Animosity

There's a dream I don't tell people about. I've been having it for decades now. I'm wandering in an old dilapidated house with people I know. One by one they vanish; their impressions in the thick dust were never there. It gets quieter and quieter. Not the quiet where you hear less, but where the ambient noise starts to vanish. Finally the only thing I can hear is my own ragged breathing. The world becomes grayer and grayer. Finally I'm in the basement. No one came with, of course. The darkness coils around my ankles, whispy and not quite there. I'm cold.

And there It stands.

The only thing darker than the blackness trying to force its way into my throat.

I know It well. 

I look down, and find I'm just as dark as It is. My eyes now shine with crimson too. And it feels so good. To be honest with what I always was. My hands are shaking as I look at them, both in typing this and in the dream. It feels so good to stop running.

My mouth opens to scream at It in a final act of defiance.

"You failed. Your siblings were ruined, your wife will leave, your children will figure it out sooner than your wife. There's only one answer here," is what comes out of my mouth. It's a voice I recognize. 

But it's not mine.

A sword, blade writhing with pitch-black something, appears between us, the crimson from our eyes illuminating it. 

All of a sudden I'm afraid. 

I've woken up from this dream once in my life. I'd suppressed the basement part.

Animosity brought it back.

Now when I close my eyes I see It. Waiting. The sword's between us. I wouldn't touch it.

But that's not the only thing that's come back. Memories of my first day of highschool have come back too. All in black, skin practically boiling with the rage pushing up from under it, what the hell was I thinking? Why would I come back to any school, willingly?

"What, are you afraid?' My priest's challenge a few months before had led to an outburst of angry splutterings, muttering of how cheap a move that was, and a resolve to prove him wrong.

But, as I stood in that hallway, I was afraid. So very afraid. When would they realize I didn't belong? When would the attacks start again?

"YOU SON OF A BITCH"

I jumped. So did everyone else. Barrelling down the hallway were two guys. Blood hung in the air an impossibly long time as it came out a nose, rolled off a fist, and stayed there just long enough for me to figure out I could be next.

Puddles of rust. Shouts in the air. I practically ran to class. I was so afraid.

But that's not all this song has brought up.

Sam, the best dog I ever met, head in my lap, as I sobbed in my wife's family forest.

My wife's smile as I walk up to her. I felt heavy. I don't anymore.

The screams of "DAAAAAAADDY!!" and the hop skip and a dance as I'm wrestled ever so lovingly. I'm laughing.

My siblings' smiles each time they come to visit.

And all of a sudden I'm back in that basement. The world is colored crimson. I can feel It breathing through my lungs. It likes it.

Fucking parasite.

My mouth opens. But I don't say the words. I laugh, a sound that may actually come out of the depths of Hell. It's a long cackle. 

But it's my cackle.

And It shrinks back. Afraid. 

The blade is between us. My fuligin hand grasps the hilt. I know what to do with this. For so many years I shrank back because I didn't know what to do. But now I know. God, I know.

The darkness sloughs off the blade into my own palm.  I tilt my head back.

The oily blackness is gone in one gulp. It screams in fear, eyes practically pink with intensity.

The fight at school happened because a ten year old brother was given cigarettes. I had every reason to be scared then. It's okay that I hid next to a door, shaking so hard that I could barely see straight. It's okay that I regretted my decision, even though I was wrong. It's okay that I didn't know how to reach out to anyone and that I thought everyone was a threat. I don't now. Forgive. Forgive. FORGIVE.

"Go in peace," I thunder. Cerberus would have run from me; things don't smash their way out of Hades.

But here I am. I have crawled, fought, my way here. My pilgrimage from the land of the dead to the land of the living has not been kind to me. I am bruised to the point of absurdity; the fulligin isn't from the demon. I know that now. My eyes have almost been pounded out of their skull, I can barely see past the blood. It made me think the crimson liquid was a demonic light.

And it's not a cackle coming from my throat, but a retching cough; my lungs are full of blood.

Excalibur glows in my hand, free of the roiling ebony I drank. The demon can't get out. I am blocking the exit. Sam's snuggles, my wife and children's laughter, THIS SONG, have sharpened the sword better than any smith could. Arthur himself would be jealous. Crimson flows from my eyes, but I'm holding the scabbard like there's no tomorrow. My skin begins to become grey.

"You're right. I know what to do with this, " I say as I hold the Sword of Kings aloft.

I've always known, somehow.

There's a flash of light. 

The white separates and restores the color and sound in the world.