Sanity

People use the words insane, crazy, and mad but they don’t know what they mean, they could never truly understand them as I can. By body is covered with scares, ten thousand cuts all self inflicted, all to feel something, anything. After years of trying to feel nothing I fest a numbness that demanded feeling.

Sense that day, they day I summoned it, I could not stop seeing it, feeling it, feeling its mind so much larger than ours. It haunted my dreams and my wake, when I closed my eyes I remembered it as if it was happening for the first time. The only escape was not to feel, to become numb.

It was ten years ago I summoned it, ten years of suffering for my crime, a crime I am going to commit again. After ten years I return to that cave to open the gate and bring the creature into this world again. When I summoned it the psychic wave killed every creature in a half mile and left my mind scared. I fled in terror upon feeling it. This time I will complete my work.

I brought the victim, kicking and screaming, begging for her life, as I did ten years ago. She will soon be at peace, we all will, the only peace possible. I brought her before that alter of bones I had made, sacrificed her, slitting her throat spilling her blood upon the alter, giving her soul to open the gate that is not a gate. “I give this soul to open the gateway-” I incanted, “-to the place beyond places. I give this soul to summon one from beyond all that can be known.” The poor women’s blood flowed down the alter and onto the floor, her body gave a few last twitches as her life drained away. “I call you Shala’olakh’askchalah! Shala’olakh’askchalah! Shala’olakh’askchalah!” I call to the one of the ones from beyond all.

The gate that is not a gate opened, Shala’olakh’askchalah or a peace of Shala’olakh’askchalah came through. Floating before me, a thing utterly indescribable. I could feel it more than see it. The peace before me was little larger than a large man, but the whole that I could feel was so much larger, beyond any size and beyond the dimensions I could comprehend. The primal, part of my mind, the part that fears the unknown, gave me a terror few have felt and survived. It was at this point ten years ago that I fled.

“Shala’olakh’askchalah great and mighty!” I called, “End this world, end the suffer we must all endure. Give us the peace of oblivion!”

I waited, nothing was happening, the world wasn’t ending. As I stood there I could feel Shala’s mind more then I could before. It over flowed spreading out of the cave and to the woods. Though its mind I could feel others. A mother bird feeding her chicks, a mouse scampering across the leaves, a squirrel running in fear, the hawk landing on the squirrel satisfied that it fill his empty stomach. I felt a teacher teaching a class, and proud artist admiring his work, a new father beholding his daughter for the first time. For a moment we were becoming one with Shala, or minds, thoughts, and experiences melded together.

I felt so many thoughts and emotions I never felt before but most of all I felt Shala’s mind. A mind so huge that ours was but an ant crawling on a giant and like an ant we were flicked away with out second thought.

The gate that was not a gate was again closed. I was alone, in body and mind. I sat and pondered what I had felt, the emotions I had never felt before. I knew that the life I lived, the pain I lived, the parents who enjoyed beating me and the bullies who beat me down were not all there was. The misanthropy that dominated my thoughts was the response of a single man to cruel few that he was unlucky enough to endure and not the way the world was.

I had harmed so many in my life, believing there was nothing in this world but pain, now I knew better. I looked at the woman who’s life I had taken to summon a being so far beyond us that we barely registered in its perception. I had to make amends for it all, I had to bring goodness to the world. I may never find absolution for my sins, undo the evils I have committed, but I could spend the rest of my life making the world a better place.

When I left the cave, I saw all the creatures, the squirrels, rabbits and birds waking up, not as dead as I thought they were.