《The 8th Day》Chapter 2: The Return of The Witness
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For what seemed like an eternity, all I could do is float there and scream in utmost agony. If an animal has ever bitten you, you know it hurts. Now, imagine the pain of being ate alive by animals. Then imagine how it’d feel if you weren’t even allowed the sweet release of pain in death, but instead could feel them as they continued to devour you. THAT is the pain I was feeling: endless torment of bite after bite, rip after rip, agony after agony! Who could track time during such an experience? I know I couldn’t. The feast started, my torment began, and everything else disappeared.
After what could only be called a timeless torment, I vaguely heard that DING echo from somewhere once again and another floating panel appeared before me. Needless to say, I wasn’t in the condition to read whatever it said, but things changed around me once again.
For starters, the minotaur quit eating me all at once, so there was a brief moments relief from its endless ripping and chewing on my corpse. Unfortunately, it was a very brief moment as the real torment started for me immediately after that. For whatever reason, my corpse had burst into flames and was merrily burning away – and once again, I was feeling every single excruciating moment!
Endless pain. Endless burn. Endless pain. Endless burn. Endless pain. Endless burn…
And finally, it ended!
And there I was, just a floating cloud version of myself, hovering in midair on the roof. Blessed, glorious relief from my agony was finally here! It took time for my mind to settle from the torture that it’d just underwent, but eventually I calmed enough to try and assess the situation better.
If this was the afterlife, it certainly wasn’t like anything I’d ever heard mentioned in any of the Religious Appreciation classes at school. It certainly didn’t have any pearly gates, winged women, or singing choir like Heaven was supposed to have. There wasn’t any burning lake of fire – perhaps the burning of my corpse symbolized some type of “Lake of Fire” event? I pondered this for a moment, but then disregarded it. Hell was supposed to be an eternal torment, not a 10-minute-torment-that-felt-like-an-eternity.
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As far as I could tell, I was simply still at school. As a ghost of some sort. Staring at an enraged minotaur that was howling and mooing or bawling or making some odd sound… which prompted me to watch it a little more closely. Figures were still falling from The Crack, but they weren’t directly HERE, at least not now. The minotaur was, and it was acting quite oddly.
It took me a few moments, but I found if I tried, I could float myself slowly across the rooftop. I had to concentrate hard and just imagine myself going somewhere, and I slowly moved that way. The whole experience was much like how I’d expect it to feel to try and swim up river during a raging flood – an almost exhausting and pitiful exercise in slow progress!
A few moments of this laborious movement, and I managed to float myself around the roof a bit so that I could get a better look at the rampaging minotaur. It’s back had been turned to me while it was stomping, howling, and basically throwing a fit, but I could see it better now. And what I saw… Amused me to no end!
The stupid beast that had killed and been eating me was scorched and blistered all over its body. Its face was oozing and it charred, and I could tell it was in pain. And that made me smile!
“Eat me will you! I hope it gets infected and you catch gangrene or something!” I shouted at the idiot beast, but of course, it couldn’t hear my spirit rant at it.
But my joy was short lived as a sudden torrent of torment flooded my own existence once more as flames burst out of nowhere and engulfed my cloudy spirit form. ARRRRHHHHHHH!!
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Pain! Endless pain! Burn! Burn! Pain! Burn! Pain! Was this really Hell? Maybe I was wrong with my thinking before. Pain! Agony! Burn! Pain! Pain! Endless Pain!
And then it ended once more.
And as the flame slowly cleared, I found myself standing on the rooftop once again. Naked, whole, unhurt. I’d somehow came back from the dead and was reborn!!
I had a moment’s wonder as I slowly lifted my hands and stared at them in front of my face. I couldn’t believe it. Slowly I went to feel my face, and…
DING!
You have been slain!
Another message popped up as the minotaur, which I’d forgotten about in my dazed state of rebirth, promptly trampled me and danced on my corpse.
AGONIZINGLY danced on my corpse, I might add!
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