A Transitioning Odyssey

This story contains violence with mentions of death and religious belief.

A Transitioning Odyssey

“Ohh SHIIITTT…….Not this again….”

Those were the last words to go through my mind. As I felt the agony of a sharp twist of the knife that was entering my right lung. My throat tightening into a silent scream. Gasping for the air that was no longer able to enter either of them. My left lung felt itself expanding to try and compensate. Gripping onto the air it still had. Like a completely filled up balloon about to burst, It strained and pushed against my ribs. Threatening to snap through them.

All it would need in order to pop, would be the tiniest pinprick. Instead it remained bulging and pushing. Whilst the knife sawed its way backwards. Then instantly became that pinprick, as it jammed again into my left lung. My mouth making a popping sound at the mere shock of this second wave of torture. My eyes left wide at the aftershock of suddenly knowing that this time he meant to kill me.

‘Help please someone help….’.

My head was screaming where my mouth could not. My hands sliding down the brick wall in front of me, as my body slumped to the ground. My head tipping backwards to the evil look in the dark brown, of his almost black eyes.

“why…”

Was all I could manage before the sound of sirens sung into the air, drowning away the silence. The metallic taste of blood in my mouth, coating my tongue. As the stale smell of cigarette smoke drifted into my nose. I was shaking like a jelly on a plate. Yet I didn’t really feel cold. The back of my head slammed into the cold concrete slab beneath me, to the sound of running footsteps. Then the urgency of a sweet calming voice. Coming from the street lit path next to me. Where the shadow of a head peering over me blurred away into a pair of pink toned lips.

“Stay with me….. come on don’t give up…stay…”

And then it was silent completely blacked out with darkness.

A soothing sensation of drifting of into a deep dark coma. Nothing but peace and bliss filled stillness. It was like that for a very very long time. Yet it was no time at all, until I felt like I was bouncing along. With not a care in the world. Still peaceful but the quiet darkness was embraced by a rhythmic whooshing sound. The kind of sound, you long for when you’re yearning to be back in your mothers arms.

As I bounced along, I started to wonder if maybe, just maybe he might have succeeded in his mission to end me. Maybe heaven wasn’t the white clouded pearly white or golden gates that are spoken about. Maybe Heaven was just peaceful soothing darkness. Maybe heaven was merely another dream, just one that never ended. A dream that caressed you in its rhythmic whooshes, whilst you felt lighter than a feather blowing in the breeze.

“That has to be it….. I must be dead and this must be heaven…” if only I’d known before that we all got a glimpse of heaven every single night when we closed our eyes. It’s just a pity I never got to let anyone else know what heaven was really like. However that’s the beauty of heaven, it’s kept a mystery until you can’t say. Then again the other good people would find out themselves soon enough.

One more bounce and I was suddenly falling. Except I wasn’t really falling downwards. Instead, I appeared to be drifting side wards. If it were at all possible to fall side wards for this long without hitting anything. It was an extremely long fall too. I was starting to think the fall was never going to end when;

“OOoooffff”

I felt like I had hit another wall. Only my feet were not on any kind of ground, I could feel them dangling and swinging away in the air still. I realized I was in some kind of large room. Gripping onto the wall for dear life, not wanting to fall downwards. Or even any further at all into this weird slightly reddish black coloured room. The whooshing sound, though still rhythmic was a lot closer now and it was more a surround sound in here. A bit like a premier of the next great movie.

“Oh crap….. I really hope I’m not being filmed….I don’t even know my lines….”

I thought to myself. But only for a brief second, it was far too quiet for a movie set. At least I still had a feeling of rhythmic comfort of the whoosh sounds. They reminded me of the waves lapping against your ear as you push a seashell against it. The sound of the sea, Maybe I was near a beach? I felt myself start drifting off into a sleep within the dreamworld I seemed to be in. Nestling in closer to the wall. I noticed it was uneven and bendy. But that didn’t stop me from still hanging on to it. I began to relax once more. Letting the sound of the unseen sea lull me back to sleep;

“Yes this was heaven for sure…It had to be..”

