TheTrip
"I think it's late" I said as I looked over at Janus, who sat on the carpet, in front of the stereo, her legs sprawled on a leather bean bag.
"I should say so........who cares" she laughed and sipped from the steaming mug in her hands. I had one myself, in my lap, and I tended to take long draughts from mine, whereas as Janus was more refined. She drank slowly, until it almost grew cold. Just the thought of cold spiced wine sent a wave of revulsion through me, and I loved my wine dearly.
I tipped my mug, bottom to the sky, and pressed my fingers to my lips.
"All right, this is my third." I said, and as large as these mugs were, that was a lot of wine. I didn't feel anything, not a single tip in my perception invaded my mind.
"Michelle, you drink to fast, you're a pig" Janus laughed. I stood up in mock anger, only to find my head spinning unexpected; I fell hard on the sofa.
"All right, all right, so maybe I haven't developed the best tolerance yet." I laughed as I stood again.
Janus laughed and laid herself on the bean bag chair, kicking her feet in the air in idle motion.
"We haven't been out of high school 5 months and already I'm having the time of my life". She said to my back, I only heard the last few words.
I moved to the kitchen, clambering somewhat sloppily down the hall and I began back, a bag of chips in hand. I had almost reached the end of the hall (I having to stop by the bathroom on the way to the livingroom) when I heard Janus's laughter stop abruptly.
I stopped, I was feeling on edge. I hadn't had just wine to make me this inebriated, I had a little help, but I decline to say from what. As it was, I felt a tight humming run through every fibre of my being, beating in my chest. For what seemed an eternity, everything was silent, no neighborhood dogs, no crickets, no cars, not even the noisy Air conditioner made any sound as I waited for Janus to start laughing again. I heard nothing.
I dropped the chips as an invading spot of brilliant violet appeared in the corner of my right eye, flowering, rising and ebbing. It was just a hallucination but all the same it seemed to echo my concern............I knew that when Janus was wasted, she never stopped laughing. I dropped the chips and they spilled on the floor, making an amplified sound, like a clarion at dawn. I jumped and willed my feet to move; it was only a few steps to the living room.
My bare feet seemed to scrub the carpet loudly as the rising flowering violet hallucination grew, invading all the sight in my right eye. I stopped at the corner........did I dare peer past this corner. Now as I think back on it, I wish I hadn't, but at the time, I had no choice. What I saw, I think will haunt me forever.
At first I couldn't see her at all, then I heard such a mild rasping sound, I almost dismissed it as the wind, or a renegade cockroach, stuck in an aluminum can. Then I saw the red painted toenail, glinting in the lamp-light, as it protruded from the closet. It twitched a little, as if to beckon me closer. I walked even more slowly now, the violet hallucination attempting to cloud over my left eye as well; it wasn't enough that I lost my depth perception to the baneful phantasm.
I stopped at the door, which was closed upon her foot, which still twitched ever-so-slightly, and just rested my hand on the cold knob. I had to open the door before the violet, now laced with black, stole away my sight.
I did so and at first I couldn't see, my eyes weren't so quick to adjust to the lack of light. I saw movement in the corner, I and the figure of Janus, curled inside the small closet, sprawled over shoes and boxes. At first I assumed she had passed out, she was wont to do that sort of thing in the strangest places. However, I couldn't see the rise and fall of her breath; she had stopped twitching all together. The form in the corner then stood up, it stopped rising at a great height, having to lean over to keep from hitting it's head on the ceiling, though it seemed half of it was lost in t he darkness behind it.
I was scared, very very scared. I couldn't see well, everything now veiled in a haze of deep violet. I could hear the figure move, then it made a strange low noise, reaching like a hand toward Janus, who lay, still as a corpse. I was too scared to move, the first thought in my mind was that the figure was a murderer, a rapist. I saw the figure stroke Janus's face and immediately I sprang into a verbal onslaught, yelling madly, wildly.
