Chapter Six- Part Two: Take One

Chapter Six (Part Two)

TAKE ONE

          I don’t know if this is the same for everyone when they are in a coma, but this is what happened to me. Like I had said before; I was in a coma for only six months but to me- in my mind- it felt like seven years.

I opened my eyes, but I knew this was no longer reality. I was gone, slipped into my deep slumber. Lost in this place. It felt like dark void- nothingness. Less than nothing. Time existed, but that was irrelevant. In this place it didn’t matter who you were or what you wanted. No one cared.

I awoke in what seemed like a city. A bad city. Home to pollution and disease. Home to greed and mischief. 

Home to the homeless. Home to death and fear….

This city was perfect for me!

I awoke on the streets lying down, like drunken white trash that, also intoxicated by nasty drugs, passed out outside the club and all her friends left her there by herself to rot or to be raped. I was surrounded, however. There were so many people in this place. Everyone seemed lost, as if trying to find their way home, hoping they could find their way back.

I stood up and turned around only to meet my reflection in the glass window of a common drug store.

My outfit was unmistakably familiar. I stood there, petrified.

I’m wearing a skin tight, bright neon pink, pencil skirt… a black halter top with… ruffles towards the bottom, a black, strapless bra and a bright neon pink and black g string, with black 3-inch wedges. As I walk closer to the window I see I am also wearing heavy makeup (though smeared); lots of mascara, eye liner, bright neon pink lipstick, and a little bit of blush. 

This can’t be! No, oh God no! I… I’m living my nightmare!

I just stand there. Staring at my ugly face. Staring at a body who has lost its soul to the devil. Staring at me…

I then notice a charcoal gray, 2009 Charger with dark tinted windows parked on the side of the road in the reflection of the window. It was parked… for me. I turn around. And like clockwork I walk over to the car, get in and close the door.

There are black leather seats, a new car smell mixed with a slight hint of marijuana, and it lights up blue and dark red where the speedometer and other gadgets are.

“..oh…”

My arm reaches for the glove box on its own, like muscle memory. I didn’t even have to think about it, it feels like morning routine to me. And sure enough, I pull out that fine, white powder bag.

Everything was going exactly as it would have in my dreams until the driver spoke to me.

“You can change the ending.”

I stared into the darkness of the driver’s side until I could start to make out features of a body. His eyes began to glow white. His horns shone from light that I could not tell the direction from whence it came. He was wearing a black and red three piece suit, with a red tie and I assume black shoes. He wore a gold chain and several rings, he had his tattoo across his knuckles; GHOST MAN. He smiled at me crookedly.. his razor sharp teeth glistening with hunger and mischief.

It was the man from my daydreams… from my bedside at the hospital.

“…What?” I asked.

“You can change… the ending… for a greater… price!” He hissed. “But… what kind of price…. are you willing… to pay?”

As I considered the demon’s offer, he began to drive off. I thought long and hard, not paying attention to where this man was taking me.

What kind of price am I willing to pay? What is the original ending? What other endings can I choose from? Why is there even an ending? What kind of ending did he mean? What would happen if I chose the wrong one? What do I have to give up in order to wake up from this coma? Why is this even happening to me? Oh God, I wish Jake was here. What am I going to do? Why am I here? 

Oh GODDAMMIT!

With so many thoughts running through my head I lost my mind. I looked outside the car window and noticed we were driving over what seemed like a bridge, except there was none visibly. We were essentially floating through the air in a vehicle, but did not fall.

“Things are not what they seem here. Remember that.”

They’re not what they seem? What if I kill myself? I should wake up, right? When we are dreaming at night, a simple feeling of falling wakes us up, right?

With the last feelings of panic and fresh air before my death, I open the car door and thrust myself out of it, hoping the feeling of falling would awake me from this nightmare. The air felt good on my face, though it pushed the skin on my face back. I don’t think I loved gravity more at any point in time in my life other than right then, right there.

My life did not flash before my eyes. All I saw was the water and rocks coming towards me, beautiful blue water. All I thought of was how great it was going to feel when my body hit the water. How the water would engulf me, how wet I would become…

My entire body soaked in nature’s clean, natural fluids..

Until I began to feel immense pain from my head. My head had been struck against a big rock in the water instead of the water itself! I could feel my head throbbing and the blood pouring out, giving the rock a red tint for all to see. A few chunks of my head with the hair still attached to them exploded from my body; the side and top of my head split completely open. I literally had a splitting headache, and it was killing me! No drug could have helped dull that kind of pain. No amount of tabs, Perks, White Girl, PCP; nothing could save me.

