The Crater

(part ii of ii, In a Dead Sea) by Ryan A. Rodriguez

My eyes jolt open as the sound of thunder roars through my resting ears. I steer them towards the open window, hoping to catch the after-strike of the white downward stream. Yet it seems that I am late for such a sight, for I see only the moon whose rays illuminate the dust floating in the room. Darkness lingers around the light’s touches—spaces of black where specks of dust fall to, or is it the other way around? In a trance, I feel my body suspend as if I’m being pulled toward the open space, despite feeling the cushion that sinks my back. I swear to have gazed upon a colossal orb towering over me sitting right outside the window. But the image snaps itself away, as something that I should’ve realized since I woke up makes itself known to me— I can’t move.

My heart begins to bang, my breaths turn to shuddered heaves as my eyes flicker from left to right, up, and down, in search of something to ground myself in—or someone. I hear the ticking of the clock. My only company, the teetering of the dark night, complete with a form to sneer at me.

The witching hour. A frigid wave clutches my feet, slowly gnawing upwards, hands clawing near; a tick, a tock. I force my foot to an inch of movement, pushing relentlessly against cement. The windows start to rock in discordant intervals, furniture trembling as they pull objects to the ground. My pulse steadily drums in my ears as liquid tickles down my neck. Bones screaming towards the doors of escape, fleeing as though the devil chases me with the shackles branded in my name, bound for the underworld.

Eyes open wider in the dark. I realize now—there’s no way out. I rest my trembling body, surrendering to the prickling blanket engulfing my body and tremors that shake my senses, for I finally understand. The unceasing shadows peering into the light. The parallels of warm light, the spaces of pitchblack that grits its teeths with the arms of a pendulum. To unleash itself as doors of salvation unhinge;

I can finally rest. I motion my thawing limbs upright. A blackness follows all the same, shifting towards my unmoving body. The shrouding cold falls sub-zero as though a radiator fumes, caressing my bare face and murmuring whispers. The first words then break through the looming silence, the last words I may ever hear. “Have you decided?” Echoes of steps replies as luminant streaks unfold the source of sound. Drawing closer, a dashing grin that extends itself comically to the ears, gleams. Two streaks of scarlet, petal at a canvas of darkness, unveiling its visage. Bearing the same face of which I use to gaze upon my reflection in dirtied mirrors, only—black. A figure eating away the light. I slowly trail away from the bed that witnessed all these, reluctant in moving away from the warming linens. Even so, I persist, for I know they are not so strange. I know them truly for what they are, for I once looked them in the eye. As I will do now, as I stand in the direct shower of the moon’s glow, the gust of transient winds greet me all the same, as before.

Except now, I answer, as I reach my hand out to the moonlight, its rays against my body, moving closer. The form that was tethered to my being from when this body was first conceived faces me, behind it the looming orb, opening its gates. I walk straight to the arms of the moon, as the shadow dissipates as it has promised. To behold a new light—

diving, at the end of the tunnel.