Remember what they say about seeing stars after being given a hard blow on your face? They lied. All I saw was darkness. A solid reason to be mad at Disney. Within the suffocating darkness there were flashes—flashes of who I could have been, blurry like an old film reel, flickering in and out of focus.
Lights followed—blue, yellow, green, you name it. They blended like a kaleidoscope, yet stabbed my eyes like torches. There were faces—shadows I couldn't discern. There were voices—voices that drifted in and out of focus, merging with the wind, and disappearing the more I tried to reach them.
My mind was like a broken projector that betrayed me every time I tried to run a clip. The memories were shattered like glass, every piece too jagged to form an explicable picture. I felt like a sheet of paper being erased clean of words. Every call down the deep recess of my mind went unanswered. But the flash of the Imperium guards' uniform—a shade of white that was impossible to mistake—stood out clearly in the murk of my disoriented mind.
Even in the deepest states of sleep or torment, an angel could always recognize the unmistakable iridescence of those uniforms, their stripes glinting with angelic dust, as rare as it was powerful. That recognition seared through me like a brand, a memory I couldn't fully grasp. Then, as if a veil had been dropped, the connection severed, leaving only pain—a burning ache that consumed my thoughts. This felt worse than being kicked out of the world's best-selling book: the Bible.
The pain wasn't from the punch. No. For all know, mortal blows or any other physical hits, however heavy, never lasted long on beings like me. But this was different. It wasn't physical, at least not in the usual way. It was as though the very fabric of my existence had been bruised. My face throbbed with a raw, unfamiliar ache, like something deeper had been damaged—something vital.
I lay there, my head resting against what felt like a mound of earth, possibly grave soil. My skull pulsed with the intensity of the damage, the sensation too foreign, too invasive to ignore. Yet, despite the pain, there was a strange clarity. They hadn't destroyed me. Not yet. Whatever they intended, I wasn't broken, not fully.
The zombies, however, seemed indifferent to my suffering. They dragged me through the dirt, pulling me by my feet, my back scraping harshly against the cold ground. Every part of me screamed in protest. But damn, did they care? They spread my legs apart—which they weren't doing for all the right reasons—as they dragged me, a grotesque parody of helplessness.
What an irony: just when I could feel my limbs, I couldn't use them. Whoever said that life was a walk in the park sure hadn't been to Jurassic Park—or, in this case, a zombie-filled graveyard.
Ye had betrayed me up to this point. As much as I stretched my hand, she did not answer my call. My angelic traits, too, had sided with her. Right now, I could really use a pair of wings. I would rather be everywhere but here, circumnavigated by a decaying smell and eerie luminous green glowing pairs of zombie eyes.
The fear of the unknown made my heart rave off. I was surprised I still had one, but it was throbbing in a tempo I wasn't quite acquainted with: fast, violent, pushing my blood faster. Somehow, it made my breathing change. It was now short, intermittent, and heavier, exhausting all the air around me. Even though my body hairs had nothing to do with the suffocation, they stood alert, like those of a spider in alarm. I couldn't fathom what my body wanted, but it wasn't ice cream and candy bars.
I wished I didn't care, but I did. Where were they taking me? Why? And most of all, how did I get here in the first place?
"Help," the word scratched out of my throat. The angel of death calling for help. Wonders never cease. I probably looked like one of them. So, the idea that anyone could help me was as crazy as it seemed. Look, it was not my fault that I look like a mental asylum escapee.
I had learned a thing or two over my period here; one, when you see a zombie, run for your tiny life. Two, the zebra crossing in the graveyard was actually a dead people's crossing.
Time dragged on, the zombies moving with agonizing slowness, their steps faltering as if they were as uncertain of their purpose as I was of my fate. Dicky MlcDoggy's leg was missing a bone. He hobbled beside the others, his pace slowing us even further. The sound of their clattering bones was the only thing that broke the suffocating silence of the graveyard.
All I could do at this point was shut my eyes and try to listen to their whispers. Why was everyone whispering? My bad—zombie grammar. Why was everything whispering? Or, simply, why the hell were they whispering?
"Stacy, she is crazy." Zombies small talk, seriously?
Just before I had dropped the f-bomb, they stopped. Without their whispers and the sound of their clattering bones, I heard something else—the sound of an ocean. A rhythmic crashing of waves. A gentle roar of the rises and falls, like the breath of an ocean.
