The Haze

My eyes blink against the darkness, waiting for a sliver of light to fill the void, though it wouldn’t be a sliver, it would be a slight glowing coming from behind my head. A doorway existed there, a doorway waiting for me to cross the threshold, and as I await my destiny, I blink against the darkness, struggling to comprehend just what I’m waiting for. Sleep tugs at me, but I keep it at bay as I blink against darkness, each moment building upon that black sky of this bedroom.

The bedroom door hangs off its screw at an angle. 

Splintered wood only held in tact by a few screws, doorknob having been missing since early afternoon. As I’d opened the door, it had fallen off, rolling around before eventually melting into the carpet. There was still a little dark spot, round, and burned into the short shag of this floor’s fabric. It existed to the right of the doorway, as if showing me what I’d already known to be true — a reminder of what was to come, and a reminder that I may be more alive than I’d ever thought before. 

My head hangs off the side of my bed, knees bent at the other end, socked toes scraping the floor. Tube socks, compressing on the thickness of ankles, calves, and keeping me warm, are things I always fall asleep in, and sleep has been my friend for the past five hours, something learned from glancing at my electronic clock on a plastic nightstand found at a thrift store every now and then, watching the minutes change to hours.

Thrift stores are cheap, and so am I.

Eyes closed, I hum a tune off key, waiting for the erosion, waiting for my mind to awaken, waiting to awaken into the next piece of life, the destiny we all have, the destiny which is kept sacred. I hum a little longer. It puts me at ease. Humming puts me at ease until it’s time, and as the seconds tick by, the minutes, the hours, of my blinking against darkness, I drift off until it’s time. I awoke to a smell, something in between life and death, almost like the smell of old people, almost like the smell of something that was long lost and is now becoming found. A tuneless, mellow hum emitted from between my lips. I hummed into the darkness behind my eyelids.

One eye opened, then the other, as I groaned words I’ve forgotten. I groaned, my hands scrunching into my blankets, but bed wasn’t where I wanted to be.

That light was there, glowing from the hallway, glowing a dull white as fumes of death swirled around my head.

Fog seeped around the edges of the door frame. It blanketed over me, my clothing becoming more and more drenched in what wasn’t sweat. The stickiness of blanched skin caused my heart to pulse, pulse, pulse, as if the one thing I’d ever needed was outside of this room, and as I slowly awakened, my heart pounded, and the pounding reached my brain, and as my brain pulsed, it was as if my body was no longer mine, and my mind was a slave to this mist, these thoughts, and this future. 

What was left of me stared at this haze losing itself in the room. It was purple — a warm type of mist, much like humidity of summer. It was purple, and an odd light emanated from it, making the air itself seem to glow and sparkle. Strange, strange, and even stranger as I closed and opened my eyes, waiting and waiting and waiting.

It was time and time rang in my ears.

Time was no longer something that ticked by, it was no longer fleeting, now — now it was something to act upon.

I threw my legs over my head and bounced to my feet on a damp, carpeted floor. Glancing at the round, dark spot burned into the floor, there was less rug there than there had been before, as if the dark spot was burning deeper and deeper, until it met wood. 

The door was now open, and this door would only stay open until I walked through it, until I was dragged away, until I was dragged away by fate, by fortune, by thought.

I couldn’t see my eyes, but I could feel them turning purple, turning into the color of power, a power I might not ever fully earn — their irises becoming blank and black against their rims, pupils expanding against the totality of my eyes. The new color, the change caused a blindness in me. Dizziness overcame my senses, a dizziness that felt as though I’d fall over, never making it to the door, a dizziness that sucked at spots in my brain, as if my brain was the last thing it would ever want, but had to take anyway.

Saliva collected at the sides of my mouth, jaw dropping and staying dropped as I stumbled toward the door. Dribble dripped from my slack lips to the floor, hitting my bare chest, and streaking down the front of me. The wetness became sticky, drying in an almost invisible line down my front. The door frame caught me as I fell. A low moan escaped my throat. Dizziness, a kind of vertigo, allowed me to stay there, in my spot on the floor, almost burning a me-shaped shroud into the carpet. A loud moan escaped my throat as I lifted myself up, pushing myself off the floor and into a standing position. I stumbled into the hallway, my body whacking into the door frame and bouncing off, my legs feeling like cooked spaghetti, though that kind of hunger was the last type of hunger I was thinking about.

Worn socks, one with a hole shredded through it, dragged on the hallway rug. The tubes were loose around skinny ankles, falling down, bunching at the toe — an easy thing to stumble and trip on, a fact of life that took power from my hands and gave it to an inanimate object. 

My hands wandered, trying to find the wall, trying to find the railing to the stairs, as I stumbled along, unable to see clearly through dizzy eyes, eyes so dizzy my stomach tumbled over itself. 

Purple fog oozed over me, blinding blackened eyes with empty droplets of humidity. Skin became sticky with mist, my naked body’s hair matting onto its own flesh, its own bones, and its own unnecessary fat. Parts of me I hadn’t known I had were sticking together, like the pubic hair knotted in my butt cheeks, knotted from the mist that glazed over me.

Hair on my arms, legs, back, and head stood on end, yet soaked into my own skin. Everything was matted by the goosebumps that lined the skin on my arms. I was dripping not just sweat in this heat, but water droplets from this haze that were connecting to my skin. I was sticky, my entire body… sticky. The purple drops were sour and sulfuric. This gas created a crown around my head, hair matted to the top and back of my scalp.

