THE DEATH THROE COLLECTIVE (Full Book)
It’s that time of year again where I compile another book together. This time it’s a collection of short stories! I find myself getting more comfortable with longer pieces. This is that result. Don’t be surprised next year if I churn up a novella. Wouldn’t that be something? I won’t get ahead of myself, though. I am, however, got three or so more short stories cooking at the moment. Might just have another collection out then! Until then, enjoy The Death Throe Collective!
“Who Watches Over the Flies?”
I’m flying over my body as my second life begins with staring back at my old body. It’s strange in that I don’t quite remember leaving it. Usually in the stories, or whatever, you just kinda go… upwards. Ascending up to the Great Beyond, you get one last look at yourself before the paramedics dramatically try and resuscitate you. Not with me. When I come to, I see myself in the early stages of decomposition. It isn’t a mess, nor a horrific splatterfest or anything. No, just me plopped down on the floor. I’m grateful for that. So, it wasn’t a suicide or murder as far as I can tell. In fact, I’m alone in the bedroom of my house and went seemingly peacefully, so I suspect a heart attack came swiftly and brutally. No second chances on that one.
That’s another thing to note when you die. You don’t remember how. You remember the glory days and all the rest of the memories most precious, but like our first years here on Earth before were “booted online,” the last minutes are… fuzzy.
So, there I am, stiff, bloated, and rotting on the floor, and there I am again looking down on myself from on high. I don’t feel like an angel or anything though.
Answers the Heaven and Hell question, doesn’t it? Not that I was a firm believer either way in my previous life anyway. My life was too short to budget time for that.
So, I fly down to my body and look for a moment before taking off to wherever next. As grateful as I am for a second life, it’s still upsetting to see myself dead. Something beckons me back down. I couldn’t name that feeling that compelled me. For closure? I just need a second to say goodbye.
Closer, and I land on my hand and notice it’s all… bigger than I remember. The veins in my arms are embossed rivers . The calluses are nearly scarring on my fingertips from a lifetime of toiling. My skin is wrinkled and dry from decades of weathering. My eyes are open ajar and my jaw hangs open, dry from exposure. All red, purple, and swollen from the rigor mortis.
I can’t tell you what my last thought was, but from the look on my face it seemed I was content with it all - content, not satisfied.
Then I smell decomposition. I look around to the side of my face and see the rot set in my ears. I crawl upwards to get a better look. The pungent waft smells so… appetizing.
I make my way to my ear and see the purple discoloration and the sinking of my flesh as I wilt away. I have no control. I look down at my second life’s hands rubbing together. I find insect legs of thick hair and small, yet precise claws instead of ten fleshy digits.
I’d scream if I could. I just stare as new legs continue to brush against one another. Then from out of my first life’s ear is a house fly, and then another, meeting me at eye level. They look at me for a moment before passing through.
I look around myself and find hundreds of flies all sucking away at my old body. No… No, this is mine! Get away from me! They persist, slowly eating away at me. But why? I’m so sick… and regurgitate right in place. Were these flies… ? Here to… ? I couldn’t handle the sight. Just what is this all for? Why am I subjected to the cruel consciousness of this part of after life? What a cruel joke! This is all for the flies!
The skin begins to bubble and dissolve in front of me. Something comes over me– call it instinct, call it a last ditch effort to preserve my last life. Call it shame. Nobody can see me like this… I had to dispose of myself, all evidence. I have to intake it all.
I dive my straw mouth into that soup of regurgitation and siphon it back. I don’t think I’m hungry. I just have to do it. I cannot stop. I like to think it’s some subconscious reasoning: like I’m eating bits of myself to retain some part of the human left of me. The memories of myself are starting to slip away, and I need some control of the situation.
Then it hits me: When you die, you become part of the cleaning crew that gets to dispose of the mess you left behind. I lived my life and died, and my punishment is to clean up any evidence that I was ever there. Like a hotel room, leave it just as you started with it. Clean up before you go sort of deal. That’s it? We become flies at the end of it all? That was all too much. With that revelation, I throw up more bile from the weight of the existential dread that washes over my insect form.
I continue to drink.
I’m so disgusted with myself. Partly because that’s some form of cannibalism, right? But also because it tasted so sweet. I turn around to look away from my heinous act to find hundreds of other flies buzzing around my corpse. Are these flies me, too? Are we all a hive mind to get the job done? If so, I’m not connected to the main line. Nothing but silence interrupts the buzzing of hundreds of wings to a buffet of flesh.
