Darkness For Eternity (500 Word Version)

• Josh Bortoletto, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2014

The deepest darkest, most distraught feeling lingered in the pit of my stomach. My eyes slowly peeled open and the pitch black darkness filled the cavities of my mind. The slightest glimpse of light shone upon my face. I rose to my feet from the hardened surface I lay upon. I reached for the light and could feel myself subsiding further and further into the abyss below, as if the walls were rising taller around me and the ground was bottoming out beneath my very feet. I lay my head against the icy ground beneath me, closing my eyes, about to give up faith and subside into the murky shadows. A familiar voice called my name, echoing throughout the perilous depths. A bright light pierced through my eyes, disturbing the darkness that clouded my mind and swallowed my soul. A cold padding of ice rested upon my face and I slowly rose from the depths of my pain and suffering. The glacial surface of a smooth-edged object ever so slightly pressed upon my bounding chest, I shot up releasing an exorbitant exhale of relief and worry.
An ear-splitting roar bounded outwards from the focal point of my larynx. A roar of pain so loud and boisterous that it could not be contained by the clenching of my teeth and tensing of my muscles. It bellowed across the room, drawing every set of eyes in the vicinity towards me as if my shout was a hefty magnet attracting metal shards from every direction. A razorblade impaled my abdomen, slicing through the flesh as if it was a knife cutting through warm butter. I flinched and attempted to rip my body away from the knife. A man as thin as a rake grabbed hold of my arms, pinning them to the sides of my body. He was a man of average stature and his grip was firm. He was dressed in heavenly blue scrubs, covered with blood splotches across his torso. Firmly repositioning my hands from the side to my chest, he aggressively insisted that I apply pressure to the wound to stall the bleeding. As I clenched my hands together on the seeping wound a sickening image appeared in my head. I slowly started remembering what had happened and why I was here.
Flash backs spun through my head as the lights in the room started to dim, softer and softer. The bright light that was earlier blaring to the stage of blindness was starting to fade away. The noisy chatter and instruments in the room started getting softer until the only remaining sounds were that of my heart slowly succumbing as I gasp for my last breathes of air and the annoying, coarse beeping of the machine beside me. A cold shiver ran down my spine and into my toes forcing them to wriggle about uncontrollably. What felt like years passed as I laid there cold, lifeless on the table.