The First Gate

I sat right before the gate of iron and gold, eyes dull and full of want. I have no recollection of my time there, each waking moment brand new to me. There was no day or night, no time at all to recollect, actually. A heavy shadow weighed over my weary form.

I can’t tell how long I’d desired to enter through that ice-cold gate. I desperately wanted to reach up, allowing my formless fingers to rest on the lock and scream, “let me in, let me in!” But what held me back? Was it fear, or apathy? No, not apathy. This craving was the opposite of apathy. It gnawed me from the inside-out, eating away at my gut like a parasite’s gross nutrient.

Yet I sat there at that gate for so long. Not until now. Now I stand, facing the looming figure. Everything beyond was enveloped by blackness and unsurity. I shook from the overwhelming anxiety that began to grow in my stomach, shivering from the feigned cold of the land beyond the gate. I tried to touch the lock, but it was like something held me back. I heard words echo, “It’s okay, there’s no pressure.” That phrase didn’t help much. Something was resisting me, blocking me from reaching through--but I wanted this so badly! I wanted to know what was beyond the gate. The First Gate.

This pining cause a sharp knell in my ears, and suddenly a shock ran through my skin. My hand had touched the padlock, causing every hair on my body to raise on end. Suddenly, the gate was gone. It was empty here, but only for a moment; the sound of shattering rang out in an echo, and I found myself gazing down upon my reflection in an icy landscape beneath my feet.

But...was that reflection really mine? Bright eyes and an ear-to-ear grin, lacking the deadened glow of my own expression. It didn’t look like me, it looked like not-me, a former state of my shallow self. Innocent yet bold, full of mischief and joy.

The cracking sound grew louder. The ground beneath me rumbled, my knees buckling as I felt the ice below cave in. In less than a second I was plunged deep, deep down into a freezing loch. Every breath was sucked from my lungs, leaving me clawing and gripping at my throat. Suffocating. I’m suffocating!

The pitch-dark water around me revealed nothing of site, though the radiance of a distant sun leered through the surface and the verglas above. In that light, a silhouette was knelt over the hole I sunk in. It felt mocking. I could hear a familiar voice jetting through the liquid around me, but could not make out the words.

Still, I knew them. I knew them in my heart. They were telling me, “stop being lazy, take initiative,” and “you can’t even do menial tasks. How will you hold a job?”

Pointed blades stabbing into my bleeding heart. I always did find speech more grueling than actions, and far more excruciating. Who was speaking to me this way? The voice was so familiar. It was all a reverb of my own self-pity, the loathing I felt every day when I saw the faux expression in the mirror.

Hearing all this, I sunk further into the water. That is, until another voice joined the chorus. The moment I heard this unfamiliar tone, something burst in me. In the gelid loch, a fire lit. My arms and legs were no longer numb, and I pushed myself with all the force in my body to the surface, hands clawing and digging up on the solid ice to climb out of the frigid water.

This fire was anger. Burning, hateful anger. How dare they speak to me like that; how dare they think me useless! I’m not useless.

I won’t be useless to them. But what about me?

When the realisation struck, I fell sodden on my stomach, my throat stinging as it coughed up liquid from my frozen lungs. Maybe what caused my anger was my self-loathing narcissism; or maybe I didn’t want my weakness seen.

I lay there for who knew how long. It was what felt like decades before I, trembling, lifted myself from the ice onto my feet. When my gaze elevated ahead of me, my eyes laid upon yet another gate. It was identical to the First, but inlaid instead of gold was a subtle silver. While I felt repelled from the First Gate, I felt drawn to the Second. It beckoned me, illuminated by a soft, inexplicable tune. Dragging my abhorrence behind me, I made my way to the Second Gate. I had begun my journey; I wouldn’t let it end here.

As my fingertips touched the warm bars, a flame ruptured from the gate’s mouth, swallowing me in its incandescent maw.