So we get in, have a free meal, and get out. That’s all there is to it. But then what will happen after a month when all of us flies perish? Flies watch over the carcasses of men and flesh alike beyond. Who watches over the flies? What is our third life after this? And beyond that? I would think it would be the housekeepers coming in after the guests leave to clean up shop. And after that? How many more lives until we’re the rooms that houses the men and flies themselves? Until we grab a glance of the… thing running this whole operation? And how long before we finally escape the room that contains us all?
I turn back to look at my old face. I see my glazed eyes staring at the ceiling. Staring at something. I turn to look, too.
I suppose that’s the answer to where I’m going after this: To that spider patiently waiting in the corner. She’s certainly watching over us flies, with five eyes focused and hungering and legs rubbing together as my third life gets ready to live and eat pretty damn well.
“Thalia Mora, The Prowler in the Witch House”
I
When I was a child, there was a saying that stuck with me. While the memory is getting hazy, I remember the quote since it’s become more of a statement in my life rather than a quote to ponder over. You don't get to choose what your nightmares are. They pick you. Only you can change that. Her voice comes in more clear when reminiscing about this particular, fading memory. I overheard my mother saying this one day when talking to my older brother when he woke up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare. The nightmare was finding himself in a similar situation as the alien abduction scene from Fire in the Sky. I suppose the moment the needle advanced toward the man’s eye while being tied down by a strange, rubbery tarp in a foreign aircraft will freak any young kid out. Can’t say I blame him.
He was about ten years old. I was only six when I woke up moments before he did. I was pondering to myself when I looked over to the single nightlight on my brother’s side of the room. At first, my attention was toward his shadow. It appeared as a monster, larger than life, and imitating every little movement created by him. This would never scare him despite his little brother telling him so. His reasoning would be that he could control this monster. No matter how colossal, nor how grotesque we would imagine this creature to be, he had concluded that the nighttime terror would not move unless he moved.
In his head, he was in control of this beast. He was the master, and there was nothing that could change that. This creature belonged to him. To this day, my sense of time is just as bad as it was when I was a young boy. It was around three in the morning. I saw the outline of the beast. Only in mere small waves of movement, but it was moving. Rising and falling slowly. I couldn’t tell what it was doing. My eyes were then darted to my brother who was moving similarly. Then I stopped and thought for a moment. “Breathing,” I thought, “Both of them are only breathing.”
I got up slowly, never breaking sight of my brother. My tiny feet steadily made its way across the dark, spacious room. Approaching the side of the bed, I was cautious of what to do. Nudge his shoulder? Call out in a whisper? Shout it loudly? It was too late for that. I couldn’t make up my mind. His eyes were pried open unexpectedly, and his eyes met mine. He recalled later in life he could only see my eyes and my silhouette. He saw not his brother, but an alien lifeform waiting to constrict this young boy to his bed so that many experiments could be carried out: Experiments involving the eyes.
A shock of fear shot through his body. He let out a scream that I swore should’ve shredded his poor vocal cords. Unprepared for the sudden loud noise, my eyes popped out like my brother’s while simultaneously covering my stubby fingers over my ears. I took a step back, closed my eyes to rid the screaming from my field of hearing. I fell to the floor. I opened my eyes again. To the left of me, I saw feet making its way to the door. I tried to follow it, but by the time my gaze was targeted to the door, my brother was gone. “Ma! Ma! Momma!” filled the silent sleeping house.
I had no idea what his problem was. Nonetheless, my brother was traumatized, and it was my job to make sure he was alright. I got up hastily and ran towards my parents’ room to find my brother smacking his hands on the bed to wake my mom up. Even in a panic, he knew not to rapidly tug on mom’s shoulder because she would be pissed at the sudden rush of being woken up for something like that.
My mom wasn’t having any of it. She rubbed her eyes, only heard ‘alien’, ‘room’, and ‘shadow’ over his word salad spewing out of his mouth in a stream that seemed endless. She listened for a few seconds and placed her index finger over his lips. “Shhh,” she whispered. She then spoke those words in a groggy state and sent him on his way back to bed. I followed. When he plopped himself back into bed, he immediately pulled the covers over his head and went to sleep. I also plopped myself back in bed. Before I put the covers over my head, I stole a quick glance over to my brother’s side of the room. There were no aliens, nor Shadow Men. Just a boy and his shadow.
