THE SECOND SIGHT
Chapter 42
THE SACRIFICE
Location: THE CHAMBER
I knows then that this is the moment.
He cannot put if off anymore.
He has nothing left but a little phrase that has stuck somewhere de-ep in his br@in, tucked away for the last moment which he has erroneously thought will be postponed, but which has dawned on him suddenly without much fanfare.
…If you decide to accept the gift, all you will nee-d to do is to confess your sins and repent of them, and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and personal saviour…
Of course he has no wish to become an Unblind, but he doesn’t want these uglies to be in him, to take over! He wants to rip them apart every dirty limb by dirty limb, but that is as far as his cravings go. He is cut out to be a religious freak walking along in dark clothes chasing after retarded demons.
But will it work, in a situation where his heart is not really sorry for his sins? Wasn’t it written somewhere in the Bible that God sees into the heart of men?
If he prays won’t God be able to fathom out its hidden agenda, and by so doing turn His back on him?
Hell, His own son had been in a far deadlier situation, but hadn’t the bearded man above turned a deaf ear, even when Jesus cried out in His agony about the loneliness of being left alone on the cross? Christ, who had had no blemish on him had not been able to reach out to the Great God Almighty, how much more Boat, a self-proclaimed servant of sin, a true unbeliever with the ha-rdest heart in the business, a man who has not repented even in the face of the crushing evidence he has been presented with?
Surely there are other young men whom God can call to serve diligently in His great army. Boat is more than expendable, isn’t he?
But he simply can’t let this happen to him without a fight!
He owes it to my mother, grandfather and father! He has to repel this thing, and if giving in to a faith he has no belief in will do the trick, then he will gladly do it.
Now!
They are entering rapidly, spreading throu-ghBoat!
He can feel the strange s-ns¶tions, the explosive invasion that make his blood boil within him.
He still cannot not breathe, and the agony is so terrible that he feels his br@in giving way, ready to explode from the lack of oxygen.
Yaw Boat focuses, and closes his eyes ti-ghtly, and throu-ghthat agony he begins to pray.
BOAT
(gasping)
Dear God… dear, Lord-
And that is when the terrible blows start!
Cruel, punishing blows, ha-rd and merciless torture, hitting him in the face, in the che-st and in the stomach.
Boat gasps with the shock of the onslaught, and his eyes flies open.
The horned beast is still standing, arms held out, and face grimacing as the hosts of evil beings shoot out of it and smash into Boat’s body.
Boat, in a daze, sees that Shadow-Thing has detached itself from the monster and is now delivering punishing painful blows into Boat’s body.
Blood pours out of Boat’s mouth and face because his mouth is cracked open, his face bones broken, his ribs broken, his body in such agony that he cannot even concentrate on anything except the pain.
A crunching blow to my face makes his nose spurt blood like a fancy water sprinkler, and his vision blurs. The pain is fierce and unbearable, and he forgets completely that he is praying.
He can see the evil things leaving the monster thing fas-ter, in blurs, smashing into him, entering him in hordes!
Suddenly it dawns on Boat, throu-ghthe pain, that the Shadow-Thing is beating him up so violently because the demons are scared of the prayer he has started, and they are now in a hurry to possess him completely!
That is all that it means to do!
It is beating him to pulp, interfering with his call to a God Boat doesn’t particularly believe in! He tries to continue praying, to say it in his heart quietly without making a sound, but the blows are now smashing into his head, and he has no focus as he quickly begins to become unconscious.
He is on the brink of losing consciousness, and he can’t focus!
Finally, crushed and broken, Yaw Boat stops all thoughts and abandons all efforts to pray subconsciously because he cannot not even concentrate on a line of prayer.
His body has taken enough, and he doesn’t want to fight anymore.
He stops praying.
He just wants the punishment to stop!
And then, suddenly, from a very long way off, Boat hears the enraged bellow of the Monster, and at the same time he feels the blows slackening, their effects becoming weaker and weaker until he ba-rely feels the thuds of those fists hammering into him.
He feels the restlessness of the demons that have already invaded him, and feels their profound shock and confusion.
Boat’s puffed eyes take in the spectacle in front of him.
The monster shouts, and Boat can hear the shock in its alien voice filled tinged with fear.
JOE BOAT MONSTER
(shocked, scared)
MAN! MAN! WHAT ART THOU DOING?? BE WARNED, MAN! THOU SHOULDEST STOP, MAN!!
What happens next is macabre.
The face of the monster changes swiftly from the horned beast to the agonized face of Joe Boat!
It was immediately submerged by the demon, but a minute later Joe Boat’s face appears again, contorted with great pain and torture!
Joe Boat’s eyes are bulging, his cheeks exploding out, red angry veins standing out on his face!
The horn explodes out on top of his head, and his lower jaw changes into that of the beast, but his nose and eyes remain unchanged.
His whole body seemed to tremble violently with the effort, and when Boat is beginning to think his father’s whole face will explode soon, but suddenly Joe Boat lets out a fierce scream of torture!
JOE BOAT
(anguished, tortured)
Noooooooo!!! Leave my son aloooooooone!!
JOE BOAT MONSTER
NAY, NAY, NAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!
But with another scream Joe Boat for-ces his way throu-gh, and his head emerges in its entirety, although he still has the body of the beast.
Mercifully the agonizing pain leaves Boat’s throat and he begins to cough uncontrollably, as more blood pours from his mouth.
He is so battered that he can ba-rely comprehend what has happened as I stays in that semi-delirious state, caught in a terrible limbo between reality and hallucination.
He seems to hear a voice from a very long way off, and he sees his father’s li-ps moving urgently, screaming.
JOE BOAT
YAW! MY SON, YAW!! YAW!! YAAAAAAAAAAW!! WAKE UP, SON! PLEASE, SON, PLEASE…YAAAAAAW!!!
The agonized voice of his father finally for-ces the cobwebs away and Yaw Boat looks up, looking at his father weakly throu-ghthe slits of his swollen eyes.
BOAT
(weakly, tearfully)
