Chereads / Saint Christopher's Belly / Chapter 31 - Growth

Chapter 31 - Growth

What was that thing really talking about and better yet, why was Fausto so nonchalant about the encounter with the Giant? This whole thing didn't seem to make any sense to him but there was something that really bothered him. Who was Rachel and how did he find himself here in this predicament? Fausto went through the many possibilities of why things have ended the way they are. He pieced all the things he can recollect on the remainder of the elevator trip. His name was Fausto Merlo, he is 19 years old, he goes to SCR University, he has a mother and a father, a younger brother and sister, never had a girlfriend. Let's see what else was "special" or rather generic about his character. He had an overactive imagination, he often like to imagine himself as a hero, one girl commented in high school on how nice his voice was and he hasn't let go of it since, "Her name was Jennifer!", proclaimed Fausto. Well whatever her name was, I'm sure it wasn't even a footnote in her life but to him it was everything.

Suddenly, Fausto slapped himself. A startling realization has creeped slowly over him, his thoughts seem to be no longer his. The inner struggle of the "three" was no longer being held in its own separate states but instead began a melding of both the conscious and unconscious, a start with no end, or rather, an end that won't start. All the colors in the elevator began to change to different hues, from maroons to indigos then to an almost neon glow. The ceiling was no longer standing about 7 feet, it was expanded to an upside-down void leading into nothingness. Was it like feeling death? "Was it like feeling death?", Fausto asks himself. "Wait?" Wait.

He quickly tries to press the buttons to any floor just so the elevator can stop and he can get off of the damned thing. However, the hell ride won't stop, it just keeps going and going. Is this hell? "Is this hell?", repeats out Fausto.

Fausto knew it was his voice but it was coming from the void above him. With each new thought that passes by his head, the abyss above him repeated with a different inflection. Who was up there? Am I up there? Why the hell is this elevator taking so long? Where am I really going, I'm no longer in school and that's for a fact. If you weren't really going to the safety of your womb, where else do you have left to go? Is there anything for you waiting outside the wall of cancerous flesh? Why are you in such a hurry to die, Fausto? A world without you isn't really any different, it continues just as it was. No breakage or indication in the passage of the time, then again, we could only see it going in one way. We have yet to comprehend the concept of stopping and starting, we are just all victims of time.

"Shut the fuck up!", shouted out Fausto to seemingly no one but hearken to the voice of reason within you. None of it really matters.

The elevator opens up and Fausto runs out of the elevator, straight to his dorm. As he dashes down the hallway, he takes one last look behind him and sees himself, standing quietly in the elevator as the doors close.