In life, there are events that occur regardless of your desire. Old skin dies and the time comes to lose it. The skin bursts on you, hangs with rags, exposing pink and tender, causing you incredible pain. You breathe, you smile, you move by inertia, but the old has already died out and the time has come to accept the new. Time to make your choice and go the chosen path. No matter how painful it was.
I stand in the tunnel. Faint rays of light scantily illuminate the stone walls around me. Ahead of the darkness. It seems alive to me. It moves, whispers, breathes. I reach out to touch it. It is amazingly tangible. I think I can dip my fingers into it body. If I enter it, then perhaps I can find it gut, it core, I can feel it heart throbbing. But for this I need to stop by. I stand on the border of light and darkness.
I do not look back.
What for?
I know that I have no way to stay at this point. I can only go through it. If I stay here, the darkness will swallow me anyway, but on it own terms, it will take possession of me, become my rightful mistress. If I go forward, if I take this step, then maybe I will have a chance. A chance to get right through and find out what's inside. And no, not to win, not to destroy, but to understand, to understand its nature, to understand and accept. And learn to live with it.
My body is naked. My feet are barefoot. I feel the chill of stone on my feet. I'm scared. I'm madly lonely. It hurts me. The cold penetrates my skin, horror fetters me. I throw my head back and try to look at the light source. I want to shout: "are you with me, will you help me?" but my lips cramp.
I stand, peering into the dark nothing, and I feel something (or someone) from there peering at me.
Beast? Man? He is there. In the dark. I saw, with some inner vision I saw that he sensed me. He lifted and stretched his narrow muzzle a little forward (or a face? The more I look into the darkness, the stronger the feeling becomes that it is a face) .. Yes, a face. I'm pretty sure. But I won’t know for sure until I get to him. He lifted him forward, he listens, hears my breath. His body is tense, his nostrils are swelling, he is trying to draw in my scent, trying to imagine what I am and what I am going to him with. He is waiting for me.
I'm trying to understand who he is. Is he dangerous. He is neither friend nor foe. Conductor. But it is not up to him to decide whether I will pass or not. I know that for sure.
The darkness is impatient. She already wants, wants to plunge into me, to fill me with herself. The voids of my bones, the vessels through which my blood runs, the eyes that look at the light.
I am afraid to become nothing. I am afraid to stay in this viscous darkness forever. I am afraid that as soon as I let in the darkness, I will want to stay in it forever. It is warm and cozy. There will be no point in going out.
Yes, I'm scared. But I have no other way. I have to go. I take a deep breath and take a step.
Will I go out?
