A bright flash cut into my eyes, almost painfully, and awoke me from the dream-like state. Sophie knelt beside me and raised a flashlight to her chin, making an ugly grimace. The result proved to be quite creepy. The moment I opened my mouth, Sophie snapped her fingers under my nose and then made a zipping motion before her lips. I remembered our deal and nodded in confirmation.
Sophie grabbed her phone and tapped the screen, showing me a timer counting down.
22:50
I nodded again then immediately froze, trying to fight the intense nausea. My thoughts swirled around as if inside a tornado and were strewn everywhere, making it very hard to think clearly.
Meanwhile, Johan was busy waving his shovel around, burying what was left of the ritual objects into the dirt. Sophie poured some bottled water on his hands, affirmatively slapped him on the back and waved at me as if to say 'let's go.'
My body became stiff from sitting for so long and didn't want to follow my orders. However, the worst of all was the feeling of an aching heaviness under my stomach, akin to menstrual pain. I bit my lip and continued walking with a single wish: to get home as fast as possible.
After climbing down the other side of the hill we picked up our bicycles that we hid in some roadside bushes and returned to town.
When I arrived home, the porch had an idle display of a late Saturday afternoon. Olaf was busy carefully fixing the terrace fence while mom was napping away on a nearby hammock, wrapped in a warm comforter. When I walked by, Olaf muttered some sort of greeting while clenching a pair of nails in his lips.
"Back already? What time is it?" My mom drowsily raised her head and checked her phone. "Almost midnight! Come have something to eat, I made paella today. Or did you have dinner at Sophie's?"
I spread my arms, cracked a smile and ran inside to avoid any further interrogation.
And made a beeline straight upstairs, to the bathroom.
'Jacket and shirt go straight into the washing machine. Jeans and socks as well.' For a couple of seconds, I just stared dumbfounded at my blood-soaked underwear... 'So it's my period after all, but why? This is way too early, it hasn't even been two weeks since the last one!'
'Whatever, I guess it happens. I'll sort it out later.' I threw my undies into the trash, and myself into the shower.
Hot, then cold. Hot again, almost scalding. And then cold again. Why are showers always so damn hard to adjust?
I closed my eyes, shivering under the freezing waterfall. My memories were slowly falling back into place since I left the scene of the ritual. Blurry and fragmented visions which I was trying my hardest to erase with the rough sponge.
'You've got to be kidding me! Maybe I'm a pervert, one of those... necrophiliacs, I guess. Br-r-r. Yes, definitely a pervert, I mean what else could I be? To get so turned on inside a graveyard, to... Yes, I finished on that damn gravestone! And not even once... This is a complete nightmare!'
I pressed my head against the shower wall. I can't really say that I'm prone to emotional turmoil, but for some reason, my adventure to the graveyard has left a persistent feeling of filthiness, as if I've lived in a sewer for days and all the shit has permeated every cell in my body.
Weird and completely disgusting. Seriously, I just had to stick my nose in black magic! And what now? Let's just hope that it's only my imagination going wild after yesterday's horror marathon. Which were three "Insidious" movies in a row. Who knows what else I might imagine after that!
I jumped when my phone, which I left on the sink, suddenly decided to announce a new text. After wrapping myself in a towel I climbed out of the shower and glanced at the screen. What does someone need from me this late?
It's Sophie.
Hey, u up?
Didn't you say that we can't talk for a day?
And we're not. We're texting. Anyways, are you feeling alright? You were kinda dopey earlier. Even Johan noticed.
Are you texting him too?
It was his idea in the first place.
Are you definitely feeling ok?
That time of the month.
Aw, my poor baby. I feel you though, I absolutely hate mine. Well I'm gonna go pass out, see you in school. Sleep well xoxo
You too. xx
'Sleep well... As if. I doubt I'll be able to fall asleep without some divine intervention.' And by divine I mean medical.
I snuck into my mom's room and opened the bedside table where she keeps her sleeping pills. I shook a couple of tiny capsules into my palm. What can you do? My nerves are more important.
