Limbo.

It’s dark and quiet in the area I seem to be in. I can’t remember anything before this moment in time. I’m standing, though it feels like I’m not in my own body, but in someone elses. I reach down and brush the ground for an idea of where I’m at; it is stone that I grazed. I begin to panic. Where are the lights in this place? Am I trapped in a musty old cellar? Did someone steal me from my own residence, wherever that may be? Am I blind? I am a thirty-two year old man! Blindness simply cannot be the reason. Did I die? I cannot remember!

Suddenly I hear a noise. I clench my eyes shut, though aiding me very little as I focus on the sound. It seems to be coming from my left. I open my eyes to the identical sight from the inside of my eyelids. I wonder, is whatever that is producing this noise blind, too? The sound turns into a distant clicking. Am I moving, or is this strange being the one that’s moving? I try to shout “turn on the lights!” and “come back here, you coward!” but my voice is shattered by the darkness. I try to move my legs, but they seem to connect not with my body, but with the darkness. Nothing seems to be able bring the noise closer. My shoulders hunch considerably as I push out my last source of hope along with my breath. If I haven’t died already, surely I will die here.

It is silent now. Some time passes before I hear a noise again. This one is louder, but it is the same noise; I am sure of it! I urge my ears to strain, but it is not necessary. The sound is growing nearer! Click-clap, click-clap, click-clap. Funny, it sounds almost identical to a woman running in heels. Surely not! Anyone who is bright enough to live in this world should know that no woman could awfully prepare herself for a jog any more profusely than to choose to wear heels! Of course, what world am I speaking of, anyhow? My mind is made up; it simply has to be a woman in heels.

Click-clap, click-clap, click-clap. But who could this woman be?

My thoughts are interrupted by the nonsensical mistress falling into a heap of me and her.

The lights flip on, for a fraction of a second, it seems, and all I can make out of the woman that landed on top of me is a few key things: thick, rippling, champagne hair, delicate skin the color of caramel, and her brilliant cerise-infused business dress that equally match the heeled pair of shoes that drove me to the edges of schizophrenia.

The lights flicker unsteadily, and as I blink my eyes I realize the radiant paramour has vanished!

I leap up, eager to find the beauty that stole my stance. Continuously, the lights quiver with my anxiety as I search the ever-changing hues of light for the woman.

“I believe you’ll find my way of getting around quite...intriguing.” A sensual voice speaks behind me. I twist my view around toward the voice, but no one is there. Suddenly, a prolonged stroke down my arm sends my spine in a shockwave of shivers. Again, I turn to face her, but she is nowhere in sight.

I regain my sense of reality, apprehending the fact that she is trying to create a diversion.

“Show yourself, woman!” I order, pulsing my foot to the ground. “Speak to me of the reason why you are here, trapped in this fluctuating darkness!” I glance around the room. The floor is covered in a worn out type of gray stone. There are no buildings, no source of the lighting, only black walls that seem a bit fuzzy to me as they reach toward the ground.

As I’m looking around, her figure flashes before me multiple times in a circling motion, and at this time I realize that I have yet to see her face. Her deep, luxurious, golden hair is kept in front of her visage ever so slightly that the shadows cover the rest of it.

“Why don’t you show your face, beautiful woman?” I shout to the flashes of her. Suddenly the flashes stop, and she comes to one point: out in front of me. Her head is facing down, toward the cold stone, and her hands are held neatly behind her back. I notice her stunning figure, then: She is quite tall. Her shoulders are set so squarely, yet finely delicate; her chest so full, so marvelously in proportion to her thin waist, wide hips beckoning me to move my eyes down to her soft, glowing legs. Her supple energy flows in rhythmic vibes toward me.

“Why do you call me that?” She asks, taking a small step toward me, her head still down. Click-clap.

I run my hand through what’s left of my once dark, full hair. “Must you ask? You seem not to have mirrors in this place, I presume. Why, darling, you are the most compelling woman my eyes have ever fell on."

Click-clap. “But you’ve yet to see my face.”

“Then show it, fair one. I’ve waited much too long,” I plead.

Click-clap. She is right in front of me now. I can feel her warmth radiating toward mine.

