FOURTEENTH - Carnivora

Mariana's diary

Sunday June 18, 2006 Monday June 19??????

Time: ???????

I am still in the vicinity of the Gazebo. I tried to wander off a little further, using my eyes now accustomed to the pitch darkness more than a flashlight, which might attract the unwanted attention. But somehow I always seem to come back to this place. Besides many things I miss terribly at this moment, I think what I miss the most is to see and feel the sunlight again. This darkness simply suffocates, it kills every resistance in me, every atom of optimism and will to live. I feel more and more despondent. I would give anything to see the sun again. I have an irrational thought that just one ray of early dawn would save me from here, or at least save some of my sanity.

I'm tired and I'm eating cookies from the box I found in the car, and I'm trying in every single way not to think about the soft bed, the armchair, the summer day in the city with streets and people, about friends, relatives, people and places dear to me, about all that what makes up life, and to which I didn't give much thoughts until now. If I think too much, I feel like I will go crazy or fall into suicidal despair. If only Mickey was here. If only he, or any of the people I was with until a while ago, were real and not a creation of my mind in cooperation with the Vortex, it would be easier for me. Just to feel a human body next to me.

Later

I entered the Gazebo! I got into that thing. It's not really a building, no. Nothing in this place is what it seems. I can't believe where I am now. Can not. I can't believe what I did.

When I got close enough to her, I could feel her breathing. I heard her breathing, I felt her heartbeat! She was alive! And up close, she no longer resembled a small, ugly, but still kind of attractive building, intended for summer leisure, seats and mini-concerts, but rather resembled a living being, hunched and coiled like a large, pale spider standing still in that clearing, breathing and living. She was alluring in the way that the most gruesome and morbid scenes are so enticing that you can't take your eyes off them. Like a car accident that you can't look away from, no matter how much you want to. The morbidity of numerous tiny details and the extreme incongruity of this being made it miraculous, like a picture of a demon from hell. That thing is not what it claims to be, maybe it was disgusting and creepy, but at the same time, it represented an escape from everything, above all from reality, everyday life, certainty, a refuge.

I stood in front of her for a long time and watched her. From that close up position, her otherworldly beauty had like an aura of monstrosity that radiated around her. She was breathing, her legs-pillars were twitching slightly, body fluids were flowing through her numerous veins. I think I also saw the organs in the upper part that looked like a "roof", and briefly, almost like an illusion, a giant eye above me opened, then immediately closed. I was watching her, I don't know for how long. I was terrified, but I couldn't bring myself to run away. That being was breathing above me and I could hear a slight pulsation from inside her that resembled a heartbeat. I could see the tension in the muscles of her limbs that were pretending to be pillars, and I could also see those limbs move a little from time to time and contract towards the center, towards me. I think that at that moment I could understand what kind of magic Jasmine found in that Sergei. This was amazing and enchanting to watch. Considering the darkness that always reigns in this place, it's no wonder that I mistook this thing for a building from afar. Up close, I could see her pale, spidery limbs, unimaginable landscapes of muscles, skin and mucous membrane, tissue and blood vessels pulsating with life. I even saw small tentacles occasionally rippling out from the bottom part I was standing. She emitted unusual, strong but pleasant scents that lulled and calmed me down. Oh, she was wonderful!

I reached out to touch the part of her on which I was standing. She attracted me even though she filled me with the purest fear at the same time. It wasn't a stone. It wasn't plaster, it wasn't concrete, and I could have sworn that thing... not the thing... that being was flesh and blood. I ran my hand gently over one limb. It was warm, soft and beneath the surface you could feel the juices of life. I was so fascinated that I forgot that she was so much bigger than me, that she could hurt me, that this huge creature probably feeds on something.

I find it hard to believe that I did what I did, now that I know so much more about the creature. I felt asleep and kind of distant, like I was floating inside a dream and it didn't matter what happened to me because I was going to wake up anyway. It was like my mind had been extinguished and deprived of all my own thoughts, and left only with strange desire to go inside that creature, right into the center, between those pale limbs, where the creature's soft bowels were covered with dark stains not quite the color of rust, but the color of old blood. All my instincts of self-preservation died out at the moment, the alarm of feeling of imminent danger was suppressed by one thought that was not mine: to go inside.

Slowly, almost like hypnotized, I took off my sandals and climbed up the few steps, which in fact were also part of this being's body. Up close, they no longer resembled stairs. Although from a distance they seemed square and solid, when I put my foot on them, they felt soft, round and slippery, and they were moving. Finally I reached the very top and the center was waiting for me there. A tiny glimmer of consciousness informed me in a fraction of a second that this being resembles a giant carnivorous plant, but a plant that does not attract its victims with attractive colors and appearance, but a plant that shuts down the mind of its victim and with fragrant chemicals and some kind of hypnosis draws it to the center where it's devoured. I realized it in a split second and in that split second I felt an huge horror when I realized what I was doing and where I was. This creature's will was stronger than mine. She shut down my mind for a moment, turning me back into docile prey.

My brain seemed to work on two levels. The part that was under the influence of this creature, which was now dominant, would direct my actions and have the main say, and my own mind, which remained somewhere below, hidden, powerless to resist, almost suffocated. I saw everything, everything was clear to me, but I wasn't even able to get upset, and therefore not even to react. I took one step towards the center. The floor of "Gazebo" was not made of stone, nor were the stains on it made by rust. It was just an illusion from a distance, under the cover of darkness. Now I could clearly feel that it was soft, warm and sinking under my bare feet. It was like I was walking on some giant, pale, bloated belly. Through my foggy, forcefully calmed mind, I saw bloodstains all over this place, and in some parts, which could not be seen from afar, there were entire streams and pools of blood.

