Imaginary Friend

I said it.

I spoke it.

I somehow made sound again and managed to tell Jacob I loved him. Right after he said it to me, I felt another surge of...something. I would get them increasingly, ever since Jacob and I became real lovers. My whole body would thrum, almost like it had a beat.

Sometimes it was painful. I always ignored it.

Then, when he told me he loved me, it got worse. Everything felt....bad, and I felt my throat opening up and words were coming out. Multiple words. I told him I loved him. I said it. He heard me.

And before that, he'd named me. Abel. I now had an identity. Hearing my name gave me another painful surge. Almost...I couldn't describe it. I didn't even know what it was like. Unknown.

I cried. For the first time, I cried. What was happening to me? All these things happening to be, things I'd never experienced, now happening because of Jacob. I knew it was because of Jacob. He was my meaning for living. My everything. To think that something could happen due to some other reason was impossible.

But again...when he'd said he loved me, it had all become worse. I think. Or better. I don't know. Either way, it was different. Intense. Suddenly inexplicably intense.

The words had welled up inside of me without my calling them and fallen from my mouth. As before, I hadn't spoken intentionally. Instead the words were formed inside me, then forced from me. I had no control. My form had reacted with those words. Trying before to form my own speech was impossible. I'd tried.

Many times, I'd tried. But, speaking was not something I could control.

How I'd longed to whisper into his ear all the times we'd made love, after we came home from his job, or on the weekends all day in bed. I'd always be touching him, always have some part of me near him and feeling him. I couldn't not touch him. He felt too good. Years of feeling nothing, then suddenly he was warm and lovely in my grasp.

Having him react, hearing him cry out for me, wordless soft sensual cries for me, because of me. I found my lust in his skin, wrapped tight in his body's grip. Legs around my waist, tight and clenching thighs making movement difficult though better because of it. Arms looped over my back and perhaps over my neck, with fingers in my hair and touching everywhere there were places to touch.

I couldn't get enough. Thankfully, neither could Jacob. We craved each other, and nothing could keep us from each other.

Sometimes I couldn't even manage to wait to be inside him. Sometimes I just liked to rub along his body, letting the texture of him make me tense.

At first, I thought he might mind this. I didn't think it'd be acceptable. And I'd used my hands and mouth to bring him completion in efforts to sate him due to my inadequacy.

But he hadn't minded. He'd seemed to like my excitement as much as I'd enjoyed having it.

Thus, we had weeks of bliss. Of wholeness.

But now, something was wrong.

Something was pulling me, tearing me, forcing me away from Jacob. The great big whiteness behind me suddenly loomed black. Black and dark and full of horrible sounds and screams. I felt like I was dying. Again.

In that instant, I remembered dying.

Before, I was the same age...or physical likeness at least, as I was now. And I remember it being very painful. I had done something bad, and been killed because of it. I remember dying covered in my own blood. Completely soaked.

That gaping maw of shadows behind me seemed to grow and the pressure on my back increased. Knowing something was attempting to remove me from my newly discovered bliss, I dug my fingers into Jacob's skin, regretting having to hurt him, but not knowing what else to do.

If nothing else, Jacob would protect me. He would keep me safe. As always before in my existence, he would be my anchor, my strength, my will.

My very purpose.

His face was confused, though calm. He was unsure of why I would clutch him so, with such unusual force, and it pained me even then to see that question in his eyes. How I wished I could tell him. I wanted him to know. I wanted to explain. I wanted to make that fear disappear. But I was unable.

With my last ounce of strength, I tried to keep hold of him, but even as he reached up to grab me back, I was flying backwards, his face the last thing I ever saw. That room shrinking as I sped away from him, his body still flushed from our lovemaking and his face confused and suddenly broken.

My need to be with him simply because I wanted him, changed. It instead turned into the deep soul-crushing need to make him happy. He needed me, and I needed to be with him because he wanted me there. My only sudden wish was for that.

But, I continued to be torn away. The blackness grew deeper around me, even darker than the darkest starless night. Any light in this place would immediately be swallowed up and extinguished, never to be seen again.

If I had thought that the whiteness had been suffocating, then this was a thousand times worse. Myself felt crushed. It felt as if my center were the pit of a black hole and all my parts were being sucked into it, like I was being forced inside out, though there was no inside to become.

For eternity I was whisked through that torture of implosion, but it never came, I remained solid and the suffering was constant.

At once there was a light. A pinprick of whiteness suddenly in that abyss. I was flying towards it. I knew that in that light was relief. Relief from this unendurable agony that I thought permanent. If I made it to that light I would be safe. Maybe I would cease to be, which was still better than this.

Relief. Bliss perhaps even.

But I refused. I wanted nothing of the sort. I rejected that light as soon as I saw it.

Then the pain stopped. Or grew sharper. Again, I don't know. But, my everything felt feelings. Feelings I could not describe. An ache. An ache like in my heart for Jacob, but now making me want to run away.

I felt wet, covered in slickness so unbearably hot, I shuddered. Then I noticed a jagged surface beneath me, cutting into myself. Something rough and awful. I began to convulse. Twitching and jerking on that dark painful ground and that searing hot moisture on me making it all the worse.

I knew then that I was in hell. By rejecting that whiteness and wanting nothing more than to selfishly be with my Jacob, I had forsaken heaven for this torturous place.

But I didn't regret it. Not one bit. I would rather suffer eternal damnation than anything else if I could not have my Jacob.

The sounds hit me at once, almost deafening me. Roars of anguish and loud thunder booming all around me. I wished for silence, for solace. But it grew louder and harsher. Then there was pain. Pain I remembered as something wrapped around me. Something hotter than me and rough and quick.

I felt like I were made of glass and I were about to shatter any moment. It came to my attention that my eyes were shut. Which puzzled me, for before, I'd had no need for blinking. I doubted I'd even had eyelids.

As that unidentifiable mass continued to jostle me, I attempted to open them, finding it almost impossible, then, ever so difficultly, I managed a small slit of space between each lid. The brightness of the light almost blinded me, forcing me to slam shut my gaze once more. That horrible brightness, still somehow dark in its luminescence. How would I ever be able to open my eyes again? I at once never wanted to see such bleak brightness ever again.

But the thunder was still louder and I felt those molesting tendrils that had a hold on me, clench tighter. Move more wildly.

It hurt, and I began to scream, knowing in this place of doom no one would ever hear me.

“Stop!” A sudden sharp voice cried, making me cringe from the force of it.

My ears rang and I convulsed again, feeling that binding grip around me tighten while I shook. I continued to wail, and then there was more wetness on me, cooler and soothing on my heated hot flesh.

A softer voice floated down to me, deceptively familiar if not for the piercing volume of it.

“Please stop...Please...I don't know what to do...”

And at once, I knew this place was far worse than hell.


TO BE CONTINUED