I remember those words because it seemed like nightmares had the tendency to follow me throughout my life. In my childhood, it was the movie monsters. In my teenage years, my biggest fear was standing out. May it be a bully targeting me, a teacher picking me to answer a question I obviously didn’t know or to accidentally spill food all over myself. Most teenagers would rather put a gun in their mouths than to be embarrassed in public and wait to be mocked.
My adult years came around and the fears I harbored started to become internal. No longer was it about wolves, vampires, aliens, or if my high school crush found out I liked her and she didn’t like me back. The fears tapped into the parts of me that were afraid to admit it. It was being afraid of being stuck at a job that I hated. It was about loneliness clinging itself unto me when I just wanted to let go. It was about not able to move forward when tragedy entered my life once more. I didn’t have time for all the horror icons anymore. They couldn’t possibly live up to the real things that kept me up at night.
The one thing that did fill me with genuine fright was the night terrors that followed me into adulthood. Every now and again, I would have a single night in a blue moon where I felt like a prisoner to my own bed. My body would be paralyzed like I was still fast asleep. My body, however was still awake and active. Throughout the night Shadow People would walk back and forth in my room. They would cower in corners, watching me struggle. The worst it ever got was when one of these Shadows crawled on top of me. I would scream inside my head, but no words, no sound could exit my mouth. I wanted to thrash around to get this thing off of me, but I could not move. It would be hours on end just having this thing over me until I could see sunlight, exhausted, but afraid to go back asleep.
I was afraid because these nightmares could be real…
II
… They feel like inevitable situations waiting to be brought to life.
Thoughts like that would fog my mind from time to time. My friends say it’s because of my anxiety. I couldn’t disagree either. I try to work on it. I try to take care of myself. Some days were comfortable. Many attempts felt futile. When they do cling as such, I usually distract myself with a cheap horror movie. I don’t get scared, but the entertainment value is still there. If anything, it’s good for a cheap laugh or two.
Tonight, I had the day off from my night shift job. On the weekends, I usually kept myself busy with movies, books, or indulging in comic books. I would contact a friend or two, but no one else is up at three in the morning to talk to. There’s definitely a link between the self-imposed isolation, work, and this heaviness I felt clouding over me. There’s no reason to complain when the money’s good, but I wish I had the company. Sitting on the couch, my attention is aimed at a Tales From the Darkside rerun on TV; my favorite show as a kid. My attention is lost when the phone becomes the center of attention, if only for a minute. I stare at my phone to find there are no notifications - as always.
The thought of wedging in a quick nap sounded seductive, and I went ahead with that. The TV was turned off. Darkness painted the room. It reminded me of the times my brother and sisters would go about our business with the lights off because it would cut the electricity bill. Besides, my room was only ten feet away. A lot of people have a problem with just being in the dark, but my main gripe with it is what lies in the dark. That is another thing I’m afraid of. Anything could wait in the darkness in the corner of my room as I sleep.
Getting up, I felt no frontal fear because my apartment was nothing special, so I didn’t have a particular fear of burglars breaking into my home. If an armed intruder were to search my place for money to steal, I would be looking right with them. With my phone in my hand, I turned on a small light.
I enter my room with a quick sweep of my sight. My room has my library, my desk, my bed, and countless of scattered pieces of loose leaf papers containing vague and near-nonsensical phrases that I may later use for stories. I kick over a pair of jeans into my laundry hamper - and I miss. Oh well, that will have to remain on the floor then.
Oompf. The sweet relief of falling onto your own bed in your own place is nothing short of freeing-- quite possibly religious, every single time. I plug my phone into the charger and proceed to wrap myself in a cocoon of blankets. Regardless of the season, regardless of how much sweat was accumulating on my brow, I always have to wrap myself tightly in a blanket with a fan blowing no matter how cold it may get. More so for the white noise than the cool air.
A whisper murmured in my ear. I felt a familiarity with this voice but could not for the life of me make out the words, nor could I put a face to this voice. My eyes shut. The blood rushed to my face. A cold shiver brushed its way from my toes to my forearms. I concentrated my last waking energy to focus on what the words were. The whisper came back this time, closer to my ear, practically tickling the hairs inside my ear. It was my mother’s voice. Now I suddenly realized what was being said, more clearly than the day it happened:
“You don't get to choose what your nightmares are. They pick you…”
III
“... Only you can change that.”
