Light in the Darkness(Affan Hameed) Light in the Darkness

Scarlet blood was all over the elegant marble floor. My sharp, human-killing tool which I called “Killer Knife” was in my right hand and one thick twenty-four carat gold and platinum ring was in my other hand. In front of me laid a middle aged man who was in his late thirties; he had dark brown hair, a tall and muscular body along with a bruised face. That man, whose name was Mr. Johnson, was dead and all of his fortunes were in my bag. As I made my way out of my victim’s titanic house, I disposed of his body at a nearby river; the local police and detectives will never find him there. Once I did that, I hurried through the empty streets of 18th century Boston and arrived at my beautiful cottage which was situated at a hill overlooking the breathtaking and mesmerizing Atlantic Ocean. My residency was filled with riches which I stole from all the men I destroyed. Because of my work, I was known in the town as John “The Assassin” Benedict. I was feared by all the children and women of Boston. The city folks thought that I was an outlaw who would be punished for all his bad actions, but what they didn’t realize was that I was happier and richer than all of them. The men in Boston worked day and night to earn a single penny, but I “worked” once a month and got more than them combined. With that happy thought, I went to my king-sized bed and began to fall into an incredibly elongated nap…

“No,” I mutter. “Can’t, I can’t.”

Something was causing tenderness in my mind and chest. Something was punishing me. I had to wake, though my subliminal senses warned me not to. The pain intensified, it grew stronger, and it was engulfing me.

“No,” I commanded my body. “Don’t.”

My spine started shrieking with pain as my hands seized by body down, but then my figure sprang up like a child’s toy, with my eyes tinged with red blood from the throbbing. What I saw before me was worse than the aching; a patchy, insipid, grubby and insect-filled ground that produced flames. I robustly turned my neck around, and saw the atrocious sky. It was not blue, but red, and the clouds were murky grey. Eerie bat-like creatures were sweeping through the petrifying atmosphere, making sounds that would make one faint. Then, I finally saw the most horrendous, abysmal landscape ever; lifeless trees with jagged, prickly leaves, hills made from lava and rocks, and a colossal sea with fire as an alternate of water. After witnessing the scene, I wanted to go back to sleep and wake up merrily, thinking that nothing had happened. I shut my eyes hard for three seconds and then opened them. No luck at all. I contemplated for a moment and made the decision of going deeper in this extraterrestrial land. As I did this unerringly, I saw no sign of human existence; just atrocious animals and reptiles roving all over the place. I scanned the landscape and all of a sudden, a flimsy humanoid shape appeared near a tree out of the gloomy fog that was swallowing up the atmosphere. With some sanguinity of escaping this malevolent place, I hastened to the figure which looked like an elderly, brittle and undernourished man.

“H-Hello,” I stammered.

“Hello,” the old man delicately replied.

“I need to know where I am. How do I get out of this place?” I inquired.

“Why, you ask a question which you already have an answer for,” he retorted.

“I-I do?” I garbled.

The old man stayed quiet, but just then I realized that he was right; this place was my own “Hell,” as many would say. Filled with terror, I gazed at the sordid ground and thought for a protracted time about what had brought me here. With no intimation, I turned around to seek the fragile man’s advice, but sure enough he was gone like the wind.

