Fallen One

Normally when I can’t sleep I will go down stairs and try to read for a little while. I never understood why, but reading always seemed to make me tired. I got out of bed and looked down at my wife, Sarah. She always seemed to be able to fall right asleep. I walked over to my nightstand where I always keep my book. I reached out for it in the dark, but I couldn’t seem to find it. Sara must have moved it. Rather than turning on the lights and waking her up to find it, I decided I would just go outside and take a walk. For the past couple of nights I’ve had night terrors, and I would wake up Sarah in the middle of the night. I didn’t feel like disturbing her sleep just because of a book. I put on my shoes and stepped out into the cool night air. The moon cast an eerie glow on the night world, accompanied with a haunting silence. I shivered, thinking to myself, if I’m trying to get over night terrors, perhaps walking around out here isn’t the best idea. I decided I would go back inside and try to face my bed again. As I made my way back to the front door, I heard a woman scream. The scream sent chills down my spine, as I knew who that scream came from. Sarah. I hurried back to the house, but then I heard the scream again, and realized it wasn’t coming from inside. It was outside, coming from the back of the house. I ran around the house to the back. When I reached my back yard I saw Sarah, on her knees, and two men. One standing behind Sarah, with a knife to her throat, the other standing a few feet in front of Sarah, facing me.
“What are you doing to her?!” I tried my hardest to not sound scared.
The man raised his finger and pointed at me. “Did you really think you would get away with it?”
“Get away with what?”
“You’ve done your deed, now receive your punishment.”
The moment the man in front of me finished his sentence, the man with the knife ran the blade across Sarah’s neck, cutting the skin and opening the throat.
“NO!” I screamed as I charged the man in front of me. I reached him, expecting to make contact, but was surprised when I went right through him and fell to the ground. I hit what should have been grass, but instead was a metal grate. I stood up and took in my new surroundings. I was on what appeared to be some kind of cat walk. The cat walk was slightly illuminated, so I could see down either way for a few feet, but everything else was hidden in darkness. I assured myself at this point that I was just dreaming, even though it felt real. I decided to start walking down the cat walk, since there wasn’t really any other options at this point. As I started walking I could hear a little girl crying in the distance. The more I walked the closer the crying sounded. Finally I could see the outline of a little girl sitting down in the distance. I ran towards the crying little girl, but slowed down as I reached her. I had never known Sarah as a child, but I had seen pictures of her, and I instantly recognized her. This little girl was the same girl in childhood pictures of Sarah.
“Sarah?”
The little girl looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “How could you do this?”
“Sarah, I don’t understand.”
I stumbled back in horror as the little girl’s face began to age rapidly. She continued to age, reaching and passing the Sarah I knew, until her face was that of an old decaying woman. She began to scream as blood poured out of mouth. I turned away in disgust and began to run away. I didn’t get to far before something hit me and knocked me back. I stood up, now in a black room with no windows or doors. There was nothing else in the room except me and the two men who earlier I watched kill Sarah.
“You,” I yelled, “you son of a bitch!” I began to move towards the two men, not quite sure of what I was going to do. Both of the men were six feet tall, they wore black cloaks with hoods pulled over their heads. Both of their faces looked blank, no expression at all. Almost fake.
“What exactly do you hope to accomplish by advancing on us?”
I stopped. He was right, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I wasn’t even sure what was going on at this point. “You killed Sarah.”
The men looked at each other. “He is greatly confused, Eblis,” one of them spoke.”
“Indeed Gressil. A very troubled soul this one is,” the other man replied.
Gressil looked back at me. “We did not kill your wife. You are mistaken.”
“I watched you! You cut her throat!”
Eblis shook his head, “How can you believe what you see, when you are so certain this is a dream?”
He’s right, I thought to myself, this is just a dream.
“You’re right,” Gressil spoke, “This is just a dream. Your crime however, wasn’t.”
“What do you mean? What crime?” Suddenly I was filled with images of Sarah covered in blood and screaming.
Eblis cocked his head, “I think he’s beginning to see now, brother.”
“Yes brother, he’s realizing his crime now.”
I tried to speak, still shocked from the images. “Are you trying to say I killed Sarah?”
Eblis clapped his hands together, “Ah yes, I knew you would understand.”
“That’s crazy, I would never do that. I love Sarah. And this is all just a dream, none of it is real.”
“Very well then,” Gressil said with frustration in his voice, “we will end your dream, and you can go back to reality.”
Eblis gestured towards a door, that wasn’t there before. “There is your way back to reality.”
I cautiously made my way towards the door. I opened it and stepped into the bright light on the other side.

I sat up abruptly in my bed. I looked over and could see Sarah’s blonde hair in the darkness. I let out a sigh of relief. In the past I’ve had pretty bad night terrors, but that was definitely the worse one. Sarah still seemed to be sleeping. Usually I end up screaming in my sleep and wake her up. I nudged her. “Honey, are you awake?” She didn’t reply. I reached over and turned on the light. The room lit up, revealing Sarah. She was laying on her back, her face frozen in a horrified position. Her throat had been cut, and blood was still flowing out of the gaping wound. Before I could even react to what I was seeing, I realized I was holding a knife, covered in her blood.

