Synopsis: Chesulloth finds herself trapped within her own mind. At first, she is lured in with offerings of pleasantries while she sleeps. Then, her sleeping body is bound and she is plunged into all her deepest fears, forced to endure ordeal after ordeal. The only way out is to overcome her fears, but her fears aren't all they seem on the surface.
Table of Contents
Almost There
Chesie gave a start and flung the door back, but The Man in Red caught it and pushed it back open. "Do come in."
"Get out of my head!"
"I've always been here, Chesulloth. Ever since you were 12, you let me in."
"Wh-What?" She took a step back. What had happened when she was 12? She tried to search her memories, but nothing in particular stood out.
"When you were in your bedroom, wishing for diamonds, I was the one who gave them to you, Chesulloth."
"Shut up!" she screamed. "You're lying! This is just a dream, so you're subject to my will, just like the diamonds!"
"True. But do you know why your sheets were lime green?"
Chesie's voice caught in her throat. She didn't know.
He smiled. "Wasn't it your mother's favorite color? And her favorite flavor, I believe."
She backed away. He was just a figment of her imagination. She just had to choose the right door, then she would wake up. She took another step back.
"I still owe you an answer to your question, I'm afraid."
"My question?"
His lips pulled back against his pointed teeth. "But if you don't reme--"
"T-The worst one! What's that?" she stuttered quickly.
The Man in Red frowned. "You run from the light into the darkness, but nothing scares you more than the dark."
"What?"
His smile returned. "So you don't understand?" He clapped his hands together. "Good, good!"
She tried to make sense of his meaning and decided to fight metaphor with reality. "No, you're lying! You've been surrounding me with darkness, but I've always run to the light!"
His smile disappeared again as his jaw went slack. "The darkness," he began, his voice quivering with reluctance, "is uncertainty. You fear the unknown."
Her brow wrinkled. "The unknown?" She waved a hand at him. "What's unknown about you?"
The Man in Red's face scrunched and distorted.
Chesie realized he was holding back a laugh.
"Everything! You don't want to know my identity! You think I don't exist. That's why you put yourself in darkness!" The energy from his glee transferred to his feet and he began to bounce in front of her.
Chesie took a step back in disgust and the door slammed shut, pushing her over the doorframe. She looked back to see a solid wall again.
"You'll never awaken!"
Chesie clenched her fists. "Oh, yes I will. I can tell you can't hurt me. You're just trying to scare me. You don't want me to go out that door, but I know it's still there!"
The Man in Red's knees stopped bouncing. "But you don't believe, Chesulloth. You'll never find the door again."
"Believe? Believe in what? You?" she spat.
He smiled. "You don't know."
"I--" She opened her mouth to respond to his question before she realized it had been a statement. "I do know. I believe the door's there." She pointed behind her and turned, expecting the doors to reappear. The wall remained.
The Man in Red chuckled. "You don't know!" He repeated. "What if I told you the doors never existed, Chesulloth?"
She pursed her lips and turned back to face him. Darkness swirled before her eyes.
"And that I don't exist, like you said," his voice echoed around her.
"You don't!" she screamed into the darkness. "That's what makes this a dream!"
She felt his laughter take solid form and roll off her skin. She recoiled against the wall and felt her stomach twisting into a knot as her muscles stiffened.
"Answer the question, Chesulloth. What happens when you die?"
"Wh-What happens?" She turned her head in the darkness. "They say you see a light," she laughed nervously. "But that's what happens when you wake up."
"What do you believe?"
Chesie could sense impatience in his disembodied voice. "Darkness. Darkness happens."
"Like now?" The Man in Red's laughter shook the darkness and it quaked under Chesie's feet.
She fell to her knees. Was she dead? Or was this hell? Had she taken her last breaths that moment she had opened her eyes?
"That was your last chance, Chesulloth! Now you'll never see the light again!"
It was just a dream. She would wake up. It was probably foretelling that the corner store would be out of chamomile. "What about The Man in White? You said he was the bad guy."
