Por: David Ricardo Ramirez
Ilustrado por: Jean Montoya
I do hold in high esteem the medical literate, for they have mastery over life and death when the reaper comes, but it wasn't the revolution of new knowledge due to these times of enlightenment the reason why I look upon my dust-ridden books about anatomy and academic literature. No, it was at the beginning at least a noble pursuit, being able to clean wounds, suture cuts, and care for the sick again, but it turned into a source of self-pity. I grew tired of my dull and monotonous studies. There were all things that I somewhat already knew.
I fell into a deep gloom, once a great physician, now nothing more than a miserable cripple, I went in the opposite direction and became inquisitive on occult texts about the afterlife, I had accepted the fate of my condition and I was in search of peace and rest at last, but then I encounter in those words a strange and wonderful comfort.
I began my investigations with modesty nevertheless my ambition was boundless. First, I reviewed my personal collection on the topic of death studies and my experience on near-to-death cases then I search for new knowledge on the occult from the books I have gathered from the Lurrux library. I had access to all their collections being a former graduate, but a man with my condition would indeed be suspicious entering a private university in such a carefree manner. So, I went only at nighttime, knowing full well professors would do their lectures on the oval master hall far away on the other side of the campus manor. Months had passed since I first started giving in to my curiosity, but I should have foreseen the dark nature of the things I would have to perform in order to advance with my endeavor soon enough. I was performing experiments on the corpses of animals like bats, snakes, or frogs; those last were particularly responsive to the odd new treatments, although their bodies decayed too fast. Who could have thought the terrible importance of something as unremarkable… as a spasm in the leg of a dead rat.
I studied restlessly and encountered myself at any given time reading in the manor empty solar. It was the perfect spot, full of daylight at noon and warm at night, it wasn't far from my cluttered room, and I did not have to strain my legs very much while moving between the two or use my cane very often. If it weren't for my bruised back, I would have used the upstairs studio, but none of my sons were then in this home no longer, and were my body to fail, I would have rotted alone in those red carpeted stairs.
Someday I fell asleep on one of the solar’s wooden chairs, late at night the darkness consumed me, and all the eerie procedures that I read in those uncanny tomes somehow weighted on me.
There it was a younger me, my older brothers walking past my room while I looked through the window down to my two sisters playing at the yard´s pond, they were giggling, making whirlpools, and chasing one another. It was a cold autumn evening, the air was moist and fragrant with myrrh that came from the newly cleaned curtains, it was a favorite of mother’s she was always adamant of the importance of having a well-cared for home.
Then I saw the room change, the light disappeared from my window rapidly until I couldn't see my sisters anymore, the room grew so cold I hugged myself in an attempt to gather warmth, but it was useless. Candle’s fire was extinguished and replaced by smoke, and there I felt the burning cold down my veins, I was frozen, unable to move a single fiber, but then I keenly felt a presence lurking at my back, I voided myself upon seeing some lifeless body standing on the door once I decided to turn. Blood pouring from his screaming mouth, some cruel knife having rent his lungs into gore, he was naked, blindfolded, had his arms bound, and was bent slightly over, I felt nerveless as he then took a step towards me sobbing and gasping for air that entered through his nose and came out through the gaping holes in his chest while screaming sordidly:
“I'm sorry, please no more! no more!”
He walked closer to me dripping blood with every step, letting out a breath of fog every time he screamed for help, the room grew darker and colder until he was so close, I could see his entrails inflate and deflate beneath his bones.
“NO MORE!” he yelled, and I felt like the bones of my ears had ripped through my eardrums, making them bleed.
I woke up in panic.
Sweating and shaking, I lunged from the wooden chair, tripping over my weak legs to the side landing jaw first onto the tiled floor, I heard books fall off my lap and the sound of teeth against hard ceramic. It was still night, and not a single dim of dawn light was visible, I contained my soul into my breath, trying to think rationally. Was it a dream? Who was that man?
I rapidly used my arms to drag my upper body towards a wall, heart rising, face sore. I put my back against the wall sitting on the now blood-soaked tiled floor, it did not matter how hard I tried to open my eyes. It was just a black empty void. It was still night and unfortunately, my table candles had burned out.
I tried to contain with all my might that anguish knowing that, if I would have screamed, insanity would have loomed upon me, panic would have devoured me. Had I allowed myself to fall victim to my own mind? I breathed slowly, concentrating on my hurt cheekbone, allowing it to trickle blood that I felt spilling from my left cheek and lips down to my chin and shirt. There I stayed, covering my mouth with both my hands
Mustering the courage to move, I approached the fallen books, and just as a blind man would do, I touched the floor searching desperately for where it could the matches had fallen. I still felt a presence, it was truly a foul shade watching me in that vulnerable manner, ready to punish me due to my blasphemous readings, I found the forged steel warped with a leather strap around the flint of a strike-a-light I had, but I still searched for the matches. I will not give the opportunity to see once and regret darkness then. Finally, I found the matchbox, I reached for the candles on the drawer of the table, striking the match I saw the solar still empty, and touching the cord of the candle with it I disposed myself of setting up all the candles and one by one, illuminating the whole room. I just wanted to keep that presence away and with each one I turned on I felt more at peace, but how long until sunrise came? I wondered in worried thoughts once more.