I am not sure if I died on impact, because it is said that when you die your brain does not automatically cease working, it takes a small amount of time.

Lying there on the rock was the most painful, peaceful  thing to me. I couldn’t see out of my left eye- it too was injured. My heart raced faster and faster, blood continuing to pour out from my head. Breathing became more and more difficult, my lungs struggling to provide me with an adequate amount of oxygen. I could feel myself slowly slipping away into an even deeper slumber. Eternal slumber. Or reincarnation; or nothing. 

Whatever you want to believe in, I felt it coming. I was going to meet my maker.

I woke up… lying down again. There was nothing but whiteness around me. A complete white room, with no one in it save me. I blinked several times, to adjust my eyes to how bright my surroundings were. But then I began to focus… the whiteness was turning into color, into images, until I was back on the same street as before.

“…w-wh.. FUCK!”

I quickly stood up to see myself in the mirror.

I’m wearing the same skin tight skimpy outfit and the same fucking smeared makeup.

“FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!!”

Chapter 5- Coma

Chapter Five

“COMA”

[This is where things take a turn. This is where things get gruesome and ugly. This is where all innocence is disturbingly removed from all possible thoughts. This is the horrifically detailed description of what happened during the six months that Rachel was in the hospital, in a drug-induced coma. This is the real story.]

                You know, six months can seem like a very long time for those who are on the outside world, waiting for their loved one of friend or sister or brother to come back to reality, but just imagine the turmoil of the person in the coma. Have you ever been in a coma before? Have you ever been in a coma from a demon’s drug? Imagine this:

What was six months for everyone else in reality was about 7 years for me. That was the most disturbing 7 years of my petty life. 7 very long, demonic, enlightening years. And to this day I still regret nothing.

The last few things I remember before slipping into my slumber was being in the emergency room of the hospital, getting my stomach pumped to purge my system from poisons (delicious, trauma-causing poisons), and the screaming voices of my friends and family.

Oh the screams. They sounded like bloody murder. It sounded like screams from Hell, or the recreation of the end of the world! I could hear my mother cry out my name over and over again. Jake had almost an angry growl with his. His emotions flooded the entire hospital via vocal chords with anger, regret, sorrow, turmoil, and a slight hint of hatred.

After that, I remember lying in the bed and listening to my heartbeat. Ba-bum……..ba-bum……..ba-bum…………….ba-…………ba-bum…….

Childhood thoughts filled my head, my mind racing with memories- my life flashing before me. I remember the times my sister and I used to play school when we were kids, she was always the teacher and I was the student. Ha, she got mad at me sometimes because I didn’t want to play the teacher. I can’t remember why, but it wasn’t my thing I guess.

Another memory flashed before my eyes.

My sister and I were sitting on our bed in our very small room.  We were about 5 or 6 years old. We were watching a TV show that I don’t think we were supposed to be watching. Some kind of soap opera that they only showed at night when all the kids are supposed to be asleep. Anyway, a scene came on where two people were kissing.. French kissing. Well, my sister got the bright idea that we should try that on each other. 

And for whatever reason, maybe both of us being so young and not knowing any better, we did it. It felt weird. Her breath upon my lips, her lips so wet and soft. Our tongues felt slimy, caressing each other’s with naivety. It only lasted for about 5 or 7 seconds, but I will never forget that day. At that moment, our mother walked in on us. We both stopped and stared at her in embarrassment and horror. What had we just done?....

The next memory was a horrible one.

As a child I did a lot of day dreaming. A lot of times I would imagine myself lying in a bed, much like I am now. I never knew where I was but in this room. I would look around the room and notice something strange. It was a white room with really bright lights, no furniture, no windows, no wall decorations, only a door.

And something else.

Someone else.

As I looked to my left I would see a man sitting beside me in a chair. I would never know this man, and I could hardly ever see his face for the shadow of his top hat. He was always wearing a black and red three piece suit, with a red tie and black shoes. He had a long, black cane with a bird’s skull on the top. He had devil horns on both sides of his head. He wore a gold chain and several rings on both hands. I could see he had a tattoo across his knuckles. It read GHOST MAN. He just stared at me with this devilish grin on his face. All of his razor sharp teeth glistened with hunger and delight. His eyes glowing white, piercing my soul. He just stared intently. I always thought he was going to eat me.

I could feel my heart race faster and faster- weaker and weaker… until I blacked out.