***
In my dream, I stand at the peak of a hill, admiring the elegant octagonal dome which proudly towers above the still waves of brick roofs.
"Duomos." Exhales an unfamiliar voice in my head.
"Duomos." I agree.
A Choir, sung by numerous voices, echoes out of the cathedral in an enchanting ligature of sounds. The vision of the city flickers and distorts, but the graceful melody can't be an illusion for my heart would not be fluttering and my eyes wouldn't be full of tears.
"I want to go there. I need to get into Duomo."
"That's fine," The voice replies. "go."
But as I try to step forward I am brought to my knees by an invisible force, keeping me stuck in place. Tangled in my long red skirt and the absurd blue apron, I pull at the hem and see the cause of my fall.
A yellow skull has dug its teeth into the edge of my skirt. For some reason, I decide that it is the same skull that I got way too familiar with at the graveyard. The skull does not budge no matter how hard I pull, as if it was made from solid iron.
"Let me go," I ask, desperate to free myself. " I have to leave."
The skull shakes from side to side in rejection.
"I'm saying, let me go!" I angrily kick the ruffian, realising too late that it will probably cost me the bones in my foot. But instead, the skull flies off like a football and lands somewhere beyond my vision, taking a shred of my skirt with it. The way is now open.
The closer I get to the cathedral, the more enchanting the melody becomes. My only regret is that one I wake up, I will forget the music and never hear it again. I gulp the music down like water, but I just keet getting thirstier as I listen to it.
Humongous double doors. Light green metal, solid rows of bas-reliefs and moving bronze figurines stretching out their tiny hands. Let me in!
I desperately bang the closed doors, trying to get to the source and become a part of it! Nearly losing all hope, I lean against the doors that seem to taunt me and begin singing along, yet I can't even hear myself. And at that moment, when I am about to explode into a festive firework, disperse into flower petals, fly apart in a kaleidoscope of butterflies, the door disappears.
Barren land stretches as far as the eye could see, painted crimson in the rays of a dying sunset. Long shadows stretch over the dry and cracked soil, coming from a lone tree whose naked branches reach toward the sky as if crying for help.
"Come closer." says the still unfamiliar voice.
A humanoid figure twitches and convulses on top of the branches, above which hovers a formless mass with turquoise- black streaks.
The melody binds me in invisible restraints and carries me forward. Now I can clearly hear an unpleasant dissonance, but peculiarly this blending of wonderful and vile became even more captivating than the divine perfection which greeted me at the dream's threshold.
I walk and trip. I fall and get back up. I carry myself without looking where I step, mostly because I can't take my gaze off the sickening display before me.
A woman, completely naked, writhes underneath what looks like a gigantic slug; I find it impossible to find an accurate description for the creature before my eyes. The piece of flesh, shiny from the mucus and reflecting the maroon sunset shades, is holding the woman down against a branch. From within its bloated belly-hump emerge pale segmented tubes, piercing the squirming figure. A tube goes in the mouth, another one in the stomach, and the last one between the legs.
The belly rhythmically rises and falls. A teal mist swirls inside and from within it rise, like drowned corpses, human faces contorted with pain and suffering. They swell on the surface and eventually pop, emitting sounds in various tonalities.
A choir of the dead, that's what brought me here!
The woman moans under the creature, and it even seems like she is enjoying what's happening to her; she caresses the slimy skin and arches her back, piercing herself further on the pulsating tube.
"Closer." Repeats the unfamiliar voice.
"No." I reply.
The music turns into cries and wailing, making my vision go dark. The creature tears the tubes out of the woman's body and discards her down to the ground. Losing my consciousness from this primal terror, stronger than anything I've felt in my short life, I start screaming uncontrollably.
As the woman crashes by my feet, she melts, cracks and deflates into a common sex-doll. The liquid remains seep into the ground until only the head with bulging eyes and an open mouth is left staring at me.
Staring at me with my own face!