My favorite color is purple. A deep royal purple. That being said, I respect the hell out of orange. It's a color of vibrancy and diversity or maybe versatility. Nah I think diversity. It is not often found in nature and maybe that leads to a startling awareness of its presence. When it is found its usually very distinct from its other sources. My favorite color is purple but if I had to pick a favorite orange it would be sunset orange.
Like a fading warmth and lingering joy the sun likes to make sure its last impression on us and the world in general, is breathtaking if you really stop and admire it. Like a chick with a nice ass sashaying out of the room. I know, save your praise and prattle. I am aware I'm practically a Shakespeare incarnate. Bear with me here. I'm jotting this all down because I feel I need something to center myself with. Keep me anchored. Keep me here. I've noticed as of late staring at the cavernous ceiling and seeing things I don't want to see. Then closing my eyes and going places I don't want to be. Thousand yard stares become thousand second stares and I need something to keep me here. To keep John here. Because he, I, is finding elsewhere a lot more appealing then his current where. John needs to keep it together or he'll go insane and start keeping notes in the third person. Or something. Wait, does that even make sense 'his current where'? Who cares, John, get with the program and stay on track. Sunsets, sunset orange and right here right now the place you don't want to be but really need to be.
Driving is sort of a scary deal at first but with all things that you add time to a certain amount of apathy creeps into it. White knuckled grip on the wheel at fifteen with a nervous mother in the passenger seat and amused father in the back seat turns into loud music and one handed phone checks by twenty. I do not write the rules, I just live them. Really it's more like 'by sixteen' but on the off chance my parents do get a hold of my written account, then yes twenty. The ripe age of an irresponsible adult. Anywho the point I'm laboring to make here is that I'm only human and it eats me up a lot so I feel the need to defend myself. It eats me up that maybe Johny boy wouldn't have gone through a fucking big ass glowing portal if he wasn't changing the music playlist on his phone. Maybe. To be fair right when that portal showed up a real kick ass headache showed up with it. Why was John out driving on a Saturday evening all alone, you ask. Well dusk is fucking beautiful. Bite me.
Rolling cattle pastures and assorted sage brush prairie with rising mountain creeping towards the sky is a great view. Most vistas would probably be 'great views' anywhere in the world but hey it's home. Cow shit, ticks, rattle snakes, cold ass winters, hot ass summers and a great view. The drive, winter or summer, rain or shine, is a sort of cathartic ritual of sorts. Now I don't have the option to drive and the sulfur ridden monotone hellscape I find myself in is not, as John might have you believe most vistas are, a great view. It blows. Hence the writing. Cathartic. Maybe not but I'm here where I need to be. It is going to get a whole lot worse probably, so I really need this right now if only for the placebo that it is in fact cathartic for me to do. As I re-read my jotting I feel the need to clarify something here. I'm not a cynic. I am the purest form of optimist. I am tired and jaded, yes. I got nothing left but fury and hate but I still try. What is that if not optimism? What is that if not hope? Get on track John.
Roller Coasters were always fun. Your stomach is falling and the adrenaline is pumping. It's like that cliff that you get the urge to jump off of because you know it would feel great on the way down but a lot less final. Now imagine, if you will, you had no idea the random park bench you sat on was in fact a roller coaster and it just took off. Analogies are not my strong suit but basically out of nowhere this killer headache and then my stomach is trying to crawl out of my throat. I saw red before that though. Really dark red of a big ass portal. That I drove straight through. The first impact was jarring, deployed the air bags and absolutely destroyed what was left of my truck's suspension. Things over two tons traveling just shy of seventy miles an hour do not exactly stop on a dime easily. The next impact stopped me cold. If the airbag hadn't broken my nose then that stop would have. Hindsight being twenty-twenty it should have knocked me unconscious. It did not.
