The Origin of Madness

I never knew what hell awaited me. I never knew what was to come. All I knew, at the time, was that if I didn’t go through with this procedure, I would most surely end up dead. I would be forced to leave my loved ones behind. My heart was, itself, fixing to stop, so I never really had a choice in the first place. I never really had a chance if I tried to deny the need, my inhumane need to sustain my own life. Basically, I had the choice to either live in hell on earth—although I didn’t know it at the time—or in the biblical Hell. My life was, in fact, fixing to end.

I just needed the heart of another. It was the only way I was to be saved. Now, I don’t really remember what happened. Nor, do I remember the details of the surgery. Or what they did for that matter. All I remember is the presence of my girlfriend, Claire. All I remember is the feeling of her hand gripping my hand applying a tremendous amount of pressure, the fear in her eyes, the fear gripping her heart with every ounce of supernatural might.

Everything else, on the other hand, was nothing more than a blur. My surroundings were, for the most part, nothing more than a forgotten dream. The friends and family I had which were present have long since been forgotten. I can’t remember who was there, and I can’t remember who was. I can’t even remember what the doctor that removed my old heart and replaced it with another looked like. My lack of consciousness had since erased most of my memories, most of my current ones. Hell, I even forgot where my heart initially came from.

Of course, said consciousness would soon return. The only one there was the aforementioned girlfriend. She was still gripping my hand with all her might, holding a death grip on my no longer lifeless hand. But she was otherwise unconscious. Her bodies demand for sleep had grown too strong, and, at that point, she had no choice but to obey. She was snoring peacefully, and I didn’t want to wake here.

But, of course, I had a problem that couldn’t be ignored at that point. Nature was calling, and I really needed to pee. So I very gently rubbed the tip of my thumb against the palm of her motionless hand. Her eyes slowly opened, taking her a couple minutes to realize where she was. In fact, her vision was most likely obscured, her vision being blurred by a body which refused to properly awake.

“Hi love,” I said, barely managing to crack a smile, as I attempted to raise her from her zombie-like sleepiness.

“Hi,” she said with a smile, as her consciousness finally finished resisting its awareness of the waking world. “How are you feeling?”

“I really need to go to the bathroom.”

She snickered. “I guess, I shouldn’t be too surprised.”

“So you going to help me up?” I asked, retaining my smile, which had grown wider.

“Of course,” she helped me sit up.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, as I got out of bed and kissed her gently. I then walked past her and disappeared into the bathroom. Even though I didn’t really have too, considering she had already seen me naked many times, I still closed the door behind.

Of course, the lights were still off in the restroom, so I found myself surrounded by darkness. I couldn’t see a thing. I was left with only one choice, to rely on my sense of touch. So I felt along the wall for a few moments until I finally found the light switch.

Only, once I flipped it, I found myself being completely blinded, although for a much different reason. The lights were way too bright. I could barely see, having to feel along the wall until I got to the toilet. My eyes would slowly adjust to the increased brightness, as I finished going to the bathroom.

“I told them I’d be back,” a mysterious voice said from behind me, its tone filled with sinister dread.

“What?” I whispered, raising an eyebrow, as my heart rate started to get faster. I felt my blood pumping through my veins more rapidly.

“Don’t you remember Chris?” the same voice asked, somehow knowing my name, although I never heard the voice before in my life. “Don’t you remember where your second chance came from?”

“What are you talking about?” I said with a tremble, struggling to ignore the rapidly growing feeling of horror, the fear that was slowly consuming me.

“Turn around,” the voice commanded. “Look in the mirror, and you may be able to see.”

I swallowed hard upon his command. And reluctantly, I obeyed. I slowly turned to face the other direction. Only, it wasn’t my reflection I saw. Rather, it was the shadow of another. Someone else was waiting for me, as if it was a being from another hellish dimension. I stepped back immediately.

“What the hell?” It was all I could think to say.

But he responded with even less. He laughed a sinister laugh, his evilness tearing through the very fabric of reality, tearing a hole through what was left of my formally normal life. The mental agony was, in fact, excruciating, more painful than you could possibly imagine.

“Who the hell are you?”

“You should already know that, my good pal. After all, you were the one that initially agreed to go through with the procedure.”

“Huh?” I asked. “What? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’ve forgotten already, I see.” The owner of the voice suddenly smiled an evil smile, one I could barely see beneath the horrifying shadow that had engulfed his nightmarish form.

