For a moment everything grew silent.

John looked off into the distance in incomprehension. His mind was flying in every direction like balls at the start of a game of pool

Eventually, the balls settled in their slotted spots.

~The shadow. It betrayed me.~

John's head darted in the direction of the floating shadow. He clenched his fists as his eyes danced with murderous dreams.

"How could you do this to me?!?!?!? What did I do to you!?!?"

The young girl smiled.

She pointed at the blood-soaked woman right next to John.

"How could you do that to her?"

"I didn't do anything! I swear I didn't do anything!" Screamed John.

The girl gave John a smug smile and stuck her nose into the air.

"You sound like you're trying to justify a crime." She said.

John's hands and head dropped.

He fell silent.

"You are, aren't you? Don't worry. I'll punish you. That's what you deserve after all." She said.

John didn't hear a word she said. All he heard was a familiar narrative.

~I'm a piece of shit. I'm trash. I don't deserve to live.~

Slowly John's body changed.

His flesh and bones broke in spurts of blood and muscle. Then they vanished.

His organs boiled until they became a massive red puddle of blood. That then dissolved away into steam.

His brain twitched and swelled. Until finally it vanished with an explosion of brain matter.

In most circumstances, this would mean death. But no. Not here.

John's shadow remained.

John's shadow rose.

The darkness weaved and twisted into itself. It flowed and knotted and ducked and bent until there was a person standing in John's place.

The young girl grinned as she looked at the shadow.

"Just as the prophecies foretold."

She snapped her fingers. And suddenly the world got just a hint darker.

"Let us begin."

From the floor rose an orchestra of skeletons. Propped in their magically maintained jaws were trumpets.

The trumpets began to play. Everything terrible that John had ever done played through John's mind at ten times speed. He saw them over. And over. And over.

A book manifested into reality with a crackle of blue light.

Embroidered on the front of this leather-bound book was the image of a sloth.

The young girl grabbed the book from the air.

"Bear witness. For today! I! SLOTH! Shall judge the ultimate sinner!"

SLOTH looked at the sinner in question for a few moments. Her brows furrowed and her lips curled into a strange mix between a smile and a frown.

"I JUDGE THEE GUILTY!"

Flowing from SLOTH'S Shadow were three large flowing shadows. They held golden spears in their hands as they walked towards John. Who at the moment was kneeling on the ground with his hand over his head. He looked like someone cowering from a bomb.

The trumpets picked up in intensity. They began to scream through the sky and cut through John with their sound.

The shadows were above him.

"GUILTY!"

The golden spears were thrust into John's back.

"AH!" John let out a single shot clipped scream from the pain.

"Not dead? Then…."

New spears manifested in the shadow's hands.

"GUILTY!"

The trumpets reached a new crescendo.

Despite this John still lived.

"GUILTY!"

A new crescendo.

"GUILTY!"

A new crescendo.

"GUILTY!"

A new crescendo.

"GUILTY!"

Peals of a child's deranged laughter shivered through the space as the trumpets reached a new crescendo.

It created a mind-shattering cacophony of sound. It was like nails on chalk board against John's consciousness.

"GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!"

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

A Thousand crescendos. A thousand peals of laughter. An infinity.

At this point, John's mind had forgotten everything. There was only the pain of the spears. The trumpets. And that maddening laughter.

Yet there was no death. Death did not even brush against John's mind.

The young girl's face twisted into an ugly scowl as she saw John's abject aliveness.

"Move aside. I'll do it myself."

The shadows shuffled to the side as [SLOTH] floated forward.

She hopped onto John's back and put her hand around his mouth and nose.

John couldn't breathe.

She leaned forward and put her lips right next to John's ear.

"Isn't the drudgery of the never-ending delivery of oxygen just too much? Just give up. Your heart doesn't need to beat. You don't need to think. There's a way out. Let the cells stop moving. It's as simple as that. Be still. And....."

She leaned even closer. Her voice was whisper quiet. Almost imperceptible. Despite this John could hear her perfectly.

"Be dead."

John began to buck and scream. He threw his arms and legs and every direction. He was struggling with everything he could. But no matter how hard he tried. Nothing changed.

He was going to die.

It would be over. It would finally be over.

Give up all hope and let the dominoes fall.

After all. You're the one that set them up. Wouldn't it be foolish to keep them all still?

~No.~

CLICK

Like a puzzle piece, fear clicked itself into place within John's mind. It was locked in, and it would never leave.

~No.No.No.No.No.No.No.No.No.No. NO!~

There was only fear. There was only pain. There was only death.

On the horizon. Right in front of John. It stood, upon a pond that held everything that was supposed to stay in the envelope.

John slowly approached that thing.

That horrible horrible thing.

The trumpets reached another crescendo.

He tried to turn his head away. Because surely if his head turned so would his body. But he couldn't. A hand held him in place. It gripped his mouth tight and made it impossible to move.

John's mind began to shake. The metal mainframe of his consciousness clattered against itself from the storm of John's fear.

~No. I haven't met my mother! I never found someone I could love. I never found what I wanted to do.~

John would die with pillars unbuilt. With dreams unfulfilled.

Tch. How unfortunate.

..... ...….. ...…..

...….. ...…..

....

The metal mainframe of John's mind trembled. It shook and and clattered against itself.

The shaking caused something small and inconsequential to shatter.

A lockbox.

From this lockbox came a light.

A light of greater radiance than any that had ever been known.

John's mind calmed.

The light spread. It began to flow from in between the ropes of the twisted knotted shadow that was John.

"Wait. This isn't supposed to be possible."

A woman's voice echoed through the land of dreams.

"Take all the pain. All the agony and all the hell that you can't deal with. And put it one a piece of paper. Then take that piece of paper and put it in an envelope. Mail that envelope to the strong you a year from now. Then you'll be okay."

The land of dreams surrounding John began to crack and split. It cut itself into thousands upon thousands of sheets of paper.

The paper flowed down into a massive envelope contained within a limitless but impossible void.

The paper spun. And spun some more until they had created a whirlpool.

Pretty. Soon every paper was sucked into the envelope.

SNAP!

The envelope closed.

It was so stretched out and stuffed that all logic stated that the envelope should have been broken.

But it wasn't.

For the barest instant, the shadow cowered in nothingness…..

And then John was back in reality.