"Touch her and die, you ......you bast—" I was cut short by the figure's quick rush toward me. The figure was still in the closet, it almost stumbled as it forced it's way over Janus, tripping on boxes. I tried to shut the door in it's face, but it forced it open. I was flung to the floor, gasping for breath, now completely blinded by the haze. I was helpless.
"All right, if you're going to kill me too, atleast have the decency to do it quickly, all right" I whispered to it. It made no reply.
I had only hearing to depend upon now, no matter how hard I tried to stare at the figure, all I could see was that violet veil. The figure came closer to me, I felt it somehow. I hitched in what I thought to be my last breath then felt a large warm hand touch my cheek. I was furious.
"What kind of sicko are you?" I asked almost inaudibly."You're going to do bad things to me, leave me to die, why must you torment me?" I began to cry, the figure lifted me to my knees, drawing it's arms not too tightly about my ribs.
It wasn't a restraint, it was an embrace. The figure made a low crooning noise as it stroked my hair. To me, it didn't feel like the prelude to an evil torturous act. Then the veil dropped, and I saw again.
The first thing I noticed was the fact that the figure's arms, which held me like a star-struck lover, were covered in a red amber fur, soft, short. I grew afraid again. I began to kick my feet, trying to struggle from it's grasp, but it held me. I began screaming, and the figure clamped a furry hand over my mouth. I bit and clawed at the hand until the figure let go. I wheeled backward, my head catching the edge of the coffee table quite sharply. My vision fogged, this time veiled by a far more worrisome color........pitch black. The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was a faun, a tall, reddish furred man, with goatlegs, and horns. What I noticed most was his large soft eyes, a mild intelligent, liquid ebony which seemed to portray only one emotion........ penitence.
I woke to the light of dawn, I lay in my bed and sighed a sigh of utter relief—it was only a dream. I looked out the window but everything looked different, barren. All was illuminated ominously with a strange vermilion shade. A dumb thought came to mind as I pushed the curtains open wider.............red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky in morning, sailor take warning.
I walked out of my room, down to the living room and behold, the room was in a fury of chaos. There in the center of the floor lay Janus and the faun, curled into eachtothers arms, dead. Or so I thought.
I took a long look at the pair then before I was aware what was happening they both rose, in spontaneous animation and dragged me roughly out of the house.
"Michelle, we have got some big, bad problems" Janus said quickly.
I was dragged off my perch and onto a dock at the ocean, where a small wooden boat was tied to the pier. I knew that Montana was very far away from the ocean, I wasn't out of some bad trip yet. It was then I happened to look at the vermilion sky when I hesitated.
"No, we can't, Red sky in morning, sailor take warning" I tried to plead. The Faun nodded his head but continued placing me in the boat, as if we had no choice but to take such a superstitious risk. I sat down, hugging Janus, very glad she was alive.
"what the hell is going on??" I asked in a slow waver.
"I don't know, chelle, but we have to get to Alaarn."
"What is.........where is Alaarn."
"I don't know but we have to get there." Janus said in a monotone, business-like voice not at all like herself.
The Faun, silent, rowed the boat, his massive arms flexing, making the fur rise on his forearms in synchronized motion. The water was quiet, and I began to feel at ease when a black wall of water, like a tsunami, rose above us, threatening to slam us deep within the sea. That was exactly what happened.
I fell deeper, ever deeper, not the water. I opened my mouth to scream but a gout of water rushed into my lungs. I heard a laughter, a deep sinister cackle, as I searched for Janus and the Faun. I found Janus, struggling in the clutches of a scaly dragon-like creature. It flicked it's tongue over Janus's face as the pair writhed in the water. The Faun came to life and swam to Janus, trying to pull her free. The dragon held tighter, a sharp talon poised at Janus's throat. The faun pulled at the dragon's head, and Janus struggled free, but not without catching the point of the talon in her throat, making dark crimson clouds of blood rise about the trio and their melee.