It came with a warm breeze that I didn't desperately need until when it touched me. The scent of saltwater lingered in the air, filling my lungs with its warmth. A timeless melody meant to invoke peace had turned out to be my final destination.
Newsflash: angels can breathe underwater. The idea of dashing me in there would be more stupid than the last time I went looking for a dragon pool noodle up a streetlight. Unless, of course, I'd been ripped off the rank of being an angel.
Ye, I need you now. I'm serious here. Why the hell was she so silent? She is not an introvert.
Dicky McDoggy and its partner released my feet and both raised their right fists into the air. The horde behind me did the same gesture, as if communing with an invisible entity. It was addling, but I didn't care.
I stepped onto my toes. Swiftly, Dicky McDoggy's partner—the one I had made a punching bag out of early—-pounced toward me. I maneuvered around him, summoned all my energy, channeled it towards my feet, and struck the gap between its legs.
The others behind us watched like four toes watching the small toe get hit by the corner of a piece of furniture.
"Stacy, I told you she was crazy."
One down, three thousand to go. I had optimism, but I guess this was not exactly where it was needed. I could tell when I was outnumbered—not beaten. Huge difference.
I backed towards the open water. To my dismay, they didn't bother reaching towards me. As debris and seashells were deported, I went in with the sea's waves.
All of them watching me, they raised their fists higher in the air and began humming. Humming that became louder with every step I took down the water.
Bemusement surfaced. If only there was someone who could elaborate to me everything that was going on detail after the other. But unfortunately, all I had in hand was perplexity—like Christmas in July.
The last thing in my mind would be finding a treasure map wrapped in a glass bottle floating around. Okay, Captain Hook, I will find your treasure in the afterlife. But it wasn't a treasure map. "Eat this," the paper wrapped inside read through the transparent glass in smooth italicized ink.
I unfastened the bottle and unfurled the paper. There was a blue pill inside. I could almost swear it had a glowing heart that beat. "A letter from Nicole." At the far right corner of the paper, it read. As if I was supposed to know who the hell that was.
Rat poison, alien shit, tamed electricity—whatever it was, I don't suppose I have any better idea. I swallowed it, feeling it go down my throat, galloping down the staircase, and landing in my belly. It left behind a burning sensation that departed a moment after.
It took a nick to digest. One moment, my belly was rumbling as if I had thrown a grenade down there; the next, it went grave silent and empty.
No sooner had I deemed the pill useless than I began feeling it—the malevolence, the angel of death crawling back to me, the vibrance growing in my pulse, the breath I had long before taken.
My tattoos—those ancient symbols of my power—began to glow, the orange light illuminating the patterns of birds, flowers, and marks of death that adorned my skin. I stretched my hand, and by all grace, I could feel Ye responding. My wings on the other hand were still on vacation; I couldn't feel them break out of my back.
I turned to face the zombies, knowing instinctively that I could destroy them all with the snap of my fingers. They stirred their growls louder.
Soon before I could feel the presence of Ye in my hand, the ocean waves behind me became restless. The air became thicker with an oppressive weight pressing down on my chest. The water became darker—like ink. The moonlight silver glow was no longer working to spot it at this point.
In the unfathomable darkness something ancient and more malevolent than me drove. The water grew colder as it moved, an insidious, deliberate pulse of dread radiating from its depths.
The creature coiled unnaturally, pulling back its figures from an endless stretch of darkness. Its skin was soft and slimy, blending impeccably with the dark. Its pair of serpent-like eyes glowed in a pale luminous green—just like the zombies.
Then, it began to rise.
The water began to ripple, then churn turbulently as it became displaced by the immense creature. I couldn't wait to see it eye to eye—but I couldn't wait for it either. Its partners almost killed me a moment ago, so, no thanks.
I stepped back towards the surface, but I was too late. I felt an anaconda-sized, smooth, slimy tentacle wrap around my feet. I could have flicked it off with my feet, but its grasp was secure. Too secure to be twitched. It crept up my frame and cut me short of breath long before I had fully summoned Ye.
The creature finally emerged after the show. At first, it was like an island made out of seaweed and kelps, but as it grew its shadow loomed above me like a mountain. Its eyes were devoid of anything resembling compassion, throbbing with malevolent energy—a luminous green that burned with fire deep within it.
It took its time to like the tectonic plates to open its mouth—a gaping maw displaying rows of jagged shattered-glasses-like teeth glistening in the gloom. The teeth trailed to a luminous green glow down its guttural.