You Beast, You Burden, or I Shall Fall (again)

The end is not nigh, the end is not nigh, please, not now, not tomorrow, not in a couple of years, not ever. I kept telling myself that until I awoke to find myself naked in a field, surrounded by blood, and I could hear screaming coming from the woods. It took me a few minutes to really figure out where I was, and by the time I got on my feet I was running.

The night was like any other, the moon somewhere in the sky, and everything was lit by just the fullness of the moon. I was in my thirties then, I had developed these legs I was finally proud of, and remember thinking to myself, amongst the chaos happening all around me, that I was glad all that training I put into those legs worked out. Sure I screamed, sure I was running, and screaming like the rest, and at times I felt they were running away from me. I slowed down, and started running the opposite way, but they yelled NO!, and I yelled, WHY!?, and they yelled back, just NO!, pause, just doooON'T!. So I looped around and ran back, but just then and there on the side of my vision, I saw it.

The thing was huge, it was mightier than the mountain, it encompassed the sky, with two red circular eyes, our hearts were frozen, our faces ghostly, we were going. to. die.

I swear to God this moment froze, I moved my fingers, they wiggled, I turned my head and it turned. The world was frozen, the beast was gone, those frightened faces suspended, and my legs still attached to the ground. When I awoke, I was moist from peeing myself at some point, all was silent, and I was cold, seeing my breath materialize before me. The ground had stopped shaking, there wasn't a stir in the air, and for a moment, I felt at peace. The palm leaves hissed in the wind, the moon appearing bigger than ever, I told myself I am ready to die.

The next day, I returned to that field, I told the sherif that this was where I last saw it, the more I said IT the more I was losing him. We searched that field for hours, and found nothing more than some rotten pineapples, a dead cat, and a series of gold pebbles. We retired close to sunset, the Sherif offered me a ride, and we both looked at that sunset, knowing that there will never be one quite like that one ever again.