Photo by Shawn Graham: www.flickr.com/goshawn

HELL

In the summer heat of mid July a child was born into hell…

A small girl stands alone wounded and bleeding in the fires.  The landscape is blackened and burned, stained by the blood of the children who died here before her.  It is an ever-changing hell, with black jagged rocks violently erupting from the charred ground, crashing back to oblivion and reforming elsewhere.  Fires erupt and are carried by the wind, burning the air foul with the stench of stained and broken souls.  This evil surrounds her, draining her life force and eating away at her youth. She looks to the sky, an endless sea of black smoke and gas.  It swirls above her, moving closer, promising to envelop and smother her in Its own good time.  Darkness and death surround her.  There is no life in this world.  Only the girl exists. 

In her tiny heart, the young girl wants to shake her fist at the devil World she was born too. 

“I will beat you” she silently whimpers, but despair overwhelms her because she knows it is a lie. 

You can’t beat a World.  Rock and fire will not bend to the will of a dirty tear stained child.  She lies in the dust, waiting for the anguish to claim her.  Her World erupts, the sky moves closer, and the girl prays for her end.  She waits, watching her malevolent heaven, finding a morbid comfort in the shifting patterns, focusing on the tiny light….  THE LIGHT.  A pin prick of a promise she knows must be true.  A secret hope springs.  If she can not beat this world, perhaps she can flee. 

“You can not run” the sky tells her. 

She knows there is no escape, but perhaps she can sneak away, unseen.  The world ignores her.  If she is careful and quiet and quick, perhaps she can leave unnoticed.

Hand over hand the determined wretched girl crawls in the utter darkness, heading towards her light.  All around her evil spirits laugh at her claim and although unseen, unimaginable things crawl and slither across her body, tasting her innocent flesh.  She no longer feels anything.  There is no body, there is no world; there is only the light ahead.  She must see it.  She must know for herself that there is more than this evil place that holds possession of her.

The journey is long and her loneliness aches deep in her soul.  She does not want to be alone anymore.  New friends spring forth from her tears.  Although she knows they are apparitions, she allows the phantoms to console her and carry her forward when she falters.  She is exhausted from the pain of trying to reach her never ending promise.  It seems so far, yet it burns so brightly in the darkness.  It is there, waiting for her to claim it.

A mountain of despair spews from the ground in front of her, blocking her destination.  This tower of black rock does not crumble to the dust; it remains, looming, laughing at her pain.  The wind whispers for her to give up her quest, promising a quick end to the pitiful life.  Although hidden from her view, she has seen her light and knows of its existence.  She endures the wind screaming through her hair, whipping her face and chilling her to the core. She stops, she rests, she gathers her strength and courage.  Knowing that her light awaits, she moves on, digging her raw hands into the evil new terrain placed before her.

BIO: Kris Duffy enjoys writing screenplays, short stories, and teleplays.  Her most current endeavor is a science fiction novel entitled A New World.   She lives in Connecticut with her wife and two children.