I tripped on my socks, chin hitting the floor below. I bit the inside of my cheek, my tongue, blood filling my mouth. Lifting up my chin from the hard carpet, there was something in my mouth. Spitting it out, I found it was a molar, ready and collected from the inside of my mouth, from between my upper and bottom teeth, collected on the floor next to a splatter of red, crimson, sticky… blood.

Dizzying, it was too dizzying to stand. My head fell back to the carpet. Waiting for dizziness to pass, it wasn’t going to, it was collecting, my brain feeling as if it was filled with cotton, and my mouth teeming with a sour taste of iron. 

I began to crawl, an insect awaiting being smashed by a swatter, an ant scuttling as fast as it could amongst the crumbs, carrying a dead body on its back… I began to crawl. Carpet got in my way, a carpet sticky and sweating the purple mist. It burned into my skin, rug burn, but kept me near nailed to the floor. There was a deep opposite, an opposite of life to my tongue, to my gums, to my teeth. Every part mist had touched, burned, but that was a thought in the back of my mind, as each part of everything I was had become numb. 

All I could think about was getting to the door, my awaiting fate, and crawling amongst worms in my stomach. I attempted to get to my feet, but fell on my face again, this time, giving my chin rug burn. I began to crawl, still overcome by mist, by dizziness, and a sour sickness that had become to swell in my stomach. 

The stairs had to be here, just as they were every morning, every night, every day. They existed because they existed. They existed because they had always been there, which meant that becoming one with the floor would allow me to find that which was lost. 

I was waiting to find the stairs, them in their golden light. As the white light glowed, it became more and more golden, shining in the darkness like the glow of a not yet extinct lightning bug. Them, there, in their golden light and a darker fog waiting for me. The fog, becoming a darker and darker purple as it soaked in the walls, the floor, my skin, the carpet, my hair. The light, becoming stronger and stronger, but not strong enough to spread. In order to find destiny, my stiff hands had to find the stairs, and climb down them to discover a cleanness my bones have been waiting for. 

The stairs had to be here.

The stairs were here somewhere.

The stairs were here.

The stairs must be here.

Even in this state, of a glow, of a fog, of the breath of new life, the stairs had to be here.

Once the steps grew closer, the fog cleared. 

It parted the way it would if you’d cut it with a knife, as if it were a block of ice melting away in the air, as if it were revenge finding itself skin, skinned, and skinny.

Blackened eyes looked upon the staircase. My pupils, black… my irises, still a glowing purple. It’s not that I saw them, it’s that I felt them, and I felt the weight of promise upon them. They said it was a curse, but the curse was promise. It had to be. It’s why I existed, finding this new self within myself to breed unto others, not that I knew any others other than myself.

A light echoed under the downstairs door, growing loud then soft then loud then soft over and over again. Each time it breathed, I breathed, connected to the light that kept coming and going. My skin, I felt sticky gold, hardening, hardening onto my flesh, as if it was paint, as if it was paint and I was art.

I was shrouded in gold, my fingernails a glittering silver. My skin hardened, a shell it became, as I lifted myself down each step with my arms, my head sinking each time I crawled downward. Skin tingled, burning, turning my hair to black before I touched it, feeling it, the hair coming out clumps. 

As my shell became harder and harder, I shined more and more. My evolution. This was my evolution, a moth becoming my own flame. I was fire, and fire burned hotter and hotter until my body was no longer my body.

It was theirs, and I was gold.

Skin turning to a shining metal, my hands reached out toward all of the stairs, following one, another, one, another, one, another as they and I descended down toward the red glow, white glow, yellow glow, black glow, red glow, white glow, yellow glow, black glow, red glow, yellow glow, white glow, black glow, red glow, white glow, yellow glow, black glow… glow, glow, glow, glow glow. 

It grew.

Sweat dripped from my hairline past my eyes, feeling like tears as they squirmed around my nose. Mist drizzled off of my hardening flesh. 

I coughed.

Something was stuck in my throat, stuck there, unmoving, unwavering. My sight lost balance. Heaving forward, something furry spluttered out of my throat, out of my mouth, onto the floor, onto the stairs. It was on my foot. It shifted, moved, and I felt it scuttle away, scuttling up the stairs to safety, away from the dream, and away from what was meant to be for me. I spluttered up what felt big enough to be a rodent, a live rodent, out of my body. 

I was coughing up life.

It was only time until I coughed up death.

Something scuttled around my ankles and over my feet. It nibbled on my dirty, yellow socks. It nibbled on the dirty metal of my ankles. It nibbled on what was left of bones, becoming a harder, harder, harder shell. 

A squiggly feeling was rampant on my tongue. It felt sick, my tongue, a flavor toothpaste would never get rid of. Swallowing, I spluttered again, feeling worms explode from my mouth. My body, facedown on the last of the stairs. My body, too weak to stand. My body, throwing up life until it threw up death. They writhed around my fingers, each one, but how can each see unless they’ve eyes unbeknownst to anyone?

My hands reached down to the next step. What was left of my body tumbled down the rest of the stairs, tumbled until I was on a wet spot at the bottom of them, gathering myself into the fetal position, a position where I shook and shook, shaking away the mist, shaking away my thoughts, shaking away any emotion I might have had. I laid there, shaking, wondering how much longer this would be, wondering when I would be saved. As I shook, the floor squished beneath me, as if I was laying on a tongue, my tongue, my own tongue, a tongue that was the mouth of this house I never knew I had. 

Without thinking, the door opened. It opened and there were two arms, two arms with long, spidery fingers tipped with fingernails sharper than any knife I’d ever carved, fingernails that looked like the blades of scissors. It opened and there were two arms.

They grabbed me, yanking me through the portal into their world.

I could not stop thinking how lucky I was.