I’m not sure, and I don’t really understand ‘how’ I did it, but I think I might have done something terrible. All I remember is walking home from work one day and then there was place that was all white and black and inhabited by these things that I neither able nor inclined to even attempt to describe. I remember pain and fear and a numbing sameness that ate the soul. All of that was like faint snatches of a maddening dream. My clearest recollections were when the door came and finally brought some change. A brief reprieve. I remember wanting to get away. Then suddenly like a miracle there was a door. An exit.

I don’t think I should have gone through that door, except it was calling to me. And in that place where I was, I couldn’t ignore it. That place in the blinding light and impenetrable darkness, it wasn’t meant for people. It wasn’t meant for things that think, so when I saw the exit of course I was going to take it. Give a thirsty man water and he will drink. Giving starving man food and he will eat. While I’ve been told a man always has choices, I’ll say right now, I pretty much didn’t. Which is the only excuse I can give for what I did...

*****

I’ve never gotten the appeal of horror games. Horror movies and horror stories were one thing, but being forced to play through a nightmare scenario, wasn’t my idea of a good time.By nightmare like scenario I meant a scenario that was literally like something you’d find a in a weird nightmare.

A world where things made just enough sense that you didn’t pay attention to how bullshit your situation was. One example would be a certain game where it cost you power to keep the fury robot demons in a certain eatery from breaking into your office and trying to make you one of them. You spent your time watching them, to know when they were about to sneak up you, just for the sake of keeping the doors closed if they got too close. It was only later, when you weren’t playing and could reflect that you’d think, ‘hey wait a minute’. Security doors don’t work that way.

*****

I woke up in a bathtub, one of the old fashion type that was propped up on little paws. I was soaked through and the water I was sitting in was dyed a dingy frothy red. Everything hurt except my head, which was surprisingly clear.

I looked up and saw a woman staring down at me. Dark hair, pale, luminous eyes. Thick lank, locks and a taste for drab chic. Eyes that were too wide and a gaze that was a little too direct. A complexion that looked like she was either had recently shuffled off the mortal coil or wasn’t going sticking around for too long. A bit spooky looking honestly. Imagine if the creepy little girl in nine out ten horror stories made it to adulthood.

I didn’t recognize her. Except I think I did. Actually I knew I did, or at least part of me did. It was hard to say. If you die and you don’t notice, did you really die? If something eats you and you eat that something and you become that something, then who really ate who?

******

There was once a man by the name of Cornelius D. Douglas. He wasn’t a very nice man. Actually, to be frank he was kind of piece of shit. I’m all for enjoying yourself while you have the time to do so.

Heaven knows that ‘I’ certainly didn’t and I definitely regretted not doing so when whatever it was that happened to me, happened. Leaving me in a place with neither time nor space, nor sensation. Still there was a limit to such things. Forget drinking to excess, our dear friend Corny was the sort who’d smoke, snort, swallow, shoot-up, whatever new fangled thing you brought him.

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He was like that kid you met in primary school, secondary school and college, the kind who was always doing crazy things for attention. Mainly because he genuinely believed being called Crazy [put name here] was some kind of badge of honor. Though fortunately age and drug testing for work had forced him to slow some of that down.

He’d originally been in sales and did surprisingly well, but then again he ‘was’ a consummate liar. He probably could have done well there if he hadn’t been fired from that job for skimming off the profits. He was sharp tongued and loved absolutely loved racial using epithets.

When he was younger picked fights for no reason. Whether it was bar fights, or just more or less mugging people just for the thrill of it. He slept around enough that it was almost certainly a legitimate miracle that he’d avoided catching anything permanent or fatal. Choosing partners that were sometimes a tad too young and not entirely willing. He worked at an office, that was really a dummy company for a certain shady organization.

While he was generally just a clerk at the fake office, that he fake worked at, occasionally he’d be pulled in for other errands. He yearned for a day when he’d be made a full member of the group, but even this humble ambition was just based in the slightly worrying desire to hurt people and a petty desire to be a shotcaller like the rest of the real members were.

*****

Of course just like for everyone else in the world, there was a backstory there. Nothing groundbreaking or really engaging though. With minor exceptionan overly glorified history of school yard romps, he was pretty run of the mill till he turned sixteen.

Normal childhood, normal parents. Slightly posh upbringing, with a fairly robust education that he got surprisingly good grades for, but he wasn’t some long lost noble or anything.

The only thing that stood out from my own, humdrum life story was where he met a manic pixie dream girl during his seventeenth year. Except she wasn’t a manic pixie dream girl, she was just a normal girl who just happened to ‘really’ like amphetamines and new age philosophy and she proceeded to kick his heart in the balls.

The memories were blurry for that period, mainly because of all the drugs they took. I could faintly remember a brief period of sobriety where he was in court for assault and battery charges but dear old dad help him beat those. Rich Parents, you gotta love ‘em. Which ended the romance, or kind of did, with the exception of a faintly stalker-y period that he had. Trying to win his decidedly less manic dream girl back.

******

In summary, Corny D. Douglas was a mean, violent, callous, selfish, petty, greedy, lustful stupid idiot. Managing to hit not just seven of the seven cardinal sins, but even managing to hit the eight that was usually forgotten. The deep well of self-loathing and despair that guided almost all his decisions was thick enough to almost make me gag on it.

Taking in the man’s psyche and memories was like gnawing on rotted flesh. Both rancorous and oddly ordered like a serial killer's bathroom. Innately repulsive. gnoshing on cheese that was more mold than cheese. It was just...foul.

I could remember his death, a fairly meaningless death that involved him being a little too forward with an associate’s kid sister and getting shot for it. In my humble opinion it’s good riddance to bad rubbish, but then again. That might just be me trying to justify the fact that I was at least eighty to ninety percent sure that I’d just sublimated the guys soul.