I opened my eyes. With the dread that was clinging to me only seconds ago, my fears had turned true, and I was asleep. I was no longer looking toward my ceiling, but at a cloudy, grey sky. I sat right up to find glass blades bigger than myself. I took to my feet, and even then, the grass nearly came up to my waistline. With a whiff I smelled a pungent oder reminiscent of that of wet earth and sulfur. I swat at my neck at the swarming mosquitoes hovering over me for a quick meal. With one step forward, my foot sinks into the drink the land has provided - a marsh. I got to solid earth in a few steps. Nothing distinct was in sight, so I just had to get going. I took a dry gulp and charged my way through more grass.
I walked for what felt like a half hour. What I didn’t anticipate was the sudden wide openness that gave way to a great field. It had been maintained. It had been cared for, and someone had to stay behind in order to domesticate this foreign landscape. Out in the distance was a light layer of fog as if from a gothic era painting.
It was at this point that a realization had popped into my mind. There were no animals. No deer prancing through the woods, no frogs croaking in the marshes, no cicadas hissing behind the treetops. Nothing. Just empty. Silence covered this landscape like leveled clouds surrounding me. Then from beyond the fog stood a lone, small house.
I looked back to the marsh. I could not see it. The fog devoured it and took over the territory. My eyes returned its attention back to the architecture when suddenly my head began to sway. It felt a headache without the pain. There were no aches, no swelling in my brain as far as I could tell. What was present was the sensation of being underwater. A heaviness waved over my body, and I reached out my hand to swat at the dense air - it was as if time itself was weighed down by just looking in this direction. My actions were delayed and a mere second felt like minutes. Since there was no turning back, I had no choice but to explore whatever was in the distance. To myself, I felt there were no consequences anyway since I was aware this was nothing more than a dream.
My hands dropped to my sides, and I began to walk.
The crisp grass was crunching with each step I took. I crouched so that I wouldn’t be seen. Who could see me? Was there anyone even here? No candle light emitted from the house. That was good at least. Getting closer, it was no longer a silhouette. Details began to emerge, starting with the foundation being made of stone. They were outlined by thin layers of concrete acting as an adhesive. It had no windows, but rather simple holes existing among the walls of rock. A few more steps in, and I’m face-to-face with the door. Crudely put together in an uneven fashion. Boards were longer than the others, leaving portions of the doorway uncovered.
My eyes were then directed to the ground. Next to the door was something reflective. I bent down on one knee for a closer examination. It was polished stone - reminiscent of a plaque of sorts. My thumb brushed clumps of dirt off of the precious stone. Chiseled into the plaque - “TAKE CA-” My eyes darted to the bottom. More dirt. I straightened out my hand to hastily sweep the remaining debris. I stood up as if a viper had slithered its way out of the ground I was kneeling on.
TAKE CAUTION OF THE THALIA MORA
My heart palpitated with a crushing rhythm. My eyes widened open, as I knew this name. It would echo in my past nightmares. “Thalia Mora…” managed to escape my lips in the form of the whisper. Reading the plaque had forced me to say this name out loud. Thalia Mora. The name would not leave my head. I took a quick look around. I felt the trees surrounding me, looking at me. Looking through me. I looked ahead again toward the door. I had to get in. Thousands of invisible eyes were burning holes in my back. I was hesitant to open the door, but there was a persistent gnawing at the back of my head, a tingling in the tips of my fingers. If I didn’t take shelter, this environment would take me. The build-up had been too much for me -- I just had to know now.
I took one last step and one last breath. I dare not exhale. The same tingling digits gently brushed onto the door and subtly bumped the door backwards. A high-pitched squeak echoed into the residence. I anticipated the whole place being consumed in darkness, but it wasn’t. The light poured into the room from the house and various cracks in the ceiling. I looked up to find that the ceiling was poorly placed board planks acting as a stable roof. Eyes darted back into the room, carefully scanning it for a sign of life. Again, nothing. Empty.
I entered the room with one step at a time. The boards underneath me creaked with each step from my bare feet. In front of me was a table, on it was a variety of spices. From what I could guess there were pepper and large blocks of salt. I couldn’t guess the others; they seemed too foreign to me. They were kept in small wooden bowls as opposed to shakers. Next to the bowls were a wooden mortar and pestle. Whoever lived here obviously produce their own concoctions and spices blended fresh. In the mortar was a pulpy, syrup-like liquid remnant from possibly the last recipe made. I dipped a couple fingers into the juice to get a closer look. After digging out a reasonable sample, I rubbed the tips of my fingers with my thumb. It was maroon colored, but it wasn’t blood. The consistency was far too thick for blood. I leaned in and took a whiff, but there was no scent to it either. I wasn’t about to taste this either. I quickly wiped off my hand onto my pajama bottoms and looked up for further examination.
