Summoned

It was like being born, I suppose, only with a memory of... something? Like the kraken surfacing after ages in the depths to gulp at the air.

It was like deja vu. Like being in a place you’ve never been, but somehow recalling it with a whimsical fondness that betrays the dread of being back. It was like being the genie in the bottle while greedy hands rubbed, and wonder filled eyes gazed in at your nakedness.

It was like being in a place you don’t want to be, seeing faces you don’t want to see, but one. That one face at once familiar and forgotten and foreign.

Asking how you are, and where you’ve been? Unanswerable questions all, when there is no longer a who? Things of no importance, or consequence, while your untried voice screeches, and moans.

And anger at being drawn into this place and out of the other, with naught but chains to whipsaw rattle and shake, and breath to suck through rotted teeth like cold water.

It was discomfort, and confusion, and angst. It was like dementia multiplied and again, and folded overtop of itself in layers. It was the unleashing of the secrets...

It was the horror and dread of knowing there would be “that” again.

And then they were gone, and I.