smear that follows behind is getting longer. These last fifteen feet have me running to my left diagonally to catch the hallway I need.
Even though everything is still moving at a near glacial pace, the same seems to be true of me. When time was frozen it felt like I was able to move at a normal speed, but now that time is thawing, it feels like I’m slowly being frozen. And the smear from the spinning hallways just continues to elongate.
“Lord, my times are in Your hands. Give me the strength.” even speaking has become a struggle. “Give me strength!”
A short spark shoots through me, and like a direct application of oil to a rusted place, I feel my body loosen enough for me to take two long steps forward. It puts me nearly within reaching distance of the hallway. But, the spin is steadily increasing. And my strength is decreasing. Despite the looseness of my joints, trying to run is no different than trudging through waist high ice water.
The atmosphere around me is returning to its frigid state. Every step I take seems to only set my progress back farther. The entrance is at least five feet from me. The only thing I can do is dive forward. And if I miss, I don’t know if I’ll ever have another chance to enter the hallway Evan is down.
I close my eyes and summon whatever strength remains in my legs. As I dive forward I open my eyes. I see the same red and black checkered rug as I pass over the threshold. I’m through but I haven’t landed yet. And at my current angle, my face is going to be the first thing to hit.
I close my eyes again, ready for impact. Except, moments pass and I don’t smash against the ground. In fact, it doesn’t even feel like I’m airborne anymore. It feels like I’m standing tall…
Levels
1
I open my eyes to find I’m standing at the top of a dirty tan carpeted stairway. There is dim light behind me but the stairs before me descend into absolute blackness. Trying to see the bottom is impossible. After the sixth step down, the black engulfs whatever stairs remain.
But, I know where it leads, because of what’s coming from it. The sickly-red worms are slowly climbing up from the blackness in thin groups, while fat, swollen maggots gather at the base of my feet, sprouting up like weeds from the dirty tan carpet fibers. This is the entry to Hell. And staring down into it is absolutely terrifying. I’m saved and yet it feels like something is waiting to grab hold of me and pull…
I don’t know what happened to the lobby. I don’t know what transition brought me here. The rules of this counterfeit seem to be much closer to a dream, where continuity is replaced with confusion.
And the confusion only continues. The timer is still in my left hand, but close to a whole day has disappeared from the countdown: 00 D 10 H 20 M 24 S. I put it back in my pocket.
How is that possible? It felt like maybe thirty minutes passed, an hour at most. How has nearly a whole day disappeared? Did stopping time in the lobby only speed it up everywhere else?
I turn away from the stairs to see what’s behind me. It’s the same hallway I’ve been trying to get back to. The carpet is only dirty tan for a few more feet, until a metal carpet divider separates dirty from clean. The same red and black checkered carpet trails down the familiar hallway.
All that’s left of this world is the hallway before me, and the descending stairs behind me. The end of his world is coming. What was a huge hotel when I first arrived has been reduced to a long hallway ending with an eternal drop off. His damnation looms over me like a constant shadow. It’s never been closer to him. And Hell is starting to overtake the little bit that’s left of this world.
The maggots at my feet have multiplied into a near countless number and now cover the entirety of the dirty tan carpet like fungi beneath a tree. As they pulsate and flex like full sacks of liquid about to burst, a sickening smell lifts from them like steam does from boiling water. And with it comes a near countless set of voices, “You are all alone, Andrew.” their voices blend together in a distorted sound. “And we are gathering, stronger by the moment.”
I start walking forward. Nothing is different about the hallway, except the lighting. When I first walked down it, the lighting wasn’t bright, but now it’s dim. In fact, up ahead many of the lights on the walls are starting to flicker. And the streak of light that ran down it when I was in the lobby has disappeared completely.
It doesn’t matter how many steps I take away from the stairs behind me. The endless chasm seems as if it’s matching my every step. But, I can’t let this fear distract me, because if I let it, it could paralyze me. And even though I haven’t thought of the recurring nightmare I used to have, it’s now behind me. The longer I am here, the more the fears from my childhood are starting to manifest.
I was still little, maybe eight or nine, when I started dreaming about aimlessly wandering in absolute darkness. The beating of my heart could be felt somewhere in my throat. I put out my hands trying to see with my fingers. But, nothing was around me. Nothing at all, as if I was wandering around in an endless pit. I tried to call for my mom or dad, but I couldn’t begin to speak. I was all alone, wandering, wandering, wandering… and then I wandered off the edge and began to fall deeper and deeper. Deep growls would begin to grow beneath me, louder the longer I fell. And as soon as it felt like the bottom was approaching, I would wake up. This haunted me for years, becoming more persistent and even less hopeless after dad’s death.
The pit behind me is an embodiment of my fears, the dreaded continuation. And though I know I will never be the one to fall now, the idea that Evan could literally reach the bottom of my nightmare, never to escape, terrifies me to a point where my bones feel hollow. I continue to experience the evolution of fear in this counterfeit. It starts as fear for myself only to grow stronger and more profound as it becomes about Evan.
I am not in danger. Though this weak body still tries to convince me that I am, my Spirit continues to remind me of my position: I only have to look down at what I’m wearing to remind myself of Who I belong to. I am behind enemy lines. And moment by moment I am learning more about unconditional love. Even though I am suffering for Evan, I willingly do it because I am no different than him. I was just as lost, just as close to the bottom of my nightmare. This assignment began as nothing more than doing the will of my Savior, but it has quickly become so much more than that. I’m willing to endure whatever darkness remains to give Evan one more chance, even if that means I have to walk in absolute darkness by the end.
2
Perspective in this counterfeit brings a light the darkness can’t touch. My heart is fully consumed in preparation. Each step brings me a little closer to Evan as the weight seems to double with every step.
Real life, life before the counterfeit, was grounded in a well established rule: things are born and things die. And life was lived with a constant risk due to the fact that an end was inevitable. And also in some strange way, the end was a comforting idea, especially for those in a constant state of suffering. Death was seen as the completion to life, but very few put much belief in the idea that death there was actually the beginning to something endless somewhere else. If I fail, his suffering will be endless. And this truth is growing heavier on me the closer I get. If I fail…
3
Despite the many steps I’ve taken forward, the eternal pit behind me looms no matter how far away I get from it. The dim lights continue to flicker off and on in spots and a few lights have gone out completely. I can still see down the hallway but it’s closer to trying to view details caught under a dying streetlight in the middle of the night: though I can still see down the hall, the clarity has been replaced with a thick blanketing of shadow laying across a very dim cast.
I know I haven’t reached the end of the hallway yet. Even with the little detail available, the element of depth is still present. This dimly lit tube continues past my vanishing point. And probably far beyond that.
A faint sound is starting to grow from behind me. It sounds like the click of high heels against carpet. I look back. A woma
n is behind me, covered almost entirely by the blanketing of shadow and moving at a steady pace. I keep walking. The darkness behind her is thick. Sparse gatherings of worms are at her feet and a few single worms are crawling up the walls by her. I can’t even see the stairs anymore, only the darkness. And the continued signs that eternal damnation is continuing to creep towards Evan.
She’s getting closer to me with every step. Not only is she taller than me, her stride is much quicker than mine. The darkness is starting to break away from her as if it was wispy fog. I can only now see her body. A black and red laced robe barely covers any part of her. She is full bodied and a temptation even for me.
“Where are you going?” my weak body asks.
She takes two more steps forward, now fully revealed by the light. She is hideous. Her mouth is a misshapen oval filled with overlapping rows of sharp teeth; her eyes are small, lifeless dots at the very corner of her sockets. She doesn’t have a nose. Her hair is uneven clumps of dirty blonde, sprouting from her head like dried out weeds. She resembles a tape worm, a sickening parasite, clearly just another costume filled with stink and worms.
“I’m going to get our food.” her lips don’t move when she speaks; instead her teeth shift allowing her gums room to vibrate