Do you know how it feels when you know you are going straight to your death, into the jaws of a huge beast, but some outside influence won't allow your natural alarms to wake up in your mind and body, and cause you to panic and run away, but instead directs you right towards the center of death? I saw the center of that part of the body that I thought was the floor of Gazebo, exactly where I had dreamed the opening in the floor. That gap widened until I could clearly see its interior. It was a hatch. It had no teeth, no, nothing so repulsive. Like the rest of that being, it was soft and enticing, warm and red and wet and in some morbid way, beckoning me to enter him, to let myself be in this warmth and softness until I was consumed and melted by his juices. It was a carnivore, I realized as my bare foot stepped towards the hatch. She did not have the ability to move and thus catch her victims, but she had other, much more effective ways. In one horrible moment, the hatch squeezed something out of it and I froze, and the terror came back for just a moment, only to fade away as my consciousness faded again. It was some kind of T-shirt, a dirty, green T-shirt, splattered with blood. The bloated, pale body of the being slowly began to undulate gently in light, rhythmic, regular movements, and as the whole body breathed and contracted and expanded around me, my will began to weaken again. The mouth cave widened again, beckoning me to get close enough for it to pull me into it. Wouldn't it be nice to merge with this superior being, it was convincing me, wouldn't it be nice to disappear like that, without worries, without any feelings of unhappiness, illness, old age, loss, to be sucked into this gentle, giant flower, to let it to melt my body, with all its flaws and mortality, and become for a moment a part of her, that Gazebo, that giant immortal flower.

Since Gazebo only wanted organic matter for herself, standing on the very edge of the hatch which had already begun to caress my bare feet with its gentle edges, I began to take off my shirt.

A sharp, rather strong pain jolted me out of my trance for a moment. A large, brown stone fell out of nowhere straight into the hatch in front of me, which collapsed in anger for a moment, then dissolved again into mellowness. This time it seemed menacing and not at all attractive. I cannot describe the horror I felt. How did this thing get me this far? How did she persuade me to become her prey, her food, to want her to dissolve me with her gastric juices and turn me into a slimy liquid that would keep her alive and ready for new victims? How could I wish for such a fate? The fear that gripped me, once again made the adrenaline ignite my whole body with a hot panic, pumping blood quickly into my muscles. I staggered back, horrified. A new stone, a little smaller this time, hit me painfully in the temple and made me even more awake and alert. I felt a thin trickle of blood seeping from the cut. I finally became aware that someone was shouting. And the voice was familiar to me.

"Run, run away from there! Don't you see what that is? Run away, Mariana! Run away!"

Gazebo had lost control of my mind, but I was now too close to her mouth, the edges of which rose up, and like leeches, stuck to my leg, sucking me into herself. Now I could see her as she really was, but now it was too late. Her pale bloated body throbbing all around me, covered in some bluish stains and the blood of her victims, her limbs, which were acting like pillars and now writhing around me trying to push me into the jaw in the center, her eyes... Now I saw eyes watching me from above, from the "ceiling", actually the hull, and that was perhaps the most terrifying of all. Those eyes looked at me inexorably, cruelly, without a trace of compassion, as if I were a fly that stuck to a frog's tongue and refused to be swallowed. Everything around me was convulsing, pushing me to the center. I think I screamed. Through the fog of horror, I saw a human figure running up without hesitation and hit the beast around me with a large stick.

I can't, or don't want to, remember what happened next. I feel like I'm going to lose my mind every time I remember that scene. I know I screamed and screamed and screamed and that thing was gathering around me suffocating me. I remember the human hand that bravely reached into that living nightmare and the voice that screamed at me to hold on to that hand. For a while they were literally fighting over me, that beast, "Gazebo" and that man who gave me his hand. It was horrible, they almost tore me apart. Finally, the carnivore "Gazebo" gave up and I slipped out of it to freedom. The rescuer's hands hurriedly dragged me through the grass away from there.

When I regained consciousness, I was lying on my back in the grass. There was semi-darkness around me and I felt something scraping my arms and legs. I started to throw myself around screaming. I knew that that beast, Gazebo-thing, had caught me in its mouth and was now swallowing me deeper and deeper, slowly burning the skin off my body. Soon I realized that human hands were holding me and that voices were telling me to calm down and that now everything is fine.

When my eyes got used to the darkness, I saw his face. That blue-eyed guy, that Mihajlovic, my imaginary lover, the one who disappeared in such a terrible way, held me tightly with both hands and was convincing me that everything was fine now. I think that's when I started sobbing. I explained to him that everything was not right, that I almost allowed some carnivorous beast to devour me and that I almost sacrificed myself and I don't even know why I did it. It was only then that I noticed that he was actually trying to use leaves plucked from some plant to scrape some cloudy mucus from my hands that was covering my whole body. Someone else was doing the same to my feet and calves.

I raised myself on my elbows and through the semi-darkness I saw another man sitting at my feet. He was covered in dirt, with shaggy, dusty hair covering his face, but I think I still recognized him right away. I wanted to hug Mickey, but he pushed me away, his face was serious. He continued to silently remove the slime from my hands. When they were done, Mickey wrapped me in his jacket and settled me against a tree as comfortably as he could. He looked very tired. They brought my bag, which they found near "Gazebo" and told me to relax and rest, to try to forget. How can I forget? I will never forget.

And if we never get out of here alive, my diary will tell all about our fates to whoever finds it one day. If only I myself knew what fate would befall us and what happened to the others, with Jasmine and Pope who remained in the van. Where did the van go?