Chapter 6

I woke up sprawled in a pool of blue liquid. As I sat up I could see something hunched over in a chair. His took the shape of a human, but he was not made of skin and bones, he was made up of pure black flames, that flickered, and waved. His presence felt terrifying, but at the same time felt familiar. It felt like a warm hug, like reconnecting to something I lost long ago. But It also felt like something I should avoid, like a missing piece that wasn't mean to be found.

"Who are you?" when I asked this he slightly tilted his head, as if I was asking a question I already had the answer to. "You don't even recognize me? I'm hurt." He had no face, his entire body was nothing but flames, but even so I knew his facial expression. It was the expression of a sly bastard, one who didn't even bother hiding it.

"Who are you?" I repeated.

"I am you, and you are me. I am your inner thoughts, your subconscious, that little voice in your head, telling you to chop off your finger as you use a kitchen knife, the one telling you to jump off your balcony as you look out onto the busy city street, the one telling you to kill the person standing in front of you. I am you that lays dormant in your shadow, watching as your depressed, as your suicidal, as you drown yourself in anything and everything as you try and run from your life, as you place a fake smile on your face so no one will know your sad, not that anyone would care. I am you, and you are me. We are one."

He smiled at me, and things started to flash into my head. It was as if a movie was being projected straight into my mind. It was a close up of his face, of his smile, plastered on top of all the black flames. It was a wide, white teethed smile. His teeth, one by one turned into shining daggers. They fell out of his mouth and went offscreen. It transitioned to a scene of a little girl, laying on her bed, clutching her teddy bear, while peacefully dreaming. Those same daggers fell out of the sky, and plunged themselves into the little girls back, she lay there silently, never waking. As a never ending stream of daggers fell out of the sky, the little girl's father came and leaped on top of her, covering her from the incoming daggers, even thought the little girl had already died.

As the little girl and her father lay there, daggers continued to fall. Their backs were covered with daggers. Blood spilled out, slowly spreading across the entire room, covering everything in sight with the blood of a little girl. No words were spoken, no screams, no sounds other than the sounds of bones cracking, organs being breaking open, and flesh being torn apart. This continued all night and into the morning. In the morning the mom walked in, without making a sound, she picked up the blood stained blankets and wrapped her daughter and husband in them. She drug them into the backyard and threw them into a burning fire. As the little girl, and her father, turned to nothing but ashes, the literal fire turn into a metaphorical fire.

The metaphorical fire in a little boys eyes, as he went to see his beloved Grandpa. When he got to his Grandpa's candy store, there was a man standing over his dead Grandfather's body. The man severed the little boy's head from his body. As blood gushed out he threw the body in a dumpster outside.

The yellow and black police tape, changed into a taxi. As an old lady walked with her grandson across the crosswalk, the taxi sped towards her. There was a look of horror on the on looker's faces as the little boy cried, his grandmother's head and organs splattered all across the road.

Slowly across what felt like days, I experienced countless tragedies. I saw every kind of death I could imagine, murders, suicides, wars, gang violence, errors in the justice system, starvation, dehydration, hypothermia, anything I could have imagined I saw.

Every death, It felt like I was there, Like I could have stopped it, but there was a wall, an invisible wall I could never pass. After countless deaths, I saw a blank screen, and heard a small voice in the back of my head, somehow barely hearable, yet extremely loud. "Every one of these deaths, you couldn't have stopped. They were somewhere else, and you were just a spectator. But there was one death you could have stopped. One unnecessary death, that you could have stopped. One death, right in front of you, and you did nothing."

It was that same girl, with messy brown hair, glasses, and a white lab coat. She laid there in front of me, desperately crying for help, tears streaming down her face. At some point I realized I didn't care, after seeing a countless number of deaths, I didn't care. I no longer felt emotion. I no longer felt fear, nor sadness. This was no longer a tragedy to me, this was just another death.

She laid there, doing everything she could. She cried, she called for help, she prayed to god, everything she could do in the little time she had left she did. In her last moments she looked at me, and cried "Help me-" she was cut off, as the Orc slammed his axe through her neck. The bones in her neck cracked as they were cut in half. Her neck leaked blood onto the grass, and her head rolled across the clearing, leaving trails of blood. "You stained the clean grass." Suddenly, the invisible wall that could never be crossed, was suddenly gone. I walked over to her severed head. Her eyes were wide open, with her last breaths she asked "Why, why didn't you save me?" As I picked up her severed head I answered, "Because your just one of many, just like all of us."

The movie finally stopped, and the same bastard made of flames was standing there, staring at me. "Aww, you ruined the fun. There's no purpose in torturing you if you aren't affected by it."

"What did you show me?"

He smiled at me, once more. "I didn't show you anything, I am you, and you are me. Everything you saw was made by you, by your thoughts. But there's no reason to keep a broken plaything around." He snapped his fingers and suddenly I was back in the real world, right where I had passed out before.