The adrenaline had me amped. Sitting stunned for a while, my hands shook and I tried to blink away the tears, courtesy of my sideways nose, from my eyes. The god awful racket of the crash, that I was only dimly aware of as it happened, turned into the tormented gasps of air leaving my loyal companion that accompanied me on my wayward evenings. The airbag was beginning to deflate but my eyes were having trouble adjusting to the dimness around me.
'Breathe John, get a hold of yourself.' I thought as I tried to assess how fubar my situation was. 'The pain is going to set in and you need to be in control of yourself when it does.'
Noticing my index and middle fingers on my left hand bent at odd angles I brought them up to my face to check if they were dislocated or broken. The bones of those fingers were sticking out above my palm and the flesh was torn. They seemed to be attached more by stubborn tendons than proper flesh and sockets. It made me want to puke but my body wouldn't let me. I was wound tight and my throat was tighter than a frog's ass. I could feel my right leg stiffening up and a tingle in my nose.
'You need to find your phone John. You need help' Trying to muster the resilience to scrounge around the low light catastrophe of the once organized chaos of my vehicle's interior.
It took a couple tries to unbuckle the seatbelt that had locked tight against ribs I hoped weren't cracked protecting organs I prayed to God weren't bleeding into my abdomen. There was something tugging at my attention but I ignored it trying as best I could to look around for my phone. I found it partially and violently deconstructed on the dashboard. Spider webbing glass a testament to its trajectory throughout the unwelcome surprise roller coaster ride.
'Okay John, it's time to get out of dodge.' I failed to notice the humor of thinking that while extracting myself from a ford.
"Deep breaths you can feel the ache coming' I continued to talk myself through what was becoming my worst day ever.
Reaching across my chest with my right hand I Pulled the handle but the door remained stubbornly closed. Awkwardly pushing with my left shoulder and pulling with my right hand I finally jarred the door open. Following the momentum of my actions I tumbled out of the door onto the ground. Reflexively reaching out to stop myself from going face first into the red rocky floor my left hand carried the brunt of my weight as I arrested my fall with my hands, my legs still partially within the truck. The bones on my index and middle fingers sticking out caught on the ground and were forced up and away from my palms tearing flesh as my fingernails were brought precariously close to the back of my hands. I looked on in horror and then I did start to heave right then and there ass up in God knows where. Tumbling out onto the ground I righted myself and took pressure off my left hand as quickly as I could trying not to look at it or the blood that was smeared along the ground as I puked towards the driver side front tire right under the driver door. I say puked but it was more a mouthful of bile rather than full on blown chunks the boa constrictor, that was once my throat, would never allow to pass in the few heaves before I brought myself back under control.
The thing that was warring for my attention was needling my mind but I tried to block everything out. It was five seconds from now John's problem, not right now John. Right now John had his eyes squeezed tight dreading the inventory of his body he had to take soon. Before the bodily assessment could take place the needling grew. Opening my eyes I allowed the annoying prod on my senses to do its thing. There was a slight tug on my mental landscape and then a screen snapped into my vision.
STATUS
Name: John Cornelius Smith
Race: Human
Rank: G
Strength: G+
Agility: G+
Constitution: G
Mana: G-
Will: G-
Talents: Undying Body EX, Intuitive fighter B
Quests: Finish Tutorial Dungeon (Legendary Difficulty) 179:23:52:36
'What the fuck.' I thought as the pain began to settle into me.
Something rather unreal in the form of a status window being overshadowed by the very real pain of my body. That's when I saw the feet. Huge four toed and clawed feet with veins undulating under taught red skin like snakes. I looked up as dread took hold of me. Looked higher and higher, my eyes trailing up an amalgamation of the familiar and the definitely wrong as I took in the being that towered high above me. Looked right into the demon's abyssal eyes hovering over a mouth showcasing pointed teeth where normal creatures had lips. Faster than I could track or react, even if I wasn't paralyzed in fear, it had me up crushing bones and had its maw sunk around my throat and lower jaw, it's teeth sinking into flesh and bone. With a savage rip it tore my lower jaw and most of my throat away as it relished its impromptu meal. Let me tell you, it hurt like a motherfucker.