an old piece

Hidden Valley

My eyes saw only black, I don’t recall breathing, and in the distance, I could hear the long, monotonous beep of the heart monitor. A few short hours earlier, I was shot in the chest during a liquor store hold-up. Hopefully, these doctors were as good as they thought.

The putrid smell of death scratched like barbwire at the insides of my nostrils. My eyes burst open, wide and alert. Above me, the sky was a rolling, blood red eclipse of clouds. Feeling too weak to stand, I continued to lay, and stared in awe at the sky; it seemed to stare back—painting laughing faces at me. Out of fear, I had the strength to arise.

 Amazement, horror, shock, all baked into a cake and fed to my heart. Never-ending black mountains penetrated deep into the firmament like mighty skyscrapers viewed from the ground in a thick fog. The horror increased. Even from my distance, I could see they were made from dulled bones of ancient beings, their skulls taking watch over the vast valley.

 This was no natural creation of our great Mother. The air was still, thick, dry, and lifeless as in a desert. No refreshing gusts of wind coming down over the peaks of the tall mountains. Temperature high, yet I still felt chilled, even to the point of hypothermia. There was not a sound emanating through the valley. I couldn’t even hear the sound of my heavy breathing. Only thing to be heard was the dead silence; nothing.

No trees or any other signs of vegetation, and nothing from what I could tell that walked, crawled or slithered. Previously oblivious to it, my mouth dropped to the floor when I finally caught sight of the ground. The entire surface of this valley was blanketed in corpses, like the aftermath of a World War II battle. It was a disgusting sight of macabre. Deep in my gut, I felt the urge to vomit.

All the bodies were mutilated to a point beyond recognition. The front sides were torn open, as though with a serrated blade. Ribs were standing high into the air with the look of praising God. Innards were overflowing, like lave from a volcano, onto the soil; blood forming crimson puddles. Bones were exposed from broken and twisted limbs that looked like a house after a tornado. Eyes hung from their sockets, staring blankly at the ground. Brains, pulled from their homes through the ears, lay limp on the ground. And the only life visible in this horrid place—maggots—feasted on the decaying matter. This, as far as the eye could see.

I turned around and like a geyser, out came my last meal. Behind me was a very small, stone structure. Above its doorway, “Sanctuary,” was chiseled. Inside, it was blacker than coal. Before I stepped in, a sick sense of curiosity overpowered me and I turned over the closest body.

My life is now just subconscious thought; forever sentenced to a pain I cannot feel. I understand now that I should’ve never tried to rob that liquor store. When I turned over that body and looked at its face, it was me that was staring back…