NOVEL NEXT Chapter 26: A Painful Awakening
Chapter 26: A Painful Awakening
A scorching hot crackled series of popping noises would periodically enter my head or burst away all sound like a screaming line of steam. This felt as if the canals of both ears were being burnt inside and out by water boiled out into scalding vapor.
That was how badly I pictured this kind of hurt.
On the bright side, at least this was a sign I regained some sense of awareness. I couldn’t be sure if this meant I was conscious… Not in a natural way. For all I knew, I could’ve been waking up in that frozen level of Hell. I wouldn’t mind chilling out with the ice giant if it meant reducing the feverish degree I was at.
...Like I really expected this inhospitably Hellish world to have anything good to offer. Even the demonic residents wanted nothing more than to give my fucked up life a swell time while here.
Sadly, that would be more believable than if I were to awaken in the company of those concerned over my wellbeing. What had been more sorrowful was that I could have counted on one hand those who cared about me.
Other than my missing dad, the Boyd family was all I had now -- a really confused Mike would be a stretch to include him. I saw him as just doing his duty as an officer.
My opinion was low on anyone else was giving two-shits what happened to me.
But there were a few at school that went out of their way for me. I wouldn’t know if doing what they did to have finally silenced those rumors was a difficult task or not. Their popularity would’ve made the task that much easier.
Except now there was a new image for the rotten student named Clint; a crossdresser. I supposed that was half true. I visited the school with a mind still set on me being a boy, but that night…
When I thought about that night, I wondered, ‘Was that my lowest point?’ I had tried to commit suicide that day and night.
That demon, Grandma Satan, not only made it crystal clear she called the shots, such as on when I could drop dead, but also how I would live the rest of my life… That was, if I had an end.
This concept still had me confused, but I didn’t let it rest and wondered, ‘What does it mean to exist?’ I had thought it meant being here and living, but that wasn’t how these demons talked about it.
What little I managed to take from their riddles was that existing happened to be a kind of immortality. But I could be killed, and yet, I suspected those in Hell would be waiting for me.
”A simpler method was your death,” I heard the voice in my head. “Enduring a life of the awakening... nearly every daughter of mine had preferred their ends in life. I have not permitted yours.”
This was either the grand bitch herself or her shady knockoff. Either one, what she had said disturbed me much more than I would’ve expected. But how she spoke about permitting my death had me wondering, ‘Am I dead?’
It was possible my infection was toxic enough to put me down.
“No.” Her direct answer had echoed the single word in my mind until she spoke of more. “No one knows you better than yourself. Are you in pain? Alive?” To me, if she were really in my head, then that should’ve been ‘painfully’ obvious. “Alive.”
Still kicking… That was a wonderful tidbit of news, and not that I was overjoyed to begin with, but I would’ve been happier knowing what had been going on then. I already figured this was Hell, so the ‘where’ was out of the question.
“Questions?” To have her speak in my thoughts would never be a comfortable sensation, but I supposed actually hearing her wasn’t possible for me yet. “Recovery? First, rest.” Now that would’ve made me laugh, and not in a good way. “Dull.” I would’ve appreciated that nickname she enjoyed calling me if I had some demonology one-oh-one. “Mentor?” As far as I was being made aware, the bootleg Grandma said that was the ice giant, Kris. “No longer… Stubborn, both her and hers.”
...If I understood that correctly, Kris was fired, and I likely had an idea it was from having her hands full with a tough-as-nails bitch, but I had to worriedly wonder, ‘Is me getting a different demon a good thing? Is the replacement going to be any worse?’
...Not sure, but if I had anything to go by how Kris would’ve schooled me, I had quite clearly remembered the conclusion of Mrs. Pureview’s last attempted escape. Despite how I hated my late teacher’s guts, my own were wrenched out of me by that horrific sight of her. I still had a hard time believing she’d sacrificed herself to protect me, but she did.
And it had been in futility.
“She has…” I snapped out of my chilling memory and listened to this invasive thought. “Very well… ” If there was another voice in my head, this conversation might’ve clicked with me, but, nope, I was lost here. “Your new mentor... my child has...”
Sometimes I wonder, ‘Is she insane?’ Fragmented speech would’ve been a big clue at her detachment from the comfortably sane world I once belonged.
Truly thinking about it, I wouldn’t step a foot near someone who was talking to themselves, and I could claim that was close to what Grandma had been doing. I took the time to consider how much progress I had made to reaching consciousness, and I wasn’t coming far along. With just the pain and sporadic noise that told me I had a couple of senses back, I wouldn’t count myself out of this weird state of practically being disembodied. So back to my view of the crazy demon lady talking to herself, I had a valid excuse when I currently lacked the capability to respond.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t read my mind. On that front, I supposed she was being tolerant of me.