I stepped back again, this time colliding with the wall behind me. “What do you want?”

“You have something of mine,” he continued, this time with more command, with more force. “And I want it back.”

“No,” I tried to argue, but with no avail.

“I killed many people in my life, and it’s a shame that I can’t kill anymore.”

“Oh,” I barely managed to say, as I finally realized the truth, as I finally realized where my heart initially came from.

“Or at least, it’s a shame that I can’t kill in my old body.”

“No!” I screamed, no longer able to keep my dialogue at a whisper, breaking the mirror before walking back outside to my girl, my hand dripping with blood.

Claire was waiting in the chair next to my bed, her head turned over her shoulder. A single tear was dripping from her eye. She, in fact, looked perplexed. Her face was locked in a look, which could best be described as a tragic cross between sadness and fear.

“Chris, what happened?” she asked, suddenly getting back to her feet.

“Oh it’s alright,” I tried to explain, but she wasn’t willing to listen.

“No, it’s not alright,” she said, looking at my hand. “You’re hurt.” She called for a doctor before I had the chance to argue.

“I know.”

“What happened Chris?”

“It’s nothing,” I lied, not thinking she would believe my story or understand my torment. “I lost my balance and fell. You know how much of a klutz I am.”

She almost chuckled, but I could tell she was still too afraid to give into my blatantly bad, off-color, attempt at humor. “You really need to be more careful dear.”

“I know,” I agreed, walking back to the bed, as the nurse came in and saw my hand. “I’ll try.”

The voice left me alone for a while, disappearing from my life altogether. I, in fact, didn’t hear from it again for the rest of my stay at the hospital.

Weeks would, of course, go by before I would be released, before I would get to leave the wretched hellhole. I was led through the ambulance entrance, being forced to ride in a dreaded wheelchair, even though I was perfectly capable of walking. My car was waiting for me at the door.

Of course, I was still kind of dopey from the medication, so I wasn’t able to drive either. Claire got in the driver’s seat, as I sat down in the passenger’s. We then both, almost simultaneously, fastened our seatbelts, like it was second nature.

“Let’s go,” I said, quietly.

She nodded, neither one of us having much to talk about. She was too busy concentrating on the road, and I was too busy concentrating on sleep. I was really quite tired. So my consciousness once again faded. I fell asleep and drifted off into dreamland.

Unfortunately, my dreams were not the stuff, in which dreams are made of. Rather, I found myself in a nightmare, one which I would have been better off never experiencing. I found myself with my legs, arms, and head strapped to a chair, not being able to turn my head at all.

“You think you can escape from me that easily?” the voice returned with a sinister question, asking it from behind me, from over my shoulder. “You think you can get away?”

Instinctively, I tried to fight. I tried to struggle. But my shackles wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t move any of my limbs. Whether it be my arms, my legs, or my head, it didn’t matter. I was forced to listen to the verbal torment, not being able to do anything to stop it.

He walked around me, so I could finally get a good look at him. He was wearing all black, a darkened outfit which perfectly matched his previously shadowy persona. It perfectly masked his obviously muscular physique. He was, in fact, built a hell of a lot better than I was. Meanwhile, his head was completely shaved, all except for his face with had a goatee that matched his outfit. I couldn’t get a good look at his eyes, however. They were masked by what might have been a white fog. He, in fact, looked lifeless, as if there wasn’t anything left in him. He was nothing more than a ghost, his life having been left behind a long time ago. But he was still strong enough to be able to torment me.

He smiled the instant he saw my fright, my terrified stare the moment I fell under the hypnotic spell of his deathly pale glare. “You think there’s anything you can do?”

I swallowed hard, trying to shake my head.

“You think there’s any way you can fight?”

“Please,” I pleaded, finally managing to utter a word.

“Please what?” he asked with an increased fury in his voice, swiftly hitting me across the face, immediately giving me a black eye.

“Stop it,” I responded, my voice barely a hoarse whisper, my mouth completely dry. “I’m begging you.”

He laughed. “You think there’s any way that’s ever going to happen? You see, like I said before, you have something of mine, and I want it back.”

“But you’re dead.”

“Maybe physically,” he hit me again, this time with twice as much force. “But as you can see, I’m still alive, maybe not in the real world, but I am in you. And I will soon be reborn in the real world too.”

“Please,” I pleaded. “I’ll do anything, just please leave me alone.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” he explained grabbing me by the throat. “You can’t give me back your heart, not of your own power, so I might as well take it myself. I might as well forcibly regain what was taken from me.”

