GHOST OF A CHANCE_CHAPTER 32_HELL IS YOURSELF

{"Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another."

- Tennessee Williams.}

{Samuel Clemens, here, I look at Roland's charred journal,

its pages turning with a life of their own. We last left my friend at the breached wall of Hell.

To enter is to die.

Just past the wall, Epona, a unicorn, is being sliced to ribbons by a ghoul,

whose legs work like a frog's, and whose arms flail with razors.

Roland has just ordered the ghoul to leave the unicorn alone ...}



Epona lolled her head to me. "N-No, you must not. To enter is to --"

The ghoul raised the bloody razor up high. "Time to scream."

"Great Mystey," I whispered, " not for me, but for someone who called out for mercy. Let me cross over."

The foot-long razor swept down. Sucking in a breath, I leapt through the opening and blocked the ghoul's slashing attack with Marlene's saber. Sparks flew as the razor met the black metal of the sword.

The ghoul cursed me in some forgotten language. She twirled frog-like and thrust at me with blinding speed. She was good.

But I still had the agility of Gypsy, my cat. I twisted at the hips, evading her attack.

I threw the black sand into the creature'e eyes. "Here's Hell in your eyes!"

Her eyes burst into flames.

Blinded, the ghoul flailed screaming past me through the opening.

And then she exploded.

Just simply exploded. Or not so simply.

The sound had been odd, a distant popping as if she were some small firecracker going off, not a large body going up in a cloud of foul-smelling smoke.

I hurled up my arms to protect my face and stiffened, expecting to be splattered with blood and gore. Nothing. I shook my head.

I wrinkled my lips at the stench. Her body had been as empty as her soul had been.

There were other creatures twitching, slithering, and crabbing towards the unicorn.

But the ghoul's exploding had made them stop for the moment. I bent down with complaining knees next to the bleeding unicorn.

Epona lolled her slashed head with torn tendons, her eyes straining to glimpse something of what lay beyond.

But from her position, she could see nothing. She whimpered.

"They cut me, cut me. Laughing, laughing. Let me get so close, so close. But never making it. Never."

Her eyes tore into me. "I black out, dream such terrible, terrible dreams.

Then, I awaken whole once more. And it begins all over again. A-All over again."

Her head slumped towards the cold cobblestones, but I caught it before she could hurt herself.

"I to want to run ... run so far from here until the memories are left far, far behind."

I saw the creatures start towards me again and heard the unicorn as she rasped, "I want to run ... run fast as I can.

Let the wind wrap its cold fingers through my mane again. I want to run, run so far from here

until at long last I feel the grass under my hooves one last time. One last time."

The scattered torturers began to giggle as they grew closer. "D-Don't let them get me again. P-Please. Please!"

I looked down in despair at the unicorn, blood welling like tears along the gashes in her white satin flesh. I cocked my head.

I began to write on the saber in Epona's blood.

I looked back up to the darkness above me and whispered, "She only wanted to run. She only needed a gentle light to lead her through the darkness."

My throat closed, but I forced the words out. "Lead her to where there is no pain. No pain."

Her eyes looked at the blade with weary eyes for a long moment. I felt her muscles quiver beneath my fingers. Epona raised wet eyes to me.

"Will it hurt?"

"No. No, it won't hurt."

"No more bad dreams?"

I nodded and each word felt like a raw wound. "No more bad dreams."

I plunged the saber deep into Epona's heart. She screamed shrill.

The world around us went nova. Epona stiffened. And the encroaching torturers squealed gut-deep and wet.

A wave of sensation both ice-cold and warm knifed through me. I felt the unicorn scramble to her hooves in a thrust of sudden strength.

I crabbed back and fell on my butt. I braced myself with one hand and held Marlene's vibrating saber in the other.

My vision cleared. My mouth dropped.

Epona was rearing on her hind legs. Her healed hind legs.

The words I had written on the saber in her blood were burning with strange fires. "This sword now heals."
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