“Fragile.” Not one hundred percent sure, but I was going to take what she said as a simple image of my condition. “...A request?”
And once again inside this thoughtful conversation, I found myself in the middle of nowhere. I really began to wonder, ‘Maybe I’m being used to connect with someone?’
With me trying not to fully focus on this pain, I didn’t have the mental capacity to take in everything. So there was a huge probability I had been missing out on some other demon popping in my head.
That would also explain the fragmented speech Grandma was used.
“Your mentor… before learning your place, my daughter requests your full recovery.” Okay, after that had processed through my mind a few times, I thought of this as both a blessing and a curse. I meant, this mentor -- who apparently was another of Grandma’s daughters -- expected me to be up to snuff for whatever was expected. “Yes, you learn… The jotunn would have, now my trueborn can and has planned for you.”
At least she hadn’t called me ‘dull’ this time around, but I sort of sensed a deep foreboding in that thoughtful voice of hers. And I believed I was right to be scared of the next choice.
This was Grandma’s legitimate kid, which, to me, didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Further and further, I fell into a state of confusion. I had thought, ‘Isn’t the fiery daughter hers?’ I could’ve sworn Laurel was tagged as a wild daughter too.
Honest to God, if this was just some disjointed nightmare where I couldn’t make sense of anything, I might’ve been capable of catching the weirdly random curveball and realized this had all been a real bad dream. But, no, I wasn’t just literally in Hell and criticized for not knowing any better, I kept being left in the dark by this great and evil Madame of Unsolved Wonders herself who appeared to be consisted entirely of the opaque stuff.
“Questions?” Her voice bubbled up in my thoughts, and I was aware of where my thoughts went, but I didn't know why she would be suggestively asking me this.
She could read my mind, so I wondered, ‘If she can do that, why am I being asked?’ Rather than handling a questionnaire over how everything worked here, I preferred she’d listen to my pleas over my dad, Adam, and myself.
Then, maybe, I could get the Hell out of here.
“Your Will is not here,” I heard this fact being mentioned for the second time, but I considered that these demons had to have known something. My dad couldn’t have done this on his own. “Why are you this dull?”
Between her, that crazy daughter of hers, and the attack of the clone; I wasn’t sure which of them I hated more. The emotion I felt wasn’t spread evenly, but I would’ve liked to have known which of them deserved it more.
Then there was a tiny issue that I still wasn’t certain which version of Grandma this was. But given a reviewed consideration on how our one-and-a-half way conversation had been held, I leaned towards this being the real deal. I was hinted at the constant reminder of my ‘dull’ nature.
Grandma had a major superiority complex, but I found on more than one occasion that she knew when to dial things back with me. Not much to go by a moral compass, but with me, that was a bit of a good direction. If anything was good about her shadow, I had comprehended more of what was coming out of that wicked smiley face. But that would be about it.
...No idea why I was searching for anything virtuous in them. I wondered, ‘Maybe I’m desperate?’ I wanted someone to help me, but the kind that these demons offered weren’t pleasant experiences.
If I could choose someone to save me, I wanted Helen.
Whenever the stress became too much for me and I had broken down or fell ill, she’d been the only one to truly calm me down. And she went above and beyond in accepting me for who and what I was becoming.
Dad had never gone that far. But then again, I never really got sick. That might’ve been due to being fed my vitamins. And if I had a problem, I was either tossed a bottle of medicine for that ache or, if it were daytime, told to simply work it out of my system, but at night, I slept it off.
Not once had I been comforted and watched over by Dad as I had been by Adam’s mom. I had to admit that this made me envious of the life I missed out on if my mom lived.
That was right… Dad wasn’t at fault. He did whatever he could when the time allowed it. As busy as he always was, I couldn’t blame him for not being there.
“Memories… forgotten?” I had to wonder, ‘What is she on about now?’ “Forgotten, but not lost.” If I could, I would’ve sighed with frustration. But in Grandma’s presence, I likely would have also been screaming in terror at some point too. “For a child, too much.” I had to wonder, ‘Is she talking about herself?’ “Now, grown…? Perhaps. Shall we look back?”
Discounting the pain I was in, I had no other sense of feeling a thing. That was until, I supposed, Grandma did something to me.
Now I felt a far too dense and weighty object in me, trying to fall out and away, and in a very strange way, I was being pulled with it. Just like everything else revolving around me, I could make very little sense of it.
There was barely time for me to theorize what this out of body experience had been before I felt the drop. That was how I interpreted this sensation of falling down someplace incredibly fathomless.
The untrackable amount of time diving into this unknown Hellhole didn’t help gauge a damn thing...