PERDY
by
Anthonystjoseph
Suddenly he woke up. The feeling he felt was as if he had woke
up from
a deep sleep that was more like a coma than a sleep. He didn’t know where he was or how he had
gotten there. He looked around in a daze
at his surroundings. It seemed to be
some sort of huge cabin that was made from wooden planks that were all green; a
light green with a tinge of moldiness to them.
He was on the second floor of this cabin and didn’t know how he had
gotten there, where he had been, or where he was from. He tried to shake off his drowsiness, of
which, all would not shake; he started to slowly explore the cabin. He was the only one there. He went downstairs and it was more of the
same light green hew covering everything and a feeling of complete emptiness. The entire world other than the cabin and its
immediate surroundings seemed to vanish or even not be there at all. Everything seemed haunted. Haunted by a presence that lurked in the very
air itself.
He went outside and quickly realized he was
almost unable to move. His steps were
very slow in coming and his breath was hard to achieve. He felt like trying to move his body and take
a step was almost impossible and that he was being spiritually held back by an
unknown force. Then very dark shadowy clouds appeared in the distance and
slowly and menacingly they creeped towards him as he could feel the ominous
forewarning of being overcome and consumed by the clouds. The dark clouds were on land and as tall as
adult humans and just glided over the ground instead of walking like people
do. He turned to run back towards the
cabin to escape the threatening clouds and could barely move as the dark clouds
approached him with some sort of anger.
An anger clearly directed towards him.
He tried his best to run but was completely unable to do so. He continued to try and get back to the cabin
as the clouds continued to approach and he could swear he heard a slight and
guttural growl coming from the dark clouds as they continued to get closer as
he tried to make it to the cabin and what he thought was safety.
He struggled against the unknown force
doing its best to detain him and restrict his movements and he eventually made
it to the cabin door and could barely muster the strength to open the
door. As he opened the door he couldn’t
get through the doorway because the door itself opened outward and blocked his
way as he was still on the wrong side of the door. He saw a dark cloud out of the corner of his
eye only five feet away. He used all of his
strength to squirm around the opened door as even the door itself seemed to want
to block his way. He did his best to get
on the other side of the door as he saw the cloud was now only three feet away. Finally, he managed to get on the other side
of the door and he threw his body into the cabin by simply falling into it with
all his might and giving up and then he shut the door and locked it as the
cloud angrily growled outside of the door.
What was happening to him? Where
was he? Why was this nightmare
continuing and still most importantly?
Who was he? And again, where was he?
His strength slowly returned as he looked
around the bottom floor of the cabin. He
went back upstairs and noticed a plaque on the wall. He went to the plaque and took it down and
couldn’t read the word that
was written on it. Why couldn’t he
read the word? It was written in English
but for the life of him, he had forgotten how to read in this place. In terror and disgust he threw the plaque on
the ground and then looked around again at the light green cabin. He walked back downstairs and opened the door
to the outside once again. He stepped
through the doorway and once again was barely able to move. And there they were again! The dark clouds growled in the distance and
once again approached him with clearly sinister intentions. He slowly and heavily made his way back into
the cabin.
He laid on the cot on the second floor of
the cabin and thought about his predicament.
Suddenly and in a rush, soldiers came upstairs out of nowhere. They approached him and said they had a
proposition. They found a rare green
silk on his cabins property and if he gave them the right to procure it they
would give him all of the green emeralds that his heart could desire and also
told him that the green silk would protect him from the clouds and their power. He thought about it for a second and said he
wanted to check out the protection of the green silk for himself.
He put on a green silk outfit they offered
and walked outside of the cabin. Sure
enough, the dark clouds could not harm him and they didn’t even encumber his
movement anymore when he wore the green silk in their presence. It sounded like a perfect deal. And the green emeralds the soldiers had shown
him were huge and beautiful and he knew they were worth a fortune. As he got closer to a cloud while wearing the
green silk the cloud disappeared and there was a human inside of the cloud. A beautiful human man just laid there on the
ground who seemed to be in pain and full of sadness. The clouds were actually humans like
himself. What was going on?
He returned to the cabin walking freely
and unencumbered in the presence of the clouds due to the green silk and approached
the soldiers. The soldiers asked him
quite bluntly, “Well, do we have a deal?”
He thought about the green silk and the dark clouds that were actually beautiful
angry and sad humans and decided to ask the soldier in charge a question. He asked the soldier, “Where does the green
silk come from?” The soldier reluctantly
replied, “It comes from the clouds. It’s their skin.” He didn’t quite understand. The soldier continued, “Well, it’s the skin
from their faces, it’s the best skin to make the green silk from. All the rest of their skin isn’t as soft and
considered useless.”
He thought for only second, he thought
about the fact that actual humans would be killed and sacrificed just for this
beautiful green silk. As his usual greed
and unconcern for others took over, he agreed to the deal. The soldiers could take all of the green silk
from the human clouds they wanted as long as he himself got his silk and his
emeralds. Then, all of a sudden, just as he had agreed to the deal, something
inside his soul screamed. A familiar
scream from his inner core. A silent
scream. He had done it again!
The soldiers vanished. He collapsed and fell to the ground next to
the previously tossed aside plaque from the wall and realized that he had once
again sacrificed other humans for his own greed. He had once again failed. The soldiers had disappeared and he was left
there on the ground in the green cabin with his clear and obvious failure as a decent
soul. He slowly picked up the plaque which
lay next to him and his ability to read had returned. He read the word out loud and it said, ‘Perdition’.
By
Anthonystjoseph
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