A dream in Hell

     I spin in a circle for a few moments, quickly finding my balance and a direction in which I want to run. I don't know why I feel the need to run, but that seems natural to me at the moment. I don't even know where I would really like to run and where I would like to go, but the fact is that there is only a vacuum around me without a horizon and anything else.

     I listen intently to the howls around me, the sound of agony and pain. A multitude of people seem to be tormented, as if they were burned at the stake. Before I start running, I look around a few more times, but everything seems blurred, although it doesn't look like fog around. There's nothing here, actually.

     I start running without realizing it, in a direction whose destinations I don't know. I don't know what awaits me in the next few minutes or in the next 100m. My legs move against my will, and my hands seem to move separately from my legs. The rest of the body feels like I'm just taking a little walk, but my legs are running like crazy.

     Unable to see anything around me, I seem to be running on the spot, without actually moving. However, I am definitely moving because the screams are getting closer and closer to me, feeling their warm breath on my much too cold skin. Did I die?
     I close my eyes for a few moments and when I open them, I wake up in another world, one broken by the one I was in. Here everything has shades of red and blood, as if hundreds of people died, and only their blood remained in the air. The ground is also red and dry, with cracks of all shapes. My legs start moving again against my will. In some areas, the ground has cracks so large that precipices with sharp edges have formed. I lean towards one, wanting to see what is below and how high such a precipice is.

     I begin to sweat, the drops falling down the precipice. I feel my face burning, as if it were on fire. My eyes are furrowed by a strong and balmy light, and when I bend down more, I see the lava bubbling under my feet, at the bottom of the precipice as if it were boiled water on the stove.

     I walk away and let my feet run again. I glance at the sky, realizing that I can't control my legs anyway, and that if I fell, it would happen anyway even if I was careful on the road. The sky is creased with thick, red lurid clouds, and here and there you can see all kinds of strange birds, as if they were dinosaurs. The noise these creatures make through their beaks or what they have is like the shrieks of anguish that I can hear from everywhere. However, there doesn't seem to be anyone here, and if you look at the place without listening to it, you'd think it's deserted.

     A voice comes from my right, and my legs stop at the limit. I sway to the edge of another precipice, a few stones falling into the lava and disappearing forever. Red lightning violently attacks the sky, hiding behind clouds. I try to listen to the voice carefully approaching me, but I hear it coming from all sides.

     My head makes repeated movements in a circle, trying to locate the source of the voice, but without realizing it in front of me there is another view. I see my grandmother in her big chair at her house in another Region. The view is calm and when I look at it, the broken noises of Hell seem to recede. I turn my back for a moment, but the reddish landscape is still there, and the voices seem to be approaching again.

     I look back at my grandmother embroidering a blouse I know she gave me when I was seven. I received it by mail and it was the first package I received because until then I was not allowed to receive any package from my parents or any relative.

     On the floor, next to my grandmother's legs, stands a plump, fat girl with shiny black hair. She looks at my grandmother with wide eyes and I immediately realize that I am that girl at the age of three. As much as I would like to remember this event, my mind does not seem to recognize this image exactly. Although I know for sure that this happened, I can't remember it.

     The little black-haired girl - that is me - extends her hand to her grandmother, asking her for something. Grandma gives her the embroidery and while the little girl is playing with her, the old woman leans on the back of the chair, swinging back and forth with her hands folded across her chest.

     “Well, honey... You know that there is a very nice gentleman up there, who is waiting for me with open arms. I don't know if I will reach Him or if He will send me to His greatest enemy, but I know that you will surely reach His arms. It is said He has an infinite kingdom, broken by the disaster that is happening on Earth today. His kingdom is in Heaven and is the most beautiful and peaceful place where anyone can live. He said that if we love and serve Him, He will give us this kingdom forever. And all good people have a place up there with Him. Now we are not allowed to pray to Him, but I know that my grandparents did not break this tradition at all and prayed daily. I am convinced that they have reached Heaven. There are good angels, clothed in simple white robes that protect us from the forces of evil, and this evil is embodied by Satan who dwells in Hell. In Heaven there is greenery everywhere, but in Hell there are only flames and suffering people. But don't worry, you can only get there if you're a bad man, and you're not, my little one. His name is God, and people today have feared of Him so much that they have forbidden us, the common people, to pray to Him. But you know, honey, a lot of people pray in secret because God loves us. The apocalypse is coming soon and will destroy anyone who is evil. The dead people will wake up and so will the final judgment. God will descend on a cloud on the trumpets to which all the angels will sing, and God will take with Him only the people who loved Him and prayed to Him.”

     Grandma continues her talk about God. It's not the first time I've heard of Him. There is very little talk about it and in general everything is secret. Only the family talks about it. My mother never made me pray or believe in God. She just told me to be a good human and protect myself, and she would pray for me. She told me that when I’ll have children I would tell them about God and only then I’ll pray for them so that I would not become like my grandmother.

     I look at the old woman with gray hair and a face full of the wrinkles of youth who gestures and speaks so passionately about God. Soon, her eyes widen and her veins swell on her face. She begins to cough and blush, almost becoming bruised, but she does not stop talking.

     The little girl in front of her starts crying and without realizing it, a few tears flow to me. I turn my head for a few moments at the landscape behind me, being full of flames and people running burning. This is the Hell my grandmother was talking about. That means I died and I was a bad human being, and my destiny is to burn like the others. I look at my grandmother again, my much younger mother appearing in the picture crying and screaming. My father also appears in a fresher version, without so many wrinkles and without a beard. He runs towards the girl and takes her upstairs, disappearing into another room. The little girl's cries can be heard even now, when her grandmother seems to die. But Grandma can't die now, because when I came back she was alive. She died a year after I returned home, when I was about 12 years old.

     My mother desperately takes a remote control out of her pocket. With trembling hands, she pressed the red button, the only button on it. In desperation, she presses it several times until an alarm starts to sound from outside the house on the street.

     I close my eyes and let a few tears fall over my hot cheeks. All the noises seem to be muffled, both the little girl's cries and my mother's screams, as well as her grandmother's panting and the screeches of people burning. I open my eyes and I am again in the foggy vacuum, in front of a dusty mirror.

     A thick fog seems to be floating everywhere this time. I try to get closer to the mirror, but something seems to keep my body stiff, not moving when I ask. I look around, but there's no one. No reddish earth, no lava, no precipice, no winged dinosaur, no burning man and no horizon.

     The agonizing noises coming from my family and the tormented people of Hell seem to be moving away from me quickly, but instead I hear a familiar alarm.

     Ding...

     I know what's next and no matter how much I want to get rid of this nightmare, I want to stay a little longer and touch the mirror that seems to mesmerize me.

     Ding...

     Everything is getting more and more blurred and I feel like I'm being stolen from this strange world.

     Ding...

     I'll wake up soon.

     Ding...