Life is funny.
Like.. in the kind of way getting your nails done and getting into a fistfight before they dry, is funny.
You can't help but to look down at the complete mess you've made, and just.. laugh.
We start out in situations with the best of intentions, with tiny goals, just trying to get by. You keep your head down, try to find ways to smile, and try to keep your personal demons to a dull roar.
Then one day you look up.. and the stars sparkle for you again. The moon will be shining brightly. Orion's belt will be positioned just above your head, and the North Star damn near looks like a beacon in the night. The wind will be blowing on your skin, teasing your hair all around your face, and slowly the sounds of crickets become audible. Fireflies dance around you to an unknown muse.
Your tiny little plans at survival have blossomed into full blown preparations. Maybe that job you wanted so badly called you back. Maybe a kid on the street smiled at you and told you they wanted to have hair like yours when they grew up. Maybe your favorite t.v. show updated while your head was down. Maybe, maybe, maybe.. there's a thousand variations. But they bring hope to our world again.
I thought I was alone in this world. I mean, sure, I've made friends in the last five years. I've had to, it's kinda become my job, travelling the world for random mystical shit, encountering new visitors. But.. they all felt hollow. Like I had an ice wall put up between me and them. Like.. I could never really be myself, I was always trying to wear the newest and prettiest mask to make them like me. I couldn't be kind anymore, so I fell out of the habit except for kids and old people. I retreated down to the lowest degree you can with a pulse, and tried with every breath to end it all.
I obviously failed. Repeatedly. I wanted nothing more than to just shut my eyes and sleep. I would call it the forever sleep. The longest nap in history. “To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come…”
Hamlet had it right. Sometimes, I would dream of the better days. The ones where a lover would be cuddled up to me tightly, an arm around me, the sunlight slipping through the blinds to illuminate their face to create the most beautiful sight you had ever seen in your life. The moments where I could watch such people sleep, and thank whatever Greater Good exists for that moment in time. I knew, in my dreams and as they happened in my life, that these moments were all too fleeting, that they would be snatched from me. I wouldn't care. They were worth every moment of pain.
Sometimes, I dreamt of my family, of my father watching over me. Echoes of his half-forgotten voice telling me I should be doing better. That I should have kept going with college. That I should never have made the Faustian deals I have, that I have damned myself. In these dreams, I argue and rage against him, my greatest internal conscience, telling him I had no choice, this life was chosen for me, that I did my best to better myself, but life interfered. As I do, his face softens and he begins to smile. "There's my girl. I knew she was still in there somewhere. You're gonna make it through this. You have to. You have too many people looking to you to protect them to quit now."
I would tell him versions of, "I don't think I'm strong enough. It's not like I can be good or evil anymore. I gave up that luxury years ago. All I can do is try to reduce the death toll, give people a place to retreat to when they begin to feel as alone or hunted as I used to. Dad, I don't know what to do anymore. I know when I wake up I'm going to go back to that haunted land, and I won't be able to see your face anymore. Why can't I just stay here with you?"
The laugh lines around his mouth would shift to reveal his hidden dimples, the same ones he passed to me, and the crows feet around his eyes would crinkle as he looked at me kindly. "You've always been strong, baby, you just forgot for a while. It's okay. We all need a break sometimes, you're just taking a bit longer than other people do. It's okay. You had a lot more on your plate than most, and you burned out trying to do too much. Everyone is allowed to mistakes. All that matters is that you come back from this. And one day, you will. I've already seen it."
"You've saved more people than you've ever given yourself credit for. Yes, you had to do some messed up things to save those lives. Sacrifice a few so-called bad guys, a few innocents, get some blood on those hands of yours. That's when you know it's real. When you have to sacrifice to get the results that you want. When you question yourself, when you sit up at night wondering if you'll ever make it to the right Other Side, that's when you know you're doing right. That you haven't lost yourself."
"The selfish don't question themselves. Evil doesn't have trouble sleeping at night, or even during the day. The innocent don't know what it means to choose to do wrong in order to help others, and that's okay. They're not meant to. Let them stay innocent, for as long as you can. They deserve that."
"You're going to wake up from this. It's going to take a while. If you try to come back now, you won't survive, and all the people looking to you for support will be lost. Don't try to force it. Heal. Heal every injury you have, from that attack you just suffered, to your broken heart, to your mind. Don't try to pick up the broken shards of your mind and hand them to the people you love. Wait."
