the darkness appeared a creature taller than a house. It walked on its legs like a spider. Its long, thick spines were covered in smooth grey flesh, with warts growing in places.

Markus screamed and ran, but the darkness led him nowhere. The creature behind him moved faster, picking him up with one of its legs and dragging him into the air, hanging just in front of its enormous eyeless face. A mane of red like a lion's ran around his triangular head atop a praying mantis-shaped body. Blood stains ran around the edge of its head and flecked in its red mane.

“Don’t move,” came a voice echoing from the darkness. It rumbled deep into his very being causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand and his blood to run cold. He screamed again until his throat ran hoarse. The mouth opened revealing enormous horse-sized teeth, and Markus feared this was the end. This wasn’t the drug-induced paradise he had wanted.

“Where…. where am I?” he croaked and the creature put him back down on the mirror-black floor.

“The place between.”

Markus determined he must have driven himself mad. “How do I get out of here? Please let me go, I’ll…I’ll do anything. I just want the escape.”

The creature opened its mouth into what appeared to be a poor attempt at a terrifying smile. “Let me show you what your escape looks like.” It laughed and reached its leg up high and pressed on his head.

“Wait! No!” Markus screamed, pushing back with all his might. Something was wrong with his feet. He looked below and cried out again. The floor was swallowing him. He couldn’t feel his feet, then his legs were gone. “Please, no!” The black room disappeared, and darkness from the floor poured into his lungs choking him. He couldn’t breathe. It was consuming him.

The darkness disappeared and he fell.

 Tall pillars flew by him, but it wasn’t rock. The hands of people reached out toward him, ripping at his clothes, and screaming. Below him, bubbling lava pooled. He screamed again, trying to take hold of the hands of the people in the pillars.

He grasped one, but it broke away, disappearing into ash. He fell again. The hot air rushed by him, burning his throat.

The second he took hold of his hand slipped on its slimy surface and he continued to fall.

Great beasts moved about; larger versions of the one he had seen in the dark place. They growled and ripped through the pillars so the bodies locked inside fell. The bodies from the pillars screamed, crashing into the lava.

Markus looked below again. The lava was closer and he was running out of time. Black specs floated about in the lava. Human bodies from the pillars were locked in eternal torment as they burned alive, scrambling toward the next pillar for some reprieve from the heat. He could feel the heat from the lava below him and it felt like his skin was peeling off him. Pain hit him like he’d never experienced. His father had burned him with his cigarettes over and over when he was a child. That same pain now covered him and he closed his eyes and screamed.

It stopped and he was returned to the dark place. He risked opening his eyes and glanced at his shaking hands and feet. They were fine. His hands went to his neck. It still hurt and he doubted he could speak. His clothes were ripped and he had peed himself.

“Do you wish to join me again?” asked the creature grinning.

“No,” Markus croaked, tears pouring down his cheeks.

He recalled his long-dead Gran taking him to the church as a child to see the padre preach. The padre had spoken of a place of eternal torment and said they would go there if they did not turn from their sinful ways. The padre spoke of a God they must turn to, but he did not know this being. It had been lost on him. If this God loved us so much, then why did he not care about his mother out on the street, or his drunkard father burning him with cigarettes? Why did his God-fearing Gran beat him when he wouldn’t sit still in church and complain about running? If there was a God then he hated him.

“Very good,” said the creature. “You should hate him. He has brought you nothing but pain. You choose death then?”

Markus considered his life. It had also been painful. His family had never been one – not like the happy people he saw walking down the streets sharing tacos and rainbow icees. He had wandered the streets, joined a gang, and began taking drugs. It was all a painful haze of booze, drugs, and the small pleasure the occasional woman brought him. He laughed. The closest thing he had to home was the seedy abandoned buildings filled with human waste and people piled around trying to escape like he was. There had been no reason to live. Was there any difference between that and the torment?

“Yes….” Said the creature.

The memories brought him pain. They filled his mind and made him long for the sweet escape. Beads of sweat filled his forehead and his hands shook. He looked around, feeling for the needle he was sure he had left. He crawled across the floor searching for where it lay hidden in the darkness. He needed it, needed the escape.

The creature stuck out an enormous tongue and licked him sending him sprawling onto his back. He lay panting, unable to cope with the memories.

“Mmmm…..tasty. Your pain and hate for life are exquisite. More….”

The creature stood above him, panting, inhaling his smell. It reminded him of himself. It wanted his pain just as much as he longed to escape. Was he so pathetic? He felt a kinship to this creature and its understanding of him. It caused him to feel less alone and sickened at the same time. If he were to take the creature's offer, he would be in pain but he would no longer be alone.

He laughed, tears still running down his cheek.

An image appeared in his head. One he had long forgotten. A sweet young girl had once found him in the street. She had cooled his head, washed his body, and fed him water. She had treated his wounds and taken him to a safe place to recover. He didn’t recall what she looked like from his latest drug haze, but she smelled of lemons. She had pleaded with him to stop taking drugs and for a time he had tried for her. He had searched everywhere to find her but had never seen her.

He would do anything to see her one more time.

Light filled the dark room and the creature from before squealed and disappeared into the floor. “I will return,” it rumbled. “You’re mine.”

From the light, she appeared crouching before him just as he remembered. He reached for her and the scent of lemons filled the darkness.

“Markus,” she said with tears in her dark eyes. “Look what you’ve done to yourself.” She took hold of his hand and he could feel her warmth and the joy she brought him. She was so pure, so beautiful surrounded by a golden glow.

Markus tried to speak but the words would no longer come from his parched throat.

“You have to live, Markus,” she said, “No more. Please.”

“Wh..e…re…? H..ooo…ww?”

“Your friends took me,” she said, “They….they did terrible things to me and I died.”

“No…” he cried. He touched her playing with her dark hair. “You taught me what love is.”

“I know. Please…. you must choose to live. You must fight. You won’t be alone, but if you go with the demon I will never see you again. You must live your life and be the person you deserved to have care for you. Love others the way no one loved you.”

Markus nodded and the girl touched the side of his cheek. Before him appeared an empty hill with three crosses. People screamed at them and made fun of the people on them. The body of the man in the center was covered in wounds and dripped with blood. He throat was parched and he cried out for water. He recalled something like this from the padre's lessons. "He was broken too. At this point no one loved him."

"Who?"

"God. He knows your pain. He knows how abandoned you feel. Seek him."

She leaned forward and kissed him. His throat healed and renewed strength flooded through him. "I will wait for you," said the girl and she disappeared leaving him alone again.

The creature reappeared and he ran from it. He ran for an eternity, but now he could see light in the distance. He continued to run for it, the creature close behind. It swiped at him, trying to catch him but now he could outrun it. The light surrounded him and he was free.

Markus opened his eyes. Sunlight poured through the window of the hospital bed. The pain of multiple IVs came from his arm. He had decided to live so he could one day see her again. He would fight the drugs, and try to live so she could live through him.

“You survived,” said a nurse. “We didn’t think you would last the night.”

“Yes,” he croaked, “I need help.”