***

I was the only one here at least I had thought so. Just as I was almost fully asleep, smiling away to myself. The wall shuddered and shook, bashing towards me, making me have to grip harder. And then I heard them. They were so loud they were literally shaking my world. Panic gripped me as another thought took over.

“What if for some reason I had actually been sent to hell”

All the quiet calm had just been, the calm before the storm that was about to hit me. I mean it wasn’t like I had lead the perfect life. I had at times hurt others myself. Part of the reason he had been after me was because I had owed him. It’s not like you can avoid your debts forever is it.

When their shouting and screaming got louder, I was almost sure I had it wrong. Echos of the street and the wall came back full force. Only this was a much more exaggerated memory of it. As what felt like at least a thousand, if not a million knives were being jabbed into me. This time I was most definitely outnumbered. Loosing my grip on the bendy unstable wall. I sensed them surrounding me completely. Jabbing away so ferociously as they did so.

“No more please please no more…”

I cried out into the once empty room. Then the worst memory hit once more, without even an ounce of remorse. I felt it even worse than before as one of them dug the knife in deeper, until it was deeply embedded into my inner core. Spinning me in circles. It was excruciating to the point I felt like I’d not only been split into two but more and more shards of myself.

“yes this was most certainly hell.“…

How could I have even begun to think it was heaven. I should have known that the initial calm had been a false lure. Some kind of a tease, the eerie silence at the center., that sits mocking you before the storm comes in. That brief wicked breather, before it hits again and this time it hits so much harder than the beginning. That was what had just occurred, the second half of the attack, It thought was already done.

Then once again it was silent. Things calmed right back down again. If I had thought I was dead before now I knew I was. There was no way I had survived that second attack . No way in hell and ‘Hell’ was exactly where I was. Also things didn’t hurt so much now. It felt like I was healing again, becoming more complete again.

I focused on the whooshing sound, which was back. Opening my mouth I felt a bubble escape. It dawned on me that I was actually in some kind of water world. No wonder the sound of the sea was here. I wasn’t sure how long it would be until the next round of hellish torture. But I decided it was best to be on my guard. best to find some kind of weapon to protect myself with. But there was nothing here, absolutely nothing except myself and the water I was immersed in.

Now the bouncing sensation I had had before made much more sense. After all you do float and bounce along in water. Especially when you relax. Which I decided was the best thing to do. There also seamed to be no bottom just like in the deep end of a pool, at least until you force yourself down to the bottom. Though I was pretty sure this was much larger and deeper than a pool this was more like the wide open sea.

I once again started to feel a little safer in my new water world surroundings. It’s funny hell was always described as the hot fires and torture. Don’t get me wrong the torture was clearly here, but I wouldn’t call it hot. I’d say it was more lonely than hot. That must be it. What is the most hellish feeling we have? Loneliness of course, hell must actually be the torture of utter loneliness.

After a bit longer in hell. I started to notice there were more sounds than I had initially thought. Every so often there seemed to be a muffled conversation. sometimes there was laughter too. Was I being mocked in my loneliness? I was certainly drowning in it. Maybe those voices were also torture? vague essences of things that were before I died. I was fairly sure I recognized the voices.

In further torture there were times when the bendy wall felt closer and I could swear I was getting taller, or having the breath squeezed out of me. Then it would move away again as if I had imagined it. I began to understand why hell was called hell. You suffered more than just torture. you also suffered with loneliness had no rest, at least not for long. You were never able to go for a walk constantly floating without any kind of break. No company, long what I could only guess was hours of silence, before your senses were then teased. Only seeing black with the hints of red, no other kind of colours. Only on this water was not your average swimming pool water nor anything like the salty sea. It had a variety of tastes to it some were actually quite nice and then others were downright awful. I couldn’t really tell what any of the flavours were as they tasted nothing like food I’d had on earth, plus there was no actual food there, just glimpses of the essences of food. But the worst part was the smell of it all. I honestly couldn’t put my finger on what the smells actually were any more than the flavours. Maybe it was best I couldn’t as the little hints I did get reminded me of things like damp, urine and faeces, mixed in with things I just couldn’t begin to describe.