"You have too many things left to do to quit now. I know you want to, and I know how you could, but I can't tell you. I won't. The war is coming, sweetheart, and you have to be ready when it does."
I would step up to him, wrap my arms around his frame, and bury my head in his chest. Even there, in my dreams, he would smell of rolling tobacco, cheap whiskey, and motor oil. Ever the fuck up, my father, but he loved with everything he had. I would feel at peace in those moments. I felt loved.
Then his eyes would go wide like the panicked gaze of a witch on the stake, glancing down at the flames licking at their feet, and he would shove me away as hard as he could. "Baby, you need to wake up now. They're coming. They know I made it through, and they're angry."
Invisible talons would begin to rake at his skin, scratching and clawing and tearing, cleaving his skin from him, ripping his ribs out of his chest, as still more would hit him like the blows from a sledgehammer, breaking every piece of him until he would collapse, sobbing, looking up at me.
"I have to go now, baby, or they'll catch me. Don't forget I love you. Please, don't give up."
And with that, I would be launched into the most horrific nightmares I have ever experienced. My grandmother dying of pneumonia in front of my eyes, silently mouthing 'I love you' as they pulled her plug. My running out the hospital in a haze of tears, unable to even say goodbye. Me transported back to my childhood days, my rapist smiling down at me and asking me if I wanted to play. Having to pretend I was sleeping as his weight eased down on the bed next to me, pulled back the covers, and began to touch me in a way a child should never be touched. My father finding out what happened after I got sent home from school one day with a letter from both the guidance counselor and DHR, telling him what I reported by accident one day at school. Him waiting in his beat-up old car in the driveway as I got off the bus, not even letting me go in the house one more time. You see, he had already packed all of the things he could fit in the car, and made arrangements for us to stay in halfway houses until he could save enough for a first and last deposit on a new home. My getting in the car, putting the seatbelt on, and his turning to me as he started the car, telling me he had to pawn every gun he owned so that he didn't kill his bastard brother. That was the day I first started running.
My aunt looking me in the face, and telling me I was a teenage whore that deserved everything that had ever happened to me, that I would wind up a pregnant single mom dropout, that I would never amount to anything. Learning she was diagnosed with skin cancer, and being unable to care. Sitting in a pew at her funeral, my family all in tears around me, having to bow my head so my hair could hide the fact that I could not summon a single tear for the woman that made me feel like a whore for being a rape victim. I never did cry for that woman, or forgive her. Even when she begged to apologize.
Nearly biting a kid's dick off beneath the train tracks down the road because he tried to force me to blow him.
Trying to go to church, making friends, then getting banished for being too argumentative. No longer having that escape to keep me off the streets. Being told I "dressed like a Satan worshipper anyway." Sneaking into youth group meetings so I'd stop feeling so damn alone.
Having the first true love of my life choose someone else over me. My next lover abusing me for 4 years, beating me and painting himself as my savior. My father dying, turning to him and the abuse in order to feel something.. anything.
Turning to the BDSM world.. and finding it. Only to discover no one you ever met could match your libido. Losing the only man you would have married because.. you couldn't stand the sight of him embracing other women. It tore you up inside.
Watching your great love fuck another girl while you sat, crying. Internally screaming, begging to be enough, just for once.
All of these, and so many more, flashing before my eyes in a nonstop montage, all blurring together, until I would wake screaming. Crying. Reaching for a razor to make it stop, just for a little while.
Those dreams of my loved ones, the good dreams, kept me going even when They punished me for them. I would sleep almost constantly, trying to chase down my dead lovers in the only place they still existed: my mind.
I don't tell you these things to depress you. I tell you so you know I am human, I am vulnerable.. I feel pain. I'm not perfect. But.. If a fuck up like me could come back from the abyss, there is hope for y'all. I swear it. Better days are coming.
So keep watching for Orion's Belt, the North Star. Know that I am here for anyone who needs me, supernaturally influenced or not, no matter the faction, no matter what grudges we might have once held. That's all gone now.
The Great Game is approaching, and it is time to begin preparing. All of you.
I, for one, will greet Them with a smile on my face.