Path in the Dark

by Harry Tsionas

 Part I: “The Sky is so scary”

I don't want to close my eyes… I'm afraid to enter that place that makes me
shiver all over. If something happened, I wouldn't sleep again. It's horrible to
feel that the world you create terri es you, but that's not all! There's something
else that scares me in there…

It was a winter morning in December... Wednesday. In those days we were

going through the coldest winter of the last decade! Roads were often closed
while children went into Christmas break early. I was up at 5.00am to catch the
transport due to the bad weather although my shift started at 7am and I wasn't
far enough from work. At the time I was working as a security guard in a
building that housed immigrants. It wasn't hard work and the pay was pretty
good, besides me alone in a small apartment in the city center, I didn't need
much, never really did.

But that morning was different... the sky was strangely dark, but it didn't snow
or rain. It was as if she sensed that something horrible was about to happen and
already began to mourn. And the atmosphere… the air made me feel the fear of
the sky. I didn't pay attention because I had been out with friends the night
before and had had enough to drink so I thought I was just being in a bad mood,
but eventually he accepted that it wasn't just my idea!

For the past few weeks something has been going on at work, with a tenant, a
woman of about 45. She was said to be heard shouting in strange yahs, while
others blamed her for the strange smells of rotting meat she used and smelled
throughout most of the building. I had seen her several times although she did
not usually leave her house. she was stout with green eyes that were
mesmerising yet her facial features had something intoxicating, not something
you can fall in love with, something that makes you look at it with awe and a
touch of fear. My colleagues and I often talked about her. Something scared
them, as soon as they were in eye contact, but I was a bit skeptical, I didn't
believe all those stories they told, about black magic and dark ceremonies that
she supposedly organized in her house.

It was about 10 o'clock, and the sky was not saying to clear of those strange
clouds that caught my attention every time I looked at the sky. Suddenly, some
screams were heard from the 6th floor... I was shaken! A feeling of dread took
over my body and got worse when I heard my colleague's muffled voice calling
for backup. What was going on up there? I never really found out, but I didn't
want to nd out!!!

I came out of the tent that we were using as an outpost... I heard a window break
and in front of my feet the corpse of my colleague landed, a few seconds later,
that woman also jumped and landed next to him!
The whole place was lled with blood and two corpses lying dead on the
ground. Screams of terror from the other people around me took over, erasing
the calm that had prevailed earlier.

The eyes were glued to the horrible and hideous sight of the corpses that had
been almost crushed by the fall. It was terrible to see human organs taken out of
their bodies. But something else was what shocked me and etched my mind like
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 an eternal curse. The gaze of that woman was like the gaze of the devil! That
green color in her eyes had disappeared, now they looked like a burning flame,
redder than the red of the re that consumes everything. Her eyes fluttered
open and just before she passed out she smiled but it looked like an evil smile.
A smile that foreshadowed a dark will come true.

I had lost track of time, being stuck in that spot, in front of the two bodies, until
the men of direct action came and managed to get me, but no one really did
from that day on!

Part II: “It’s just a dream”

Some months have passed... Three.... Four? I don't know, I can’t count them,
anymore. I'm not myself anymore, I think, my mind is reeling in madness,
beckoned by scattered and terrible thoughts, so are the nightmares... They
won't let me sleep... I stay awake so I don't go in there again, in the world of
dreams, in that dark room where soul and mind are captives of that horrible
memory that played out before my eyes, and… that creature with the cold
breath. I have never seen it, but I fear it. I'm so scared… I don't know if I can
stop being scared of something I've never seen.

It all started a week after the incident at work. I think, it was a dream, a very
strange dream! I was lying on my bed… I felt like I was awake… The light from
the window forced my eyes to open, but when they nally opened there wasn't
that much light, which worried me. I got up from my bed and went to the
window... I saw dark clouds have covered the sky. Clouds darker and than
those of the most dangerous and powerful storm to come. There was something
strange about them, as if they were there to swallow the light. Something made
the body shiver, as if the temperature had suddenly changed, and then I left the
room…

All the doors of the house were open! But that's impossible, because I never
leave them open. What scared him the most was that the front door of the house
was wide open... as if it was missing, and behind the door was darkness! Vast
and lawless darkness! I was afraid but myself refused to admit it. I didn't dare to
go through any door, and then I stood still… I couldn't move, while I felt
someone breathing on my neck! The one with the cold breath. I did my best to
wake up because I sensed that something very horrible was lurking in the
shadows and now living inside the head.

The days went by and the dreams... the nightmares became more and more
frequent. For a long time I did not go to work ... I could not go there, something
prevented me. I asked my employer to change the building for me but as he
said if he nds something available he will let me know. I never thought he
meant it, he just wanted to reassure me.