Dangling from the ceiling to the left of me were various knives. Some large enough for hacking. Some sharp for clean cutting. And some were covered in jagged teeth for ripping. I dared not touch. I felt uneasy, imagining I could be on the wooden cutting board right below the knife set next.
To the right of me was a table with peculiar clothes, covering it. It resembled mainly cheesecloth and burlap, but there were also thinner materials. I rummaged through it. If I wasn’t worried over having my fingers deep in a mysterious serum, I certainly wasn’t going to sweat over menial clothes. Underneath a couple layers of burlap lied a doll of some sort. No facial features to determine a face, no clothes, but there were arms and a foundation of a head. There were no legs because the stitching was incomplete nearing the lower half. Underneath the doll was a reasonably sized wad of cotton. Perhaps it was the location I was in, but I didn’t believe a dollmaker would be out in the middle of a swamp. It was just something about it that it was meant to resemble a child. For what purpose, I truly don’t want to think about it. Disgust scratched my stomach. Everything about it just screamed ‘ill-intent.’ I immediately buried the doll back in its fabric-based grave where it belonged.
Now, at the far side of the room, there dead center was a makeshift fireplace. I approached it. Whoever used this neglected to clean up after a meal has been finished. Fatty grease stains caked the inner walls from precious meats. No fire was burning. Inside there was nothing but ash. I rummaged through the ash, but nothing. I clapped to clean off my hands.
I looked at the border outlining the fireplace. At one point, it must’ve been a thick, rich mahogany, but now soot covered the bordering too. However, at the edge of the border was another knife. It had a newly fresh leather casing. I gripped its handle and took it out. The blade itself was really taken well care of. It was brightly polished. Someone could’ve told me it was forged that day and I would’ve believed them. As I stared at the knife, I heard the rustling of leaves directly behind me. Dagger in hand, I quickly looked behind me. Nothing. I gripped the dagger and pulled it closer to my chest. I never learned to fight an intruder before. I’ve never had anyone break into my home. So, I’ve had no reason to be prepared.
A sudden scraping was making its way across the entire right side of this house. Like the man I am, I accidentally drop the dagger. “Stupid,” hissed out of my gritted teeth. I quickly got down to pick it up. I wiped the sweat from my brow and picked myself back up. Shadows began passing through seemingly both the windows. If I would focus on the left side, it would suddenly be on the right side. If I focused on the right, then it would be on the left. I retreated to the left corner of the house, just so that I may brace myself where it wouldn’t get to me as quickly.
I look out of the windows, but again there was nothing. Sktt, sktt, sktt to the right of me. Bump, bump, bump to the left of me. Never ceasing. Chips of ice slowly flowed through my veins. It began to burn -- dowsing me in a stinging, cold sweat. I found myself to be an animal being cornered. I wasn’t prey for some unseen predator, and I certainly wasn’t going to be put down by something I couldn’t even put a face on.
During th bombardment of thought, the door was swung open. A cold breeze brushed through my face, mocking me of my imminent death. I expected someone to be standing there. I expected the hell-crawler to emerge from fire and the mist and bring me home to the cold ground. But nothing. It was nothing that was mocking me. It was nothing that was going to bury me. Nothing. Nothing. NOTHING.
I became belligerent. The ice in my veins was suddenly pushed out of the way to make way for this sudden wave of red. No one was going to play with me. I don’t have it in me to tolerate that. I bolted to the door and with all my might, I forced this flimsy door to shut.
I turned my back against the wall and fell to the floor. My fingers trembled. My stomach turned. My eyelids flickered and twitched, and the entirety of me shook. All of this energy had nowhere to go. I couldn’t focus. I didn’t even care because for once, I was in control. Only you can change that. Mom’s voice whispered to me yet again. Only you can change that. For once I was in control of what was to happen to me. No one else could do so. Only I…
I closed my eyes. A strange serenity shrouded me. None of that mattered, I found that one fraction of peace that lies in every situation, and if I had anything to say about it, this fraction was going to last as long as it could be stretched. Another wave of cool air layered onto the floor. The air nipped at my bare toes and tickled my fingers. Cool air. My eyes widened. Cool air. I looked out of the windows. Nothing. I looked to the fireplace. Nothing. I looked at the ceiling… a shadow covered the entire area, every inch of the ceiling. I was so preoccupied with the ground level, I couldn’t even bother with what was above me.
