Cold sweat pours from my skin. My numb feet pound the ground. The heat of the fire warms my back.
I move in time to the beating drums. Faster, faster, louder, louder until my head is full of it’s deep voice. Eyes closed, I embrace the night. I can feel the blood rush trough my veins fueling the emotions inside me. It drives on. Higher into the night sky I float kissing the stares and hugging the comets.
Dancing in circles around the fire I narrowly miss the hot embers. Its gentle warmth brushes my ankles. My body moves faster, wilder until I am out of control letting the fire guide me to eternity.
I am like a moth drawn the light as it calls my name. Starting in a whisper it intensifies to a scream. Soon all I can think of is the light dancing with me at my ankles. I hear only the drums like a heart beat pounding in unison with my own. Nothing can compare to the feeling burrowing into me right now. Past melts at my fingertips, Future dissolves into thin air, and Present soaks into my very essence covering every pore.
Pausing only for an instant to make my own grey smoke I felt myself emerge into pure being. Nothing is clear yet everything is in high definition. The drum is mimicking my heart is the only thing I can hear. Smells of smoke and burning wood fills my nostrils blocking out all other scents. The ashy taste sticks stubbornly to my tongue infecting my mouth with the bitterness. All I can feel is the dulling pain in my open wrists. And the only thing I can see in front of me is the roaring fire.
But even that slips into muffled nothingness. I can no longer hear the beat of my own heart, smell the smoke. Nor taste the pungent ashes on my tongue. My body slithers into shadow. Now the only thing I see before me is the cynical look of death as he catches me in her arms.
His cloak is the shadows that haunt you as you lie awake in bed. Fleshless bones are the pains you feel in your heart. The chills down your spine are his seethe as it caresses down your back. Out of her mouth comes the smell of countless rotting corpses. The sound he uses as a voice is nails on a chalk board and the wind that makes you jump. But worst of all in her face he reveals the dark nightmares of your subconscious. You can see forever in the eyes of death. Every small child’s fate and that of your own.
And then you make your final journey into darkness.