The fire is crackling happily, warm and safe and there I sit, sitting around the fire with my friends, dear friend, many lovely friends. We talk, we tell stories. But far off, deep into the woods where our fire is set, a noise comes about, traveling in the air, higher, louder than the fire, louder than our nostalgic stories and memories.
We pull straws. The long one is mine. Up out of the comfort I stand, up and away from the blanket of warmth and protection friends give you. Up away from the stories I stand and move off away from the light, into the darkness. Deep, deep darkness. Unknown darkness.
Death. Decay. Stench. My nostrils flare as I walk deeper, towards the noise, towards that unheard of violation to the woods. Things crackle, crunch under my feet. My slow, slowly walking feet. I look up; look up to see the blanket of the night, to see the mesh of stars, the canopy of green overhead. Nothing. Just darkness and dead trees.
Dead
Dead
D
e
a
d
trees.
A hit. A blow to the head and I am down. A foot connects with my stomach and my eyes close. Close as I become enveloped in the overwhelming darkness. The darkness, cool, soothing darkness. I can not breathe. Can not. Too dark. Too thickly dark to breathe.
Finally, my eyes open. I see before me stone. Cold stone. Little light. I can not move. I am bound to a table-no. Not a table. An altar. An altar surrounded with candles. Candles surrounded in a pool of their own bloody wax. Beside me another altar sits. Hand bound behind me, I turn my head to see.
A man.
A man lies upon the altar next to me and a tube, a simple tube is what connects us. Connects us through our stomachs. That stench. That stench of death and decay makes my nose flare and bile rise in my throat. Then a shadow moves. Too little light, I can't see. There, there in the darkness a blade is retracted. The shrieking silver comes down upon the other altar, upon the bare naked man, slitting open his tube, pulling it out of the way. His insides slip out, tumble from atop him down the altar. Deathly still, slow motion. The smell, the horrid odor.
I vomit. It is so quiet, so horribly quiet, and I vomit. I turn my head, close my eyes and am embraced once more by the calm, cool darkness.
I awake. Awake again, the smell of the sickness upon my breath, the shadow moving in the back ground, the man now lacking his innards lying upon the floor beside me. I stand and find myself lacking in clothes. Lacking in other things as well. The innards surround me. They are everywhere.
A circle. Perfect, happy circle. Never ending, perfect, happy circle.
My arms are bound, I can barely move, but I dance. Dance in the candle light, dance for the shadow, dance for the smells, the silence, the darkness, the man, the death, the circle. I dance. I am forever a puppet still dancing after the puppet master's death.
