I see what it sees when it takes me over.
I don’t like what I see; it frightens me.
There are fires, and creatures holding people over them.
The screaming and the bells make me cover my ears, but I can still hear it all, just a little less.
A thing with horns and a silver crown, naked and furry beneath its robe, calls me to come to it.
I don’t want to, but my legs make me go, even when I try to fight it.
He tells me his name, but I can’t pronounce it.
He wants me to serve him, but I don’t know how, and I don’t want to.
I tell him so, and that I want to go home.
Smiling, he tells me that I am home, and he goes inside my mind to take my eyes from me.
Where there were creatures, screams, and fires, there are now flowers and trees.
The grass is green beneath my bare feet.
I run through the grass, my face to the sun, happy again.
I can hear the birds, and feel the wind.
Run to the end of the meadow, child. I am waiting for you there. I’m hiding, and you’ll have to find me.
I run until the sun sets, then the moon, then the sun again, and I can’t stop. He won’t let me.
You’re so close, now. So close to the end.
And I kept running, bleeding from my nose and mouth, my heart about to shatter my chest, but I can’t stop.
The flowers die, the grass turns brown, the trees lose their leaves, and the wind grows colder.
I keep running.
The sun no longer rises, nor the moon. There is only blackness and silence.
Are you still there? I call to him, stumbling as I run, getting back up, gasping for air.
Are you still there? I no longer feel the wind against my skin. I no longer feel pain.
I no longer see the end of the meadow, but it is marked by a fire, so I run toward it, even as it spreads, and grows, and comes to meet me.
I no longer have to run.
My eyes lose their sight; they pop, and sizzle, and drip, and I feel the heat on the squirming muscles that are left, and a powerful surge of heat.
I would weep, but he has taken my eyes.
BlackQuill 