I used to spend a lot of time in the park, a few meters away from my house. I
was trying to be where a lot of people were. I was afraid alone, I felt vulnerable.
And the moment comes when you're looking for answers, what's really going
on? Why did it start? When did it start ; But when you look for answers to such
questions, more questions come up. They'll think I'm crazy if I tell them the
truth, but I can't keep it in, it weakens me more.

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 And the nightmares became visions, something is haunting me, I feel it. And
what I was afraid to see when I was asleep, came to me when I was awake. as I
sat on the park bench, It was May, whenever, the park was full of people
enjoying the sunny day. I was reading my favorite novel, I was focused on its
pages and the story of those two young people who even though they were both
sick, their love remained strong even when one was gone... In a moment, I
looked up... I was no longer at the park.

I was in a dark forest, everything was black and white, the light was missing
from the sky, and there was a layer of fog everywhere. It was cold, freezing like
many icy breaths falling on me. I started walking through the dark path, and I
felt two eyes looking at me and that cold breath now hitting my face, but there
was no one there. Me in that dark clearing, alone... imprisoned in my own mind!

And then I looked across… where two stunted trees had twisted around each
other, making them look like arch pillars…. I couldn't believe what my eyes
were seeing… it was that woman I saw jump from the sixth and disintegrate on
the ground. I couldn't see her face but I could feel her presence, her
enchantingly haunting gaze. A deafening whisper was heard in my ears that
froze my blood at every word...

-"Darkness follows you, it won't leave you until you regret having dared to look
it in the eye!" What did he mean? It took me a while to gure it out… but when I
nally did, I really regretted it!

Where you think that everything is predetermined, you believe in fate and
karma, comes the experience that will change your beliefs. No one can answer
the question of whether I found myself in this moment of utter madness and
horrible pain by chance or whether it was predestined. The point is that this
experience changed me more than any other pivotal moment in my life.

Part III: “Find the truth, at any cost"

They say that if you seek the truth, you will eventually nd it, but at what cost? I
hear people say that the truth "hurts" and that is true even for those who pretend
to be the brave and the strong. So this is what happens to the brave… For the
next few months, nightmares continued to plague my mind and keep me awake
at night, so I decided to ght, learn the truth and drive the fear away… at what
cost!
But no matter how hard I searched, I couldn't nd anything about her. It was as
if he never existed. After years, however, I learned the truth...

It was then that I had nally calmed down, nally found peace and those, untold
nightmares began to fade into oblivion. I was traveling to that village, south of
the Bavarian Alps. A quaint little village, lost among the green hills, where even
in summer, the breeze has a mesmerizing cold breeze. The best way to escape
from your thoughts and problems. Inside the train I was traveling with, I met a
woman! A haggard-looking old woman was not of these parts. She told me that
she was going to see her grandchildren and her daughter-in-law and as the
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 conversation progressed, at one point she told me about an incident that

happened to her many years ago, in her hometown...

Once upon a time, a young and beautiful girl lived in a small village in the
Middle East. This girl had an intoxicating...almost terrifying beauty, yet she was
unmarried and unfortunately an orphan. One night, ten men tried to rape her!
They caught her, beat her, mutilated her body and face, and then raped her,
one after the other. It was sad… a young woman just lost her virginity… and
herself. She decided to leave the village because all the residents mocked her,
hated her and considered her a prostitute! The young woman left the village
and while walking for endless hours with her wounds hurting and bleeding, she
was found by an old woman. She took her home and nursed her, then the young
woman asked the old woman to stay with her because she had nowhere to go.
So it happened!

After some time, the old woman asked the young woman, who made these
wounds on her body. Although at rst she was embarrassed to tell her story,
she nally did… she explained what happened that day when ten men took
away her most precious possessions. The old woman got angry with the young
woman… she wanted to drive her out of her house, but the young woman fell at
her feet and begged her to help her. Finally he convinced her, and the old
woman told her that the only way to drive the shame from her, is to take
revenge!

The old woman showed the young woman some black magic rituals aimed at
revenge! And for several days and nights, the young woman learned the
forbidden knowledge, thus losing her soul. Every trace of kindness had
disappeared... Now, lled with hatred and rage, she returned to her village and
cast her last spell, destroying the compound, along with all the inhabitants. The
myth says that the woman survived the destruction but is forced to wander the
Earth and punish rapists and traitors.

At rst I didn't pay much attention to the words and the story that this old lady
told me on the train, because I thought it was one of those scary stories that
parents tell their children, but after a while I started to understand what she
meant! About 2 weeks before the incident at my work, a woman was
complaining about the behavior of my colleague, who died that day in the
accident(?!). My boss was often told that he was harassing her and that he used
to follow her wherever she went, so one day he went to attack her to rape her!

Somehow I learned the truth, a truth that will haunt me even more than that
hideous sight, then. It's ironic to think you know exactly what happened without
knowing why it happened and who pushed the situation to this point. Until that
moment, the woman who jumped into the void was the one who pushed the
colleague, but the truth is that what pushed him was what those ten men did to
that woman, then!

THE END
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