Shadows flickered and danced when I looked directly at them. I couldn’t move. I was as cold as the air blanketing me. Two arms emerged from the blackness. They were like branches of a tree, long and with thickened skin, giving it a bark-like appearance. The face also emerged. Yellow eyes. An older woman. She looked at me with disgust and an undeserved hatred. People smiled with their eyes. She smiled with her teeth. It lied with its intentions. It was quite insidious the longer I stared. Then it widened. All I saw was teeth, long yellow teeth like unmatching boards of an unkempt fence. They belonged to a predator. And this predator had its sight towards me. Out of the dark, she lunged for my face.
IV
My eyes were shut. It felt like sand was shifting between my eyelids. I couldn’t open them… The pain was excruciating. No scream could leap out of my gaping jaw. My hands could only clench on my face to try and help the matter. I then felt two hands hook into my shoulders - thumbs jamming into my shoulder blades - and pin me down to the ground. My air escaped my lungs for a brief moment.
I gasped, my eyes opened in an instant. I then found myself awake back in my room with a tremendous weight over my entire body. I could see nothing in the dark except a green beeping light from my phone. It only goes off anytime I get a message from a private chat, an email, or a missed call. I tried my best effort to direct my attention to the phone, but a silhouette was hovering over my paralyzed body. It slowly coming closer to my view. A pair of taunting yellow eyes that belonged to a very old woman emerged from the darkness and pierced through mine. A jaw-cracking smile then stretched out of the intruder’s mouth.
I dare not scream because there was a swelling in my throat. My eyes could not focus on anything else. I couldn’t look over, but I could feel elongated, invading fingers tightly wrapping themselves around my wrists with the greatest of ease. Jagged fingernails scraped alongside the flesh of my wrists and the fabric of my bedsheets. I could now make out more of the her appearance.
Her hair was a matted blonde and white. It held texture like the vegetation from the marshes that I had swum through. It was dreaded, dirty; no different was her skin. The skin possessed the look of leather, slowly drying and shriveling as the years went on. I noticed bags sunken underneath her eyes. It was a clear indicator that she also roamed around during the night as well due to the sleep deprivation clearly written on herself.
I needed to break free. There was nothing to focus on except the smile or the green light coming from my phone. I knew that was my ticket out. Just focus on right on my toes… I feel that if I could get my toes free, but I could break the rest of me free.
I forced my eyes shut to give myself a moment of clarity from the sight of her. My vision was back to black. I can focus on calming myself down so that I may think of a plan to get her off of me. I can still feel the mass weighing over my body, but I had to concentrate on my breathing. Still, my eyes were closed shut.
She snarled, “You stole from me, boy.” She held the last syllable out like static. I was taken aback. Had I? What she must own, I’m sure I don’t want. If there was something of hers in my possession, it was by accident. I had to think for a moment. What was it?
“Invader,” she spat out. “You didn’t heed caution. Invader! You stole from me! Give me back what is mine!” She clenched her hands. The pressure was building against my wrists. Sound finally escaped my mouth. A slight call of pain scrapped itself out of my throat. I opened my eyes, and I noticed that she hadn’t changed her position.
I focused my attention on my fingers. There’s feeling there. That’s a start. I closed my eyes again, and I begin to shake the weight off myself. “A Thief of Thieves… Give back what belongs to me!” She tried to shake me down, again. I drew all the energy I could muster into my arms. With a single thrust of my arms, the witch was in the air. I expected her to hit the wall, but she levitated just above the frame of the bed. I went to grab my phone, but felt a sheath; the dagger.
Thalia continued floating above the surface of my bed. She unfurled her hand, expecting me to give it to her. I quietly unleashed the weapon from its sheath. Without thinking, I jumped. The dagger then lunged into her hand. There was no scream, no impact of the knife. Instead, Thalia had thinned herself out into the air, with me phasing through her. Blackness engulfed me briefly before I hit face first into my wall. The wall dented from my forehead and falling onto the floor. The pain immediately put me in a daze.
I took a moment to focus on my hand, but when I opened my eyes, she was still there. Again she held out her hand awaiting for her dagger back. Looking down at my hands, I saw my stained fingers. I saw the dust that I’ve wiped away from the fireplace. That was real. She was real. She wanted this dagger, but she was not going to get it back.