Chapter Four- Awaken

Chapter Four

"Awaken"

Imagine your worst recurring nightmare. Now imagine dreaming that while on drugs. My worst nightmare felt like reality. In this unconscious state, I felt immense discontent. I was doing everything in my life that I had never wanted to do. This means some of the most embarrassing, degrading things a human being can do to oneself. Some examples are: living in the sewers while having prostitution for employment and doing all of the really hard drugs, like methamphetamine, rage crack, heroin and scopolamine, while also dating your pimp/drug dealer who is very abusive- both mentally and physically. This situation causes unhappiness, paranoia, low self-esteem, and thoughts of suicide.

Dreams like these cause all sorts of pain and false pleasure. In these dreams I also always feel like I have the Stockholm Syndrome. And there’s nothing you can do to change this or stop this as this is your personal, true Hell. This recurring nightmare was my true hell. And it always seemed so real. Sometimes I thought that when I went to sleep and had this dream, I was really dead, seeing my future after-life, or that I was living another life in my sleep. It always felt so real.

I’ve had this dream since I was 7 years old about... 50 times or so. This was a well-known recurring nightmare to me. It always went the same way.

It starts out with me standing on the same corner every time- on the corner of Smith Avenue and Royall Lane. I’m wearing a skin tight, bright neon pink, pencil skirt, a black halter top with ruffles towards the bottom, a black, strapless bra and a bright neon pink and black g string, with black 3-inch wedges. Every, damn, time.

A car stops in front of me. It’s always the same colored car too; a charcoal gray 2009 Dodge Charger with dark tinted windows. The rims on this car are sick! When I walk towards the car, the driver signals me to get in. I do as he says, though I never see what he looks like. But, I always notice the interior of the car. Black leather seats, the new car smell mixed with a slight hint of marijuana, and it lights up blue and dark red where the speedometer and other gadgets are. I can tell it has a nice speaker system because I can always feel the bass when the music plays. I could never understand what kind of music was playing, but I know it was music.

I never know what comes over me; maybe I know this man too well or maybe he is a regular customer of mine; either way I look into his glove compartment. I always find the same small bag of some kind of white powder along with a small mirror, a razor and a cut straw. As usual, I carefully pour out the contents of the bag onto the mirror and begin to chop it up with the razor. Once finished, I use the straw to snort the drugs.

As I do so, I see myself in the mirror. I am wearing heavy makeup; lots of mascara, eye liner, bright neon pink lipstick, and a little bit of blush.  And, as always, right after snorting my given poison, I feel the sting of a needle in my left arm. The driver had stuck me with a needle full of heroin. And I black out.

When I wake up, still in the dream mind you, I am in what looks like a warehouse. There are great big piles of crates surrounding me, almost like a maze since I can never see over them. I’m lying on the floor, still dressed although my clothes are slightly askew. I get up and fix my clothes, and begin to walk through the maze. After wandering around for a while and not finding a way out, my dream skips and I am suddenly inside the sewers, where I live with my pimp.

I walk down the sewers and pass a few people along the way. The thing about these “people” is that not only do they not have faces but they seem to be mutated as well. For example, I passed by a lady with no face, dressed in tattered peasant clothing, and she waves to me. But when she does, her hands seem to have more than five fingers on each. But when I do a double take, her hands are missing. I figure it’s no big deal though since I don’t even know her. Another person I passed was an old man dressed in nothing but a dirty loincloth. When I walk past him, he has three white eyes, and again when I do a double take, his entire face is missing. I’m not sure what this symbolizes, but it always happens, no matter what.

So, I’m walking and walking—

‘raaaqqueettt…”

-“….”-

I stop dead in my tracks.

‘raccchhheeeeeeetttttteeeeee……’

This is no longer the usual recurring nightmare..

-“…..Wh- who’s there…?”-

It occurs to me…. ‘rrrraaaaccchhhheeeeeellll…….’ That someone is saying my name…

‘rrrrraaaacccchhhheeeelll!!!!..’

“Rachel? Rachel!! Oh my God…RACHEL!!!! OH MMY GODD!! RACHEL! PLEASE WAKE UP, PLEASE WAKE UP!! WHAT’S WRONG? PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE, RACHEL, WAKE UP!!”

[Jake finds Rachel lying on the bathroom floor naked, having a seizure. In a panic, he calls for help. Several minutes later, the ambulance arrives. Rachel is rushed to the hospital. Once there, her stomach is pumped to remove the poison from her body. She falls into a coma for 6 months.]

To be continued...

Sneak Peak of Chapter Five

Chapter Five

"Coma"

[This is where things take a turn. This is where things get gruesome and ugly. This is where all innocence is disturbingly removed from all possible thoughts. This is the horrifically detailed description of what happened during the six months that Rachel was in the hospital, in a drug-induced coma. This is the real story.]