A Tale of Wickedness and Righteousness

The room around him constricted his breathing, he couldn't do anything but scramble helplessly on the ground toward the door. As his hand touched the wooden knob he jerked back, a fuzzy black ant was crawling down the door making eerie clicking sounds. He scrambled backward as the black ant grew in size and hopped around on the floor in front of him.

“Going crazy yet?” The black ant screeched.

He placed his hands on his face, his mouth dropped as he tried to utter a frightful scream but nothing came out.

It's all in your head. The man thought to himself.

The black ant looked up; its body began to pull back as two more ants crawled out of the other ants’ mouth. The two ants spoke to him in unison.

“It can't be in your head. Feel us, we're as real as you.”

Suddenly the door swung open, a familiar face looked down at the hallucinating man. He extended his arm to the man crawling around shouting incoherently on the ground.

“Get up you bastard!” The man yelled.

“No! They're all around me! Can you see them? They see you!” The man on the ground smacked his friend's hand away.

The room began to turn a light shade of red to the hallucinating man as his friend became angry. He quickly scrambled to his feet and pushed his friend against the nearest wall and darted out into the hallway of the longhouse.

“Not this again!” His friend yelled as he ran after the screaming man, “You got to stop eating that stuff, it's there to help decompose the bread not for your ingestion. “

After ingesting the moldy bread, the outside world became different to him, even the sound of the door slamming against the wall produced extreme hallucinations. A fire pit stood before him; shadowy figures danced all around shouting words in an unknown language. One of the figures turned around as he began to think about them.

“Shouldn't think about me, boy!” The shadowy figure called, its voice was deep and powerful.

It stretched its head toward the man who began to run in place. When the shadowy figures head came within inches to the hallucinating man its body pulled itself in place under his neck.

“Going crazy yet?” The shadowy figure cried.

“No! Stay back foul creature! Stay back!” The man closed his eyes and felt a hand being placed on his shoulder.

The man shivered knocking the hand off, “Don't touch me foul beast.”

It was his friend's hand, but before he could grab the hallucinating man, he bolted toward the fire pit. Only the hallucinating man could see the fire pit, his friend was flabbergasted when the hallucinating man tripped over nothing and began writhing around in pain on the ground.

“It burns!” The man yelled in pain, “Put it out! Put out the fire.”

His friend walked over to him and tried to pull him out of the imaginary fire but the man kicked his friend in the jaw. Blood splashed from his mouth onto the dirt.

Just then another figure appeared out of thin air, the only figure that the hallucinating man’s friend could see, he was wearing a marvelous cloak of bright yellow and shiny turquoise.

The unknown figure opened up his mouth and a low whisper came out, “I am Aell, God of Intoxicants and the Elements which bind your realm. Your friend is in deep pain, the fire is real; real to him anyway.”

“Is there nothing we can do to save him?” The writhing man's friend asked the God.

“That would prolong the inevitable, your friend has a lot of secrets, some he even keeps from himself. He tortures himself, and that's why he sees the things he sees.” The God continued to whisper his voice pulsing through the man's veins.

“You've got to do something; we've got a good business making and selling bread together. I can't lose my business partner.”

“You've always done the work; your friend just reaps the rewards. Your business would be better off without him. But alas, this is entertaining how about I spare him a few more moments?”

Aell closed his eyes and hummed softly, the writhing man stopped screaming.

“Free! I'm free! No more fire. You can't stop me now.”

The man darted toward the open plains to the west, “I can see everything. It's all so clear! No more monsters, no more demons. I feel so free!”

Aell moved in strides following the hallucinating man, his movements were fluid and precise, “Well, aren't you coming?”

I'm talking to a living, breathing God. The man thought to himself as he ran after his friend and Aell.

“What can we do for him, he doesn't even know there is a gorge over there.”

“You'll find out soon enough my child.” Aell said to him with the most sinister whisper the man had ever heard, his words sent shivers down his spine that he had never felt before.

The man stared in awe as he saw his friend reach the lip of the gorge, he turned around and waved.

“I should never have let you try that fungus! I knew it would be the death of you.”

Aell and the man stopped, he looked at Aell, “What does he mean? He thinks I'm hallucinating.”

“He doesn't think. He knows.”

Seeing his friend jump backward off the cliff he screamed. Looking at the God the man was shocked when his body was stung by a tremendous force and he found himself plummeting down the great canyon. He stared up at the lip of the gorge and saw his friend who he had envisioned writhing in the imaginary fire crying and screaming just as he had done seconds before. Aell stood next to him watching the man plummet to his death; the Gods eyes were now burning with an intense light; one eye was yellow the other turquoise just like his outfit.

All his memories of the night flooded back into his mind. He saw himself standing above his friend’s body, he carried a large knife. He saw his friend smack the knife out of his hand and dart out of the house. When he reached the door, he pushed his friend over onto the ground as he began kicking him with his boots. Then Aell appeared watching as he bludgeoned his friends face with his boot. His friend kicked him in the jaw and he began running toward the open plains where the gorge lay not too far. He watched as his friend and Aell ran after him, his friend was yelling profanities, but he was also yelling for his friend to stop, he didn't want him to die.

He continued to fall, as he neared the ground Aell appeared before him, “You see my child, you all along were the reason I appeared here. I wanted you to see the tortures you put yourself through in the eyes of another. When you hit the ground, you won't die immediately I will bring your soul back to my realm where you will live in your own fantasy and what a disastrous fantasy it is.”

He hit the ground. His lungs were punctured by his ribs, and he began to wheeze as he breathed. Aell appeared before him as a yellow and blue light, then his material figure formed out of nowhere. The being placed his hand on his forehead and inhaled a deep breath and everything around him turned black. With the baker’s soul in his palm, Aell departed the material world into his own kingdom in the netherworld.