I looked back to her and immediately threw the dagger. I wanted it to stick directly into her heart. I wished the witch would’ve been pinned to the wall. The dagger just went through this vortex of darkness. It stuck to the wall directly behind her. I looked back to her, her eyes never moving from mine, to find her hand retrieving back to her side. Rather than reaching for my throat to end me once and for all, she turned into black mist once again and faded away as she reached for the handle. Then just like that, it was gone. The room was as it was before I went to sleep.
The blinking green light flickered again, shadows gone. I flicked a light on. A sigh of relief felt appropriate. I hurled myself onto my bed and picked up my phone.I missed a couple text messages from my mom, just checking up on me. She tends to worry a lot. I write back to dismiss these worries of hers. I had to lie, of course, because me babbling on about witch houses and foreign terrain located nightmares would only justify her concerns. I took a moment to look at my hands, no red stains. I looked at my pajama bottoms, no grisled mud. I looked at my wall, and I found no stab marks and no lingering shadows. Nothing.
Nothing to worry about, Mom. Go back to sleep - I’ll see you Wednesday. Sent. Nothing to worry about now.
I came back feeling new but different nonetheless. Perhaps I’ll finally do what I was afraid to do now. If I was haunted by a witch, social interaction didn’t seem so bad. I could do it. I finally feel like I found this missing part of me - The part that had my backbone, courage that didn’t need to come from an empty bottle, but courage from a bold young man. I have gained this missing part, and I’ve gained the image of the constant stare of yellow eyes burning its hatred into me, but now with a hand ready to strike first.
“The Death Throe Collective”
There’s a truth to one of those myths you’d hear around when growing up. You know the one where you have to hold your breath when you’re nearby a cemetery? A few reasons were given to me. Some I remember, some that’re fuzzy. Where you hold your breath to avoid making the spirits jealous to see you’re alive and breathing still? Or the other reason is that you might breathe in a ghost itself. Well, you do breath in something. They don’t tell you what because they never experienced the truth.
I have.
What you inhale is the last few memories of that particular spirit. It’s one of those things of where the core memory is so strong that it stays with that spirit as long as it continues floating about. It all lies in scent. It happens with me when I smell cherry blossoms and it somehow takes me back in time to when I was with an old flame. As I would kiss her hand tenderly on an early, early date. There was the smell of cherry blossoms from the hand lotion she used, and there it stayed with me since. One whiff of it and in my heart there’s conflict of me smiling of the beauty of a summer day full of tender kisses, and, in tandem, woe from the last kiss given before we parted for the last time. Powerful stuff in a memory. It’s memories like that that we take with us when we ourselves are close to, or will be soon enough, forgotten. It’s what makes us us.
It was a crisp, cool day that was just winding down sometime in the fall when I was with that old flame and we were just about to cross the cemetery closest to her place. We were on our way back from a small ramen shop that held a special place in our hearts. It was the place of our first date. And the second, the fifth, the fortieth. “Hold your breath,” she said.
“What?” I asked.
“You’ve got to hold your breath or you’ll breath in a ghost.” She pointed to the graves beyond the iron fence.
“What?” I asked rhetorically. I knew what she said the first time.
“When you’re passing a cemetery. You’ve got to hold your breath when passing one.”
“What do you think happens when you don’t?” I asked.
“I think nothing. It’s just a respect thing. A superstition,” she replied.
“My buddies said ghosts stick their dicks in your mouth. Think that’s a possibility?”
“No,” she said. She actually stopped to think about it. “No,” she confirmed. Think she was just shooting down the sheer idea and not answering the question. That was just my thinking though as she let out a snicker. Then I belly laughed.
“Only if they really like you,” she added. Then we both fell apart in laughter. It was moments like that that I somehow got closer to her, even after seven years of dating. I was thinking about popping the question soon. In due time, I thought. In due time.
Until then, I held her hand and brushed my thumb along her fingers and soaked the moment in.
Then we passed along the iron fences of the cemetery. I didn’t think of the holding your breath bit. I only thought of home being close and how I was going to lie down for a nap. Then I noticed the sound of her breathing stopped. I looked over and sure enough she was holding her breath. My old flame was looking at her peripherals, not toward me, but toward the cemetery. The look in her eyes had a focus of anticipation, like a zombie was suppose to pop out right out of the potter’s ground over there and give chase.
No undead popped out of the ground.
I did see someone standing along the grass past the iron fence. At first I noticed that she had a typical mourning dress, no veil - black and all. She wasn’t looking at a particular grave, but her eyes were glued to the ground as she slowly walked in indecision. She held her hands balled up and tightly close to her chest. The look on her face had multiple brush strokes of a lifelong tiredness.
