The Harmless Mixture of Torment | Short Story

He vomited.

He went along the steam, looking for a place where he could ford across. With each step, he could smell the putrid stench redouble. He could hear nothing. Even the sound of water was muffled. The treetops swayed, tapping against each other, but they didn’t emit that profound soothing sound that one would expect.

He finally glued his eyes to what looked like a shallow bit of the river. He sprinted there and begun to make his way across. His progress was hindered by a peculiar sight. What stood before him was a pale gray stallion. Its hooves rhythmically tapping, hypnotizing Jack. He watched the stallion prance around, zigzagging between the trees, but keeping close to the river. It soon froze at once. It gawked at Jack with a foolish expression. It ditched its gray hide, not unlike a snake, and grew a black one in its place. The black stallion tousled its shag. Its eyes turned purple, then green, and again purple.

Jack was dumbfounded, standing still. He was mired down. He felt the mud underneath give in. Slowly, he descended until he was knee deep, and then he dropped down. He fell into the ground, and was instantly spat out on the other side. Falling through the open space, he dared not to open his eyes. His hands gathered around his face as he was plummeting headfirst. Before long, he realized the overwhelming truth. He was falling, and falling endlessly. What started like an evanescent descend toward death became a perennial fall without meaning. He saw himself engulfed by the open space, its greenish color turning purple. With arms spread wide, he screamed, enraptured by adrenaline.

His head hit something. His body collided with something translucent that made his jubilant adventure come to a halt. He was resting flat, his face grimacing. He pushed himself off and looked on the other side where he saw the horizon. A school of fish swam around, joyfully. They sometimes collided with each other at which point a thunder bolt hit them, erasing them from existence.

The transparent sheet that held Jack started turning. He slid down the slope, slowly. He tried to climb up, or at least hold his ground. He couldn’t. His fingers slid down the oily material. No matter how much he struggled, he fell.

Landing, he found himself on earth. He was looking at the moon, but the moon appeared closer, much closer. It was so close, he could touch it, and it obscured much of the sky. One by one, a string of craters emerged from what seemed like an even surface of the moon. They coalesced into a grin, just like the one on the face of a snowman, but a menacing grin. It opened its eyes. It looked.

Jack feared being pinched between the two planets, but he couldn’t cease gaping in astonishment. The two planets drew closer. He was crush in an instance, but he felt no pain.

Something dragged him by the foot. Out of the darkness emerged a behemoth covered in light. It stood further away looking at him, but he was drawing closer. Its broad shoulders were embezzled by light, and its face was masked by a blinding veneer that resembled the sun. Jack could make out a pair of horns, before he was swallowed by the light. He trembled in pain, scorched by the rays. He screamed, seeing two figured overhead.

“Finally, we made it out.” The one with the horns exclaimed, prodding the other.

“He really shouldn’t have drank that hodgepodge, I tell you.” The other giggled.

“We both know the mixture is harmless, it’s something else.”

“Are you telling me this is punishment for wandering this far?”

“Magic? Curse? I’m not at liberty to say.” He cleared his throat. “Let’s hurry back home, I want to ditch the armor and the helmet.”

“What was he looking for in that cave anyway?”