All this time I was motionless, I couldn't move and I speculated that I was no longer alive. I couldn't gasp for breath or blink my eyes or turn my head, all I could do was watch, and I was grateful for the blood obscurity which encompassed them.
Then I felt something tugging at me, pulling me to the surface. I couldn't move, or tell her I was okay. That meant I wasn't okay. She looked at me and sobbed, then broke into a fury of tears upon finding the shredded from of the faun floating to the surface.
"Jandrenitt has killed my Halinn, oh my Hallin" Janus wept as she tried to embrace the shreds. She was prepared to kill the Jandrenitt but had no need, it too rose, shredded. All Janus has left was herself and the whole corpse of me, whose soul seemed to linger stubbornly in my body. The deep wound in her throat bled freely as she swam, dragging me behind her, into the sun, which moved steadily above us.
It was when the sun was at Janus's back when a great spire was seen, suprisingly close. She swam to the island, dragging my body to the shore. I wanted to thank her but I was dead. She stood over my body and looked at the top of the spire, tears and blood dripping from her, onto my legs.
"How is this amended?!" she cried to the sky.
Then suddenly the landscape swapped, I lay on the sky, the ground high above me. Janus walked lightly to the spire, which pointed downward. Presently a short man, white-haired, crumpled, slid down from the smooth obsidian spire.
"Don't ever ride the bus again, the bus can't go down unpaved roads." Then the man took a flying leap and stabbed Janus in the chest with a short jeweled dagger..........
I woke to the light of dawn, I lay in my bed and sighed a sigh of utter relief—it was only a dream. I looked out the window but everything looked different, barren. All was illuminated ominously with a strange vermilion shade. A dumb thought came to mind as I pushed the curtains open wider.............red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky in morning, sailor take warning.
I shook my head Not again I thought as I closed the curtains, I was afraid to go to the living room. I wiped a cold sweat from my brow, shaking, not wanting to travel the whole cycle again when I heard a soft moaning from the floor in front of the bed. There lay Janus, just waking.
"Janus, are you okay?" I asked in concern. For a moment she didn't answer but then she turned, eyes slitted.
"No, I'm hung over" she grumbled and went back to sleep.
I made breakfast, even though it was nearly 5 in the evening.
It took me a long time to sort things out. I dealt with a bout of the 3 day insomnia, just thinking about what happened to me.
"I don't suppose you had a really bad dream when we were wasted that night, do you?" I asked Janus on the fourth day.
"No, none at all, I was out like a light for the longest time. You probably just had a bad trip, It happens to the best of us." She smiled, tilting her head back slightly........ exposing a healing wound. Then I knew what the old man meant. I knew what was going on.
I Knew it wasn't just a bad trip, it was a warning of some sort, from somebody omnipotent. I found all the acid, LSD, Cocaine that we had and threw them in the trash. I straightened up my life.
I woke to the light of dawn, I lay in my bed and sighed a sigh of utter relief—it was only a dream. I looked out the window but everything looked different, barren. All was illuminated ominously with a strange vermilion shade. A dumb thought came to mind as I pushed the curtains open wider.............red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky in morning, sailor take warning.
I was excited about my first day at school, my mother said I was a big girl now, and I knew she was always right. The dream still scared me but all my fears dissipated as I hugged Mr. Kodiac, my white teddy bear. I ran downstairs, in my nightshirt and woke my mother so she could get me ready for my first day of school.
She dressed me, made me breakfast, and then sent me on my way, to walk with my big sister to school. I saw so many people, mostly children, walking down the sidewalk, all laughing, talking about school. I skipped about happily, looking at everyone when I saw a rather friendly looking girl smiling at me as she swung on the gate in front of her house.
"Hiya, I'm Michelle" I said as I laughed at the girl, who stared at me with her head turned upside down. She laughed with me, her freckled cheeks stretched from ear to ear.
"Hello, My name is Janus."
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