I made my way through the substantial grey fog and entered the heartrending meadows of “Hell” and took a seat near a gloomy tree. With no optimism at all, I began to close my eyes and think about how life was back in Boston and for several hours my brain thought about this until an ear-popping roar echoed around the land. I jumped to my feet and scanned the surroundings; there was no sign of danger. ROAR! Another horrendous sound reached my ears and shook my body. By the time my body turned around, a monstrous silhouette was visible behind the curtain of smoke. THUMP! An earthquake-like footstep was heard across the meadows, and within moments, the most intimidating and bloodcurdling beast was stationed before me. It had bright yellow eyes like a snake along with bulky, glistening green scales in the region of its snake-like skull. The beast’s body reached up to the skies and was as wide as the entire landscape. The animal’s green skin excelled so bright it made me sightless and when it’s terrifying tail filled with sharp spikes moved, my heart felt like it was going to stop. Then, when the beast roared, it exposed the most dangerous and nerve-racking pair of jagged, man-killing teeth ever. Even the bravest of the bravest would fall short to gaze at this outlandish nightmare. I was staggered and dismayed by just looking at it; tears of trepidation gushed down my cheeks and my pants started getting wet as I locked eyes with the life-threatening creature. It stomped, and then I made a run for it; either death anticipated me or life. I passed through the meadows with lightning-speed with the monster right after me and ran through a bat filled grotto, went around a mountain that was impracticable to climb and finally came back to where I had started; the meadows of “Hell.” For a second, I thought I had lost the beast, but then the walking nightmare returned to continue its wrath on me. Desperately, my eyes observed the land, and found a hill where I could possibly hide. Without any delay, I rushed to the elevated land and climbed to the extraordinarily high top, where a few unforeseen and startling visitors appeared to be waiting just for me.

“We knew you would come,” addressed Mr. Johnson’s ghost. Mr. Johnson, along with many men killed by me, were at the hill; specifically their ghosts or souls. For once, I couldn’t think of what to say. A horde of ghosts were right in front of me with a monster closing in at the other path. The horrifying scream of the beast became louder as I stood there gawking at the clear, translucent and impassive ghosts in front of me. ROAR! It was earsplitting enough, and for sure, the beast was close enough. Sweat poured down my neck and my body trembled with vast horror as I twisted around and faced the repugnant monster that was staring right at me with its daunting yellow eyes. The creature roared with immense force causing the ghosts to fade and me to quiver with terror, and then it opened its colossal jaw to expose a set of menacing, carnivorous teeth that were geared up to shred me apart, bone by bone. This was it, I thought; this was how John Benedict was going to die. The revolting breath of the monster grew stronger as it extended its snake-like neck towards me and prepared to strike and kill me…SLACK! A stomach-turning and dynamic reverberation flustered my ears. Was I dead? At a snail's pace, my eyes opened and then saw the ghosts where they were and the beast’s headless body on the ground. I couldn’t believe what had happened; the beast was destroyed by the ghosts.

“Why? Why did you help me?” I demanded.

The ghosts did not reply, instead they vanished and a radiant source of light appeared. Out of it came a proverbial fragile figure that I had met previously.

The old man stood before me expressionless.

“I know you have many questions, John, I could sense it,” explained the fragile man. “You wanted to know how you got here. Simple, by all the bad actions you did in life. Though, your biggest question was what this place is. The answer to that is not exactly hell; this place is a shadow of what can happen to you. In other words, it is a shadow of your future in another perspective.”

“Who are you? Who or what is this monster?” I asked.

“The monster is all your bad deeds; which are innumerable judging from the size of the beast. I, on the other hand, am all your good deeds; which are very little as you can tell by simply looking at me,” the old man answered. “Now, your time is up here, you may go back to life but remember, one way or another, and you know this, you have no way out.”
In a blink of an eye, I woke up, though this time in my bed. The old man’s conversation with me echoed in my mind. I knew what to do and gathered all the treasures that were stolen by me and put them outside of my house. The town was right about me being an outlaw and my existence being that of a criminal. Others worked hard, but I took the worst and easiest way out by killing guiltless men. By killing them, I stole a father, a husband and a son. All those crimes were heinous and maybe punishment was best for me. I paced across the hill and went to the edge to look downwards; it was a fine two hundred feet exceeding ground-level. Any man would die if they jumped off the cliff and perhaps death was what I deserved. After all, I killed many people and my death would be a justice for all of them and their relatives. Though, committing suicide wouldn’t be decent and would end my life in the worst possible way.

“Now, your time is up here, you may go back to life but remember, one way or another, and you know this, you have no way out,” echoes the old man’s mysterious voice in my head.

With a heavy heart, I looked at my cottage and the hill for one very last time. I pledged in my heart to become a good human being and dedicate the rest of my life to serving humanity because that is the only way of salvation… a freedom from all my sins… a light in the darkness.

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