Gutting The Fawn

THE STILLBORN THAT LIVED

He awoke from a dream. He awoke from an epiphany. It was late at night, or early. His clock was flashing.

12:00

12:00

12:00

In his dream he was running from evil. The evil. A pure essence of evil. He had not witnessed it, but he could sense what it was. He must run if he wanted to ever be happy again. But then he fell in the darkness. He fell into the darkness. And when he got up he was confronted with a mirror. In the mirror was his reflection, but not only his. The mirror reflected everyone he ever knew, everyone he never knew, everyone in the world. And then they spoke through him:

“The closer you get to the light, the greater your shadow becomes, and when the world is bathed in light, our shadow will be the greatest,”

And then he woke up.

Evil was all he could think about. Was what his dream told him true? Was nothing more evil? Was his species the evil that hid in plain sight? No, he concluded, of course not. He would not stand being a member of a collective malevolence. He was not a member. There was something more immoral than his race and it’s…

It is…

“It’s in there,” he spoke, pointing to the closet.

All the evil in the world, all the unspeakable wickedness was lurking in the dark recesses of his closet. He was certain. It was in there and it was…

“Hello,” a voice said that was not his own. A voice that he could not be placed to a body. The sound of the voice cut the silence in two and discarded one half. If a voice could do this to silence, to something golden, imagine what it must be able to do to regular dust.

“H-Hello?” He stuttered, “Who are you?”

“I am the stillborn that lived, and all I have known is pain. You are a foetus with wings and are useless until you escape,”

It was at this point he realized the voice was coming from the closet.

“Are you going to kill me?” he asked.

“Death is beautiful. If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, what is the road to Heaven paved with?” The Voice inquired.

He did not respond. The question had momentarily stunned him.

The Voice continued:

“The road to Heaven is paved with me, and I know this. I do not kill. I only let you die,”

“Will you let me die?” He asked.

“I will let you kill yourself,” The voice responded.

“And if I don’t want to die?”

“Then you will live, with good intentions”

“I am the road to Hell?”

“No, you just carry it. But you are in luck, you are talking to the road to Heaven,”

“You can take me to Heaven?”

“Do you know what it feels like to be ripped?”

He did not respond. But he wasn’t scared. Being in the presence of this thing gave him a feeling of innocence.

“You are a troubled case. There is a loophole in your reasoning.”

“Why am I troubled? What is the loophole?”

“You are troubled because you take comfort in being next to evil itself, just because you look good beside it. And wouldn’t it be nice to die in your sleep?”

Then an epiphany:

“I’m asleep?”

If he was asleep that means that it was all in his head. He had created evil from himself. He was the father of sin. Wouldn’t it be nice to die in your sleep?

***
They said it was a suicide. That he had wandered to the bathroom and proceeded to ingest a cornucopia of pretty coloured pills. When he started to feel drowsy he went back to bed and waited. He would spread the newborn wings. He slept. Wouldn’t it be nice to die in your sleep?