“All right.” In one smooth motion, she lifts her head toward mine as I begin to embrace her slowly...

And into the eyes I look, there is a monster! Her eyes glow a mysterious dark light, as bits of black and dark reds and purple hues swirl around her pupil. Snakes, bugs, and worms swarm out of her nose and her mouth as she spoke.

“December twenty-first, nineteen ninety-three. Andy Grissom, you left me no choice of my own that day. In fact, you left me no choice at all!"She barks. I try to look away from the grief leaking out her eyes, but my own eyes are caught in her strengthening glance. I am completely, utterly frozen.

“Valerie?...”I mutter under my breath, but from the way she twists her mouth into a grin, I can tell she heard me.

“Yes,” she hisses. “Valerie Goldbloom Smith, and all this time I thought you had forgotten all about me!” She sighs. "I suppose you would have preferred it that way!"

“How could this be you? You look nothing like yourself!”I declare, fumbling for the right words to persuade her to forgive me for the wretched wrong I committed.

“That’s because I took a new form! You see, when you killed me, you forced me into the miserable land of limbo! I had a body no longer! A scorched and trapped spirit left to swarm until the Rapture, to wait for you to receive your debts! To happily watch you burn in the fiery lake of hell!” She shouts, walking around me in a way that demonstrates that I am her prey. She doesn't let her gaze leave mine.

I shudder, trying to swallow the truth of everything that is going on.

She faces me again, grinning and staring at me so violently, it makes me want to burst from feeling so violated by her stare. “And well, I had to find some way of paying you back in my own special way. I couldn’t wait very long!” She rolls back her head and laughs cynically. She is looking away, perhaps I can..yes! It seems I am able to squirm free! I rush past her, her laughter carrying behind me as I push farther into the darkness. As I run toward the dark walls, the darkness shifts into a hallway. Feeling grateful, I don’t plan on stopping until I can find a way back home...

Until I am frozen in place again, and this time, shock-waves of pain course through my veins. Tortuously, I turn my head around to see Valerie pointing with her finger and directing her powers through me, smiling maniacally once more.

“Silly, Andy, you will never escape from me!” She states as she strolls in front of me, satanically tapping a long bladed knife in her left hand. “Hmmm-mhmm, oh, how the tables have turned, my dear sweet. It seems that I’ve acquired the exact same weapon that you used on me,” She smirks.

“Val, please, you have to forgive me...” I beg.

“Have to forgive you? Oh, please! Just like you had to kill me? Which, I’ll never understand why you did that, but at least I have a reason for your murder, right?” She stops directly in front of me, placing the knife’s bladed edge in her left hand. “What a story, eh? Your dead girlfriend coming back to kill you. I bet you’ll make front page, just like I did!”

“Valerie, sometimes even I don’t understand why I did it, but if you’d just give me a chance, I have a plenty good reason for...”

“Murdering your beloved! On the day of your wedding! And proceeding the shame by blaming it on a kidnapping, the court declares! What fools! You probably paid them off for it!” She cries, throwing her hands back in anger.

“Please! Valerie, I had nothing to do with the court’s...”

“I don’t want to hear your pathetic excuses any longer, Andy. It’s time for my sweet revenge.” She rears the knife back behind her.

“Valerie, no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!----“ I close my eyes tightly and prepare for the worst...
And I gasp for breath after a straight minute. There's no blood. No more morbid laughter. Did she change her mind? I'm definitely alive. Maybe I should open my eyes.

I pop up and look around, only to realize I’m sitting, in my bed....in my room. This isn’t death. It was...could it be? Was it really...a dream?

A dream! I jump out of bed and dance on my faded blue carpet. “It was a dream! Oh my god, it really was a dream! Valerie’s not back from the dead to kill me down in limbo!” I’m almost in tears. I glance at the clock next to my bedside table. “Four AM? I don’t have to be up for another six hours!” I screech. I climb back into my comfortable, warm bed.

“No more Valerie.” I close my eyes and smile, snuggling into the covers. “Ever. And no more haunted dreams.”

A silence grows over my bedroom. Almost an unbearably eerie silence. It’s actually a perfect setting—I’m almost fast asleep—

Click-clap.

“Yes, sweet dreams....Andy.”




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