This world was odd to say the least. It was a still dark world with reddish black shades, which sometimes appeared to have shadows overcast. Along with voices laughter, and uneven waves, classical music seemed to drift in here and there. There was a lot of bouncing going on for a while, but even that eventually became less so.

At one point I had gotten fed up of not seeming to be able to move very far in this vast open space. which had some kind of force field around it. At the time I decided to do somersaults in the water, It’s not like there was much else to do in hell, I guess boredom and not being able to get far was all part of the torture. Eventually I’d found a comfy position in the opposite direction I’d started out. I decided to settle that way for a while and now for some unbeknownst reason there were squeals and my surroundings bounced again after being squashed down to suffocation state. I thought I was going to die again. Before the panic could kick in this time the room expanded outwards once more, much to my relief.

I also noticed a couple of voices seamed to be within hearing distance a lot. I liked stretching out my legs and arms for a while and started to find the familiar sounds comforting. Hell wasn’t actually all that bad it seemed. Certainly no where near as bad as i had expected when I was alive.

Time didn’t exist here and i couldn’t tell you how long I was in my new comfortable position for, but I was 99% sure the room was gradually shrinking around me. I began to wonder if this hellish heaven was actually preparing to torture me once more. I was especially concerned when the walls started to cave in more frequently.

One of the voices i kept hearing were getting louder, it was a woman’s voice. She appeared to be screaming herself. Just like she was facing the devil himself for what must have been the most hellish torture. I felt for her very deeply. Maybe I should try and help her out a little. I just needed to pull this rope from around my neck first, i hadn’t noticed it before, but it was getting tight. That poor woman was breaking my own heart with her almost panicky screams. I had no idea where the rope had come from or if it had been there the whole time. But I somehow, possibly with sheer determination, managed to get it from around my neck maybe The devil had planned on hanging me as my next lot of torture. Then even louder than before, came her hellish scream as I leaned my head back a little to see if I could find her, there were other voices, trying to help making comments such as;

“It’s ok honey……take a deep breathe….pant pant pant…and again….”

As I leaned there was even more pressure. it was completely surrounding me now. squeezing away at my whole body. Making me feel completely claustrophobic, I had to get out of here before I died again. Maybe I shouldn’t have thrown that rope away. It might have helped me out just about now. the voices getting louder as some kind of light started to appear ahead of me.

“and…..PUSH….” one voice yelled as the woman gave a grunted

“moooooooooooo”

“wait… there was a rope round my neck, I somehow pulled it off, A woman whom I can’t see has just been screaming in tortured tones, I’ve been living in a water world for…….you have got to be kidding me….”

As the sudden blinding light hit my eyes. I finally understood.

I hadn’t been in heaven or hell. I had been, re-conceived, re-grown, and re-made. I was about to be reborn. I still have no idea if at any point I went to either heaven, hell or some other waiting place. before I found myself back consciously . But Reincarnation is clearly a thing.

With A final hellish yell of agony from my mother, the water world crashed away from around me. I slide along the water-slide it created, into a pair of cold hands..

“Don’t these damn people ever consider to warm up their hands before handling a new-born?….”

Jumped across my mind. While the cold hands were gripping onto my tiny blue, skinny body. Pushing both my lungs straight back into action. i let the world know I was back with a whopping, first baby scream to the outside world of

“Whaaa…. Whhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaa…“

But to myself I was clearly yelling.

“Ohh SHIIIIITT…not this again…”

The End.