Principle

Taking a step back into what I thought was nothing but a dream fell behind the wall as it too moved and tried to reach out for me. Alone I stood like an itinerant looking for a new place to lay my head. Staring off into the distance scared and knowing that my end was inevitable. She stepped closer. I took in a breath and as the wall reached its boiled arms filled with oil around me, pulling me into itself. Here now I stand on the outskirts of somewhere that I do not know. Blasphemous!

I dare say that this was not one to be as the demon of the wall drug me unto a new world, a world that was nothing but a barren waist land. Pockets of boiled tar and the smell of sulfur filled the air. The aroma I enjoyed, slightly, but I worried for my own sanity as each step I stuck to the ground and had to fight to fee myself. My buckled shoes with two steps were coming undone and I was unable to save them as the third tore them from my feet. Barefoot I stood in the center of this ash ridden, tar infested world and unknown exactly where I was.

Where am I, I thought to myself again. I pinched myself just to make sure that this was not one of my nightmares, not one that I normally have either, but still a pinch to wake in my bed with my goody wife next to me. Still pinch after pinch, I did not wake nor rouse from the beyond. So, here I found myself alone, abandoned by the ones I love and sent to exile in a strange land. It was a wasteland of all sorts. There, here was nothing. No animals, no vegetation of any kind. I was unsure where to go, but on the horizon there were lights and I wanted to go there. So, I pulled up my pants and took off my socks and headed in that direction.

On the right was a pit that spewed a violent geyser of what looked like mud but the smell was of a harsh sulfur that made my nose want to come clean off my face. The smell was horrendous and though I thought I enjoyed the pleasant scent before the eruption, I loathed it now. Battle-hardened now was my nose and I seek now for a way to find vengeance for my hurtful nose, but no one was around to strike down.

My eyes swelled under the pressure of the sulfur and other things that I could not place, but figured that they pain was from something within this world. I still had no idea where I was as the fourth step took place and as I released from the tar attached to my feet, the gathering stench filled to my feet. Another step, then another and soon I found myself able to walk without too many consequences.

As the tar valley was distancing itself from sight, I wrongly stepped on a sharp point that I felt was about to go trough my foot when I stopped abruptly. Lifting I looked down and noticed that I was now on a lining of needles that all pointed in various directions. Some were upright, while others flat. Some wee curved while the majority in my eyesight were straight. It appeared to me as if there was a dirty worker at foot and this is where they dump the unwanted. None were silver, but of wood, non were known on how or if they were used, so I dared not step further, I went back to where my socks and shoes were and grabbed them from the tar, then making my way back, I noticed a slight movement on my right.

I dared not speak, move or anything, I was frozen, unsure what it was or how to deal, I just stared out toward where I saw the movement. Looked left and right for some shadow to cross but none did, I took another step again back toward the needles and I saw it once more! It was a flash of black in a world with little light. But there, looking in the sky was no sun nor moon, but where am I? how did I get here and lastly, what was that creature?

The blob of creature once more appeared in my sights and I reached out with my voice to get its attention. I failed, it just circled around me, then I saw it once more, and again on my left, right, front and when I spun around behind me. The creature was everywhere and anywhere unless as I thought, there were more…

How could this be, as vigilant as I was, how could there be more than one? Where did they come from?

I stood still, frightened, unsure of myself and what the creatures wanted, I moved not one step. One of them crept closer to me and I noticed the mouth, it was jagged and sharp. Its teeth seemed to be more of an overbite and ready to bite into me or something even more horrific. I could not decide so to that end, I ran, I ran back to where I entered the world and searched for the hands as quickly as possible. They were gone, they were not showing as I commanded aloud.

I shouted for help, reached toward the sky, dug into the earthen floor there and nothing, nothing but watery tar that had cooled and began to thicken. I then found myself trapped in the hole that I made and unable to escape the encroaching tar that was seemingly to end my life. Being swirled around and tossed into nothingness was a new thing at first, but now, I felt as though swallowing it would lead me to my home. So I scooped a handful into my mouth as the last of it covered my head.