And then she looked directly at me. Nothing but hatred as black as her attire.
My attention was then back at my love. She looked back to me. She saw that I was looking at her with the same intensity as she did beyond the iron fence. She thought for a moment. Break the tension. She puffed out her cheeks like a chipmunk. Relax already. And so I did. I puffed out my cheeks right back at her. She smiled. Then she gently slapped a hand against my left cheek. I saw the hand coming and humored her and imitated the sound of a balloon’s death throe. POP!
Her smile widened. Then I noticed that through the chipmunking and cheek popping that she was still holding her breath. Through all that, she did not let in a single breath. Really dedicated to the bit, I thought. Without thinking I let in a breath and the look on her face was more concerning than the one she gave to the graves at rest. no bodies resurrecting.
Something invaded me when I let in the fresh air. It was something dense like it was carrying around a burden. All in my chest. Suffocating.
Then all the heaviness lifted away. It turned into something else as it made its way through me. Under the skin, up to my head. There was a lightheaded feeling that pulled me back deep in my seat.
I looked back to the fences, but the woman in black wasn’t there anymore.
A cold hand grabbed my jaw to turn me to the right, and there she was, spirit and all. Through the exchange of breaths, I saw what her life was, the memories that were slowly escaping her. Loves that came and went. A neighborhood that was constantly changing. A person that rarely changed herself. It’s as if I knew her all my life, but she was long gone history by the time I came around. I knew my time here wasn’t meant to last either. So I made sure my last sight was one that was worthwhile.
I turned back to the driver’s side.
My love and I’s eyes met in the midst of it all. It was like the first meeting her. The words were stolen from my mouth, my breath was taken from my lungs. I struggled for a time. She saw me choking on nothing and panicked for my life. She stopped the car and tried to revive me, call 911, anything to save my life. I stiffened and grew pale. That was it. It’s okay, darling. I had my time here on this Earth. Now it was time for me to go. Then it all went dark for a moment.
Then when I came to, I looked over beyond the iron fence and saw her still working on me before the paramedics came to a vain case. They were transporting a corpse basically. She had worked on me for about twenty minutes and just stood there for another thirty before she went down to the hospital to see me. That’s love there.
There to my right was the woman in black just… smiling at what happened. The tradition breaker had his competence. I said nothing, just stared into the creator of my new life, a new… afterlife. Then she was gone. I held my breath that time.
I couldn’t tell you why.
***
I called her my old flame because since I’ve been gone I’d see her now and again. I kept my distance and allowed her to brighten my day. She was a candle burning on a stormy autumn night. I would watch her be herself. Just as I left her so suddenly until her wick burned away, and then she too was gone. I tried to find her and see if she was on the same plane as I was. So far the endevour has been fruitless.
They’ve all long since forgotten of me. They’ve died just as I have, but I haven’t seen them yet. I hope they come soon because I have sure missed their love, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on it. That’s the thing though. That’s the only sound I hear nowadays; the last breaths of those of the living in a death throe collective. Constant exhalations of the dying who’re taking that next step.
It’s been so lonely without them. I find my ways of coping. Some days I sit and take a look back on my memories; the ones that haven’t left yet, anyways. That was the worst part of it. I was forgetting so much. Memories, details, names. I couldn’t even remember her name anymore. Some days I try to cry. Some days I look to those living passing by and hope I could hear a good conversation. A conversation about an engagement. One about a promotion. One about ditching an old life that just isn’t working anymore to start a new one, to start fresh. One of telling a secret and having a close one come closer when they reciprocate the same secret they held deep in their hearts but couldn’t muster up to whisper it. It helps sometimes.
What helps most on a lonely day is to stand back, take a deep breath, and allow me to show you something. Just a chance to show you. The memory of that I was here. Then when you take in all the details of my secrets that I have to share with you, breath out. Breathe in your last breath. If you don’t want that burden, if you don’t want to know what my life meant in fragments, hold it in as long as this life will allow you until I’m out of sight.
In the physical copies, I threw in another short story called, “The Crows in the Killing Field.” That story started out as a comic script for a project with a friend as a one-shot comic. However, it stalled and is in limbo at the moment. So, I decided to adapt it as a prose story. There’s some things I’d change if it were in another medium so if you see it as a comic one day that’ll be a sneak peek and not 100% how it’ll go! Only if you grab a physical copy though.
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