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!!”