I swallowed hard again, this time much harder than before.

“That’s right,” he said, but didn’t say anything more to elaborate. Instead he showed me, flipping a switch on the wall.
That’s how I found out I was strapped to an electric chair. I have no idea how much electricity was pumping through my body, but I could feel every volt. I could feel my blood exiting my body from every orifice, my flesh slowly turning the color of coal.

“I shall be reborn,” it was the last thing I heard, as my dream suddenly ended.

I shot awake in a scream, finding myself a prisoner in my own body, as if someone else—who I know to be the owner of the voice—controlling me.

Claire, who had earlier taken off her seatbelt for comfort, lost control of the car as a result. And she wasn’t able to regain that control either. Rather, the car jumped the curve and collided with a tree. The force of the wreck propelled her through the windshield, causing her to land fifteen feet away, her beautiful face being mangled by both the glass which had penetrated it and the force of it slamming against the hard ground beneath. My seat belt prevented me from following suit.
Instead, I had my own problem. Instead, I had a problem which, in hindsight, seemed like a much worse, much more frightening problem than she could ever have. After all, I was but a prisoner in my own body. My soul was locked away, behind invisible bars, being forced to watch through the eyes of a stranger, through the eyes of a monster. And my tears were going unanswered. My cries were being ignored. A killer, the owner of the mysterious voice which had been tormenting me, torturing my mind so much it hurt me physically, had taken over my body, my life.

Yet, upon looking in the mirror, I appeared to be the same. I appeared to be the same man I always had been. But looks have never been that important. Looks have never been anything, really. After all, the sense of sight ironically has always been the most blinding, most unreliable, of the five senses.

I was no longer me, so to speak. Rather, I was someone else entirely. He never bothered to tell me his name, but I had already become aware of his sinister nature. I had already become aware of his attentions, of what he was fixing to do. Only, I was powerless to do anything to stop him. I was powerless to do anything.

Instead, I was forced to watch, as he swiftly removed his seatbelt and got out of the car. I then forced me along, walking closer and closer to my injured girlfriend. He walked the fifteen feet between us, swiftly closing the distance.
He dropped to his knees, as soon as he got close to her and feigned concern. He feigned tears, as if he ever cared about the life another. I screamed for him to stop, for him to let me out, but it was of no use, as he cradled her mangled head in his arm.

“I’m sorry love,” he said, hidden by my voice instead of his own, doing a perfect imitation of myself. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

She tried to say something, but I couldn’t understand what it was. Her throat was too clogged up with her gradually drying blood.

“No don’t speak love. Don’t make any noise at all.”

She stopped trying to say anything after that. She just stared, her crimson mask hiding her fear. She was starting to suspect something was wrong after that.

“Don’t ever make another noise,” he continued, this time forcing me to smile that evil smile, the sinister smile that I will always associate with him.

Meanwhile, I suddenly felt a jolt of pain in my right hand, the arm that wasn’t cradling her. I felt my hand start to bleed, as he closed it on a piece of broken glass. I felt my crimson liquid staining the fractured remnant of my shattered windshield. This further established what I feared, what I knew in my heart he was going to do.

Once again, I screamed for him to stop. But I couldn’t do anything. Instead, his mental self shook the cage as a silent way of telling me to be quiet or, more than likely, to shut up.

“Watch,” he told me. “You don’t have a choice either way.”

I was silenced before I could say anything to respond, before I could do anything at all. Instead, my eyes were locked on the horrifying ordeal that was taking place in front of me. I was forced to endure the sight of the glass in my hand, the feel of it violently tearing through the flesh of my hand.

He leaned my body down, until my mouth was right at her ear. “Don’t scream, my love, for no one would hear you if you did.”

She wasn’t able to make any noise after that. Instead, I found out how much of a man of his word he is. Instead, he clasped my hand over her mouth, the one that was initially cradling her head.

“It’s over,” he said, lifting up the piece of glass. “I’m going to put you out of your misery.”

The end of the glass suddenly came down. And it barely cut into her chest, before I blacked out. I lost consciousness again. Only, this time I was never able to recover. I was never able to regain what was mine. I had officially been kicked out of my body. I had officially become nothing more than a wandering spirit, a grief stricken poltergeist who was never going to accept the afterlife, who was never going to accept his fate.

So, one way or the other, my life still ended, just not in the same way I first thought, not in the same way God intended.