I had been kneeling by my bed crying for what felt like hours. I had buried my face in one hand and the other held Sarah’s cold lifeless hand. Then I felt Sarah’s hand squeeze mine. I stopped sobbing and looked up. She was starting at me with a look of concern.
“What’s wrong, dear?”
I jumped up and hugged her tightly, feeling a great sense of relief. “It was just another one of my night terrors, Sarah. It’s okay. Everything is okay now.” I kept hugging her, squeezing my eyes shut, not wanting to let go. Seeing her dead had seemed so real. Suddenly I felt Sarah go limp. I broke from the hug and opened my eyes, and that was when I realized I was holding a corpse. Disgusted, I dropped it and tried to get away. But much to my dismay, I was surrounded by dirt walls. It didn’t take long before I could see that I was in a six foot grave. I took another look at the corpse and could see strands of blonde hair on the decaying head. I began to climb my way out of the grave, and when I finally made it to the surface I lied down on my back in the grass, breathing heavily. I lay there trying to wrap my mind around what was going on. This was worse than any nightmare I’d ever had. Everything seemed so real. A faint, haunting moan brought me out of my thoughts. I sat up and looked at the grave that I had just climbed out of. Two skeletal hands came out of the grave and grabbed the edge. The hands, with the last bit of flesh on them rotting off, pulled the corpse up and out of the grave so that it was standing above me. It stared down at me with empty eye sockets and pointed. It took me a moment to realize the corpse wasn’t pointing at me, it was pointing past me. I turned and looked behind me and my gaze met the two men in black cloaks. I jumped to my feet and yelled at them. “You two! What do you want? What is all this?”
“My dear boy,” Eblis spoke, “if you just keep asking questions then we are never going to get anywhere.”
“No more. I don’t want to deal with this anymore.”
Gressil sneered, “Well what is it that you want?”
“I want to wake up. I want to wake up from this dream.”
Eblis and Gressil laughed. “You don’t even know what you’re asking. You don’t want that.”
“Yes I do,” I sad, angrily. “I want to wake up.”
Eblis and Gressil grew serious. “Very well then. If you want to wake up. Then so be it.”
The two men stared at me with blank expressions. Suddenly I felt a very strange sensation in my body. I looked down at my hands and could see my skin decaying and falling off. I looked back up at where Eblis and Gressil were standing, but they were no longer there. All I could see now was black. I looked back down at my hands, but the darkness was so thick I couldn’t even see them. The sound of men and women screaming slowly filled my ears and got louder and louder. My body quickly began to feel like it was on fire. The screams kept getting louder. The smell of burning dead flesh filled my nostrils. It started to feel like worms were crawling on my arms and legs. I began brushing them as best I could in the dark, but they didn’t go away. The heat became more and more unbearable, and then I joined the men and women screaming. I continued to scream like it would make everything go away, until I finally shouted out, “I want to go back! I don’t want to wake up, I want to go back!” The instant I finished my sentence, everything was gone. The screaming, the darkness, the agonizing heat. I looked down at my hands, they were normal again.
“I don’t think he’ll be demanding anything else now. What do you think brother?”
“No, nothing else indeed.”
Eblis and Gressil spoke, breaking the silence. I looked up at them as they stared at me with satisfied smiles. “What is it that you want,” I said, sounding defeated. “Just tell me what you want.”
Gressil looked at Eblis. “Do you think it’s time?”
Eblis nodded, “Yes. It’s time we show him.”
“Show me what?”
Eblis pointed at me, “The reason for your punishment.”
Eblis and Gressil stood still as they slowly faded away. I found myself in my room once again. My body turned and walked out of the bedroom. At this point I realized I was controlling any of my movements. I could here the doorbell ringing as I my body moved downstairs. I reached the door and opened it, revealing my secretary, Amy, from work on the other side. I recognized this scene right away. It happened a couple nights ago. Amy and I had been having an affair, and the previous day I told her I was calling it off. On this night she had shown up at my house while Sarah was out to argue with me. She didn’t want it to end. I remember we argued about it for a few minutes and then she finally went home. As I was thinking this, something happened that I didn’t remember. Amy pushed pass me and entered the house. She then began saying that she was going to stay until Sarah got home and then tell her what had been going on in the past month. I tried to get her to leave, but she refused. My body then left the front room and entered the kitchen. My hand opened a drawer and pulled out a large cutting knife. I couldn’t figure out what was going on, this wasn’t what had happened that night. I entered the room where Amy was again, and with no hesitation, stabbed her in the chest. She let out a scream which turned into a gurgle, as blood began to ooze out of her mouth. I pulled the knife out and stabbed her again. As soon as the knife penetrated her the second time, the door opened. Sarah walked in and stared in horror at me with a knife dug deep into Amy’s chest. I turned and faced Sarah. She began to back up until she hit the wall behind her. My body closed in on her, as I tried to stop what was about to take place. My efforts were in vain, as I still had no control over my body. I brought the knife up and stuck it into Sarah’s heart. She fell to the ground, and I pulled the knife out of her. I then put the knife to my wrists. I then found myself kneeling on the ground in a black room, with wounds on both my wrists. I began to cry uncontrollably. I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew that what I had seen was real.
“Well I think he finally sees his sins, brother.”
“Yes, I think so too.”
I looked up at Eblis and Gressil. “I killed them both. Then I killed myself.”
“There you go boy. That wasn’t so hard to admit, now was it?”
“If I’m dead, then what is this?”
Eblis and Gressil spoke in unison, “This is your punishment. This is your torment. This is the beginning of an eternity for you.”