Welcome the Darkness

[Wildman]

This is a rewrite of the original version.

Welcome the Darkness
by Richard D. Clark

Water drips somewhere in the darkness. Drip, pause, drip, pause, drip, pause, again and again and again. The sound pounds against my mind, maddening me, a cold ice-pick in my mind burning with eternal fire. I long for madness, for release, yet the comfort of oblivion eludes me.

“Who are you?” The dripping voice asks.

“Who are you?” The gibbering voices ask from deep within my head, within my mind, within my soul.

“Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?” They chant, laughing darkly as they dance upon my soul.

Who am I? I don’t know. All I remember is pain; burning, consuming, endless pain. The pain of torment, the pain of eternal hopelessness.

I don’t who I am, but I know what I am. When I turn my head, the bones in my neck grind like sandpaper on metal. I stare at my reflection in the wall computer monitor. The left side of my face is gone the skin shredded to the bone. The hollow eye socket, rimmed in white, stares back at me, mocking. My splintered ribs thrust through my chest like some macabre game of pick-up-sticks and I can still see the teeth marks on my abdomen where the beast feasted on my entrails.

I remember the feast, and I remember the long trip back from oblivion where the golden being stood over me, raising me up and sending me on my hellish way. I tried to cry, to plead, to return to oblivion, but the voices rose up in my head, in my mind and mocked me and danced upon my soul.

I don’t know who I am, but I know what I am, dead yet living, dead yet wishing to die.

I finger the cold metal of the shotgun I hold in my hands and long to slip the barrel into my mouth. A pull of the trigger and it would end, but the voices prevent me. The voices, in my head, in my mind, deep within my soul laugh and jeer, with slavering mouths, they mock me. “We know what you are,” they scream and scream. “We know what you are,” they chant and chant as they dance upon my soul.

In the darkness, the water drips and the voices gibber and quietly, footsteps approach. The voices in my head, in my mind, in my soul, laugh and giggle, jeer and gibber, driving me to the edge of madness, tormenting me with hatred and bloodlust, chanting, chanting--dancing on my soul.

“Kill,” they scream, “kill, kill, kill!” I am powerless against the onslaught, against the torture, against the pain eternal.

I shuffle toward the doorway, toward the dark silhouette, fighting the maddening urge to raise the shotgun in my hands, fighting the endless torment of the voices in my head, in my mind, in my soul.

“Kill, kill, kill,” the voices chant and chant and chant--but I remember now, who I am. I was sent to Mars to destroy them, the spawn of Hell, just like the brother Marine I see standing in the doorway.

“Kill me,” I croak, fighting the urge to kill and kill, fighting the torment, the gnashing of the slavering mouths that feast upon my soul.

“Kill me, please.”

I see my brother Marine raise his .45 and I stare into the barrel, into darkness, into the promise of oblivion. With cracked, torn lips, I smile as the voices in my head, in my mind, in my soul wail in torment, wail in defeat as I welcome the darkness.