The darkness quaked more fervently. "The Man in Red or The Man in White, which is the light that shines so bright?" His rolling laughter subsided into a series of chuckles. "My very presence exacerbates the fear of failure."
Chesie struck her palms against the wall. "I don't believe in you and you torment me. But you keep asking what I believe. So am I supposed to believe in you? Is that it?"
"Now, you know that makes no sense." The Man in Red laughed. "You're reached the point of no return."
"No, no, no!" Chesie screamed, her hands pounding against the wall. Why hadn't she woken up yet? "You said I was almost there! Almost where?"
"Now, nowhere. You failed all three chances, Chesulloth."
"Chances to what?"
The darkness settled and The Man in Red went quiet.
Was this it? Was she waking up? Nothing was happening. The Man in Red wasn't doing anything to her. She took several deep breaths. She had to wake up.
"It seems I haven't won yet. The Man in White says you haven't rejected him yet."
"What?"
"You wouldn't be here if you hadn't rejected him! You humans fear the unknown when you start relying on my precious art, scientology, to explain everything for you." His cackles filled the darkness again.
"Science? Your creation?"
"My truth over his truth! The dark over the light. Your mind is filled with so many lies, you can't see what's in front of you!"
The darkness pressed against her and she felt the air leave her lungs again. The blood began to rise to her face and she tried to push at the solid air, but she couldn't move.
She couldn't stand being in the dark anymore. She had to know if she were living or dead. She had to know if she would wake up tomorrow and forget this horrid dream. She squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted the truth.
The pressure on her sides released. She wasn't dreaming. At least, not in the sense that what was happening wasn't important. Suddenly, she had an odd feeling that there was a chance she wouldn't wake up. As she thought this, she felt as if the darkness were pressing within her.
She cracked open an eye. If the darkness was unknown, then she just had to make it known. If The Man in Red was fear, then she could overcome him.
She hadn't failed. She wouldn't let it happen.
She took a deep breath. She remembered what had happened when she was 12. Her mother had passed on the year before. Her father's way of coping with it had been taking them to church. And there, they had met Satan and she'd lost sight of God. If God wasn't present in his own house, she had thought he couldn't be present anywhere. Her father had become a shell of himself and they began to move a lot. No matter where they went, her father had never seemed happier. And it hadn't been because of her mother's death.
That had been the origin of her uncertainty. If God didn't exist, what was the world? To answer that question, she had turned to science. But science didn't help. It left all her questions unanswered, leaving her only with the purported truth that God did not exist and the doctrine that science was not a religion--a system of beliefs purported to be true.
If God didn't exist, what had happened to her mother? What happened after a person died? Did they just disappear and leave behind their memories to ravage the existence of their loved ones until they disappeared, too?
But the worst uncertainty of all was her inability to do a thing as she watched her father's existence shrink. She hadn't known the reason and she hadn't been able stop it.
If God didn't exist, there was nothing to stop the fear. If he didn't exist, The Man in Red would always win. If she still had a chance that had to mean something was out there.
Her lips trembled as she spoke to the darkness. "Who is this man in white?"
The Man in Red's voice responded in a whisper. "Verily, verily, he'd say until thee, 'I am that I am.'"
"God?" she scoffed, angry as she suddenly felt she was being forced to choose when she didn't have a choice.
"No," The Man in Red responded, his voice fading. "He is who he is. The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit." He appeared in front of her and stretched an arm towards her. "Say it. Say you don't believe!" His dilated pupils quivered in his desperation.
Chesulloth's lips flapped wordlessly. Now it all made sense. She wanted to say it, but he wanted it, too. She knew he had been leading her away, but he had been obligated to tip her in the right direction as he tried to pull her into the dream.
Behind her, the wall rumbled and she turned to see the wooden door creak open. She looked down the hallway, which had grown so long and red she could no longer see the slightest hints of pink.
She smiled. "So he made you defeat yourself. Just like I was creating my own darkness."
He fell to his knees. "It's all lies! I'm the one you want! I can make it all go away!"
Chesie shook her head. "You are here because you thrive in the darkness. And I say let there be light. Take me to The Man in White."
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