ruin yours! Show no grace or mercy to anyone! Up above is only a cruel, dark world. You must be crueler! You must make even the most sadistic barbarian who ever lived look like a saint in comparison!"
"I don't really think I can do that. I don't WANT to hate anyone or hurt them back!"
"Even if they have no problem with how much they hurt you back?"
"I just..."
He thought about it for a second.
"I just don't want to!"
"Oh. I see. Well then. Enjoy your life!" the voice said, betraying a tone of sarcasm.
"I only say these things because I care about you! I can see the great pain you go through. I only wish for you to be made whole and well! Listen, because I care about you so much, I am going to let you in on something you will want to know. I have been up to take a look at the top of the pit, and I have seen a most disheartening sight.
“The people who put you down in the pit are still up there, you see. You can't see them yet because you still have a quite a ways to go, but they suspect you will come trying to climb out. They are up there waiting to put you in your place.
“Oh, there are others too! It is a quite a big crowd, actually! Some of them are there simply out of curiosity to see what the big deal is all about. There are also a few sympathizers there. People who actually WANT to pull you out of the pit!
“Of course, those just assume that you are simply some poor soul who fell down on his luck, and they feel sorry for you out of some misplaced sense of personal pride, but of course, since they have the Heart of Darkness and you don't, it wouldn't be very long before they tried to stick you right back in..."
The young man felt a prick of fear at this. There were people up top waiting for him? People who wanted to hurt him? People who wanted to help him out then hurt him? He felt skeptical. He had been down here for so long. Surely those who put him here would assume he was long dead by this point.
"I don't know if I believe you."
"Oh, it is not necessary for you to believe me! You will see the closer you get. I just thought it might be information you could find worth keeping at the back of your mind."
"How can I survive if they're waiting up there to throw me back in?"
"Encourage your Heart of Darkness! You may not feel physically stronger, but your hate will give you power! You must hate those above even more than they hate you!"
"I don't know if I can do that..."
"I can help you with that! In order to do so, you must reconnect with your pain. Allow it to flow out of you, and channel it into power! Use that power to build up your defenses against the slings and arrows others might try to throw at you."
"And how can I reconnect with my pain?"
"You were hurt so much by your past that you tried to cast it aside and pretend it wasn't there. But those who do not remember their own past are doomed to repeat their mistakes forever and ever..."
The pit began to fade away again. The young man nearly gasped again before realizing they were fading into yet another vision...
Christian got a minor role in an indie film. It didn't pay that much, but he felt that it would allow him to quit his second job and free up some of his time for at least two months, if he budgeted his money right. Still, he felt fear and despair inside. He knew that he had lucked into this role, and he still judged himself harshly for everything that he did. He felt he wasn't giving that great of a performance, and he still hated the way he looked. He knew that this was just a one time thing and wouldn't last. He would eventually have to go back to seemingly endless auditions, little to no callbacks, trying to juggle his dream and his job. He was sure he would eventually have to take on a second job once again. He didn't want to think about that.
While he was on that set, however, he was taken aside one day by an actor who played one of the leads who invited him to his trailer. This surprised Christian, but made him really happy. This particular actor, while not extraordinarily famous, like, say, Harrison Ford or Brad Pitt, was still well known enough in the industry and had a good, solid career.
Christian felt that he was unworthy for someone of this level of importance to want to have a one on one with him. But it was the topic of the conversation that surprised him even more.
The actor who had taken him aside told him some things that sort of disturbed him. He told Christian that Christian reminded himself a lot of when he was much younger and just starting out in the business. He told Christian that the way he was going about his career would end up damaging him in the long run.
"You're too kindhearted." he said. "You're not aggressive enough. If you really want to make it in this town, you've gotta really learn to really step up to the plate. Don't be afraid to stab people in the back, 'cause let me tell you, there are sure going to be many who are trying to stab you in the back! Not just in this industry, either, but everywhere in the rest of your entire life!"
"In this life, it's all about you! If you aren't willing to be selfish and take for yourself what you can get, then everyone will walk all over you, and you won't ever be able to be truly happy. It's a habit you must develop. You must not be afraid to ruin the lives of others to get what you want. Because other people will certainly be out to ruin you!"
The conversation disturbed Christian immensely. He walked away from the actor's trailer with a sick feeling in his stomach. He didn't want to act like that. He couldn't fathom trying to deliberately ruin others to get ahead. He despised such people. He would never want to do such a thing. Yet, the more he thought about the actor's words, the more they felt like they had a ring of truth in his mind.
He was downright horrified at some of the thoughts he was thinking. He went to bed that night more troubled than he'd ever been in his life. He didn't want to have to hurt others to get ahead. But isn't that what others had been doing to him all his life? He thought back to Ray, and many other people that had been in his life...
Why WAS he trying to be so cordial to a world that had treated him like dirt? Dark thoughts began to permeate his mind as he slowly drifted off to sleep.
(8)
As he faded into the vision, he saw himself as a teenager sitting in a room that looked like the one of the house he grew up in. But it was slightly different than he remembered. The walls were no longer normal walls, but the same rocky walls that lined the pit. His teenage self sat in a single chair facing a window. As the young man looked outside to see what his younger self was seeing, he was not surprised.
Outside was a foggy haze similar to the first vision. Some distance away, through his window, his teenage self was watching a group of other teenagers engrossed in a baseball game at the other house over. His teenage self sat watching them for a period of time.
The young man had known these kids once upon a time. One had once been his best friend. Because the young man had been homeschooled all his life, that boy had been the only real friend he'd ever had.
But then other kids moved to the neighborhood, and slowly he began to become less important to all of them. He supposed it couldn't have been helped. Those kids all went to the same school, and the young man had never had much in common with them to begin with. He couldn't help it if he was on a different wavelength than them and they had no reason to take interest in him anymore.
So he would sit in this room every day of his life, this room that felt like prison but really wasn't, yet of which there was no point in leaving because he knew that he had already been rejected for good, and the rejection was permanent. This was his daily ritual, to watch them playing outside his window, a separate world that had no further use for him.
The second part of the ritual came shortly as he put his head in his hands and began to sob. The tears came gushing out in torrents. It was like this every day. It would not change for a long time. Later in life, this hurt would turn into silent apathy. Even later on, he would eventually decide that such tears were not worth him. He would decide he needed to stop feeling so weak. He needed to just go on with
his life and make the best of what he could. In the present vision, however, that time was not now.
The young man watched silently transfixed on the scene before him. It stirred something in him as he watched, something he had long ago repressed and never wanted to feel again.
His teenage self began to lift his shirt off his head. The young man felt compelled to look away, but couldn't bring himself to. He knew what was coming.
He watched as his teenage self reached down next to the chair he sat in and picked up a dagger. He watched as his teenage self took the dagger and slowly began to make long, deep cuts all over his body.
For his teenage self, as the endorphins began to kick in and he started to feel that sweet, blissful release that only his self-inflicted pain could provide, his punishment on himself began to slowly get much harsher. The cuts began to get deeper, more scars added onto many others that already lined his whole body, until fresh blood was flowing all over him, and when he was feeling lightheaded enough, he finally dropped the knife, collapsed to the floor, and began to sob again.
The vision started to fade.
He had gotten in trouble and it hadn't even been his fault! Christian was already having a tough time financially as it was. To lose his job right now would be devastating. But he had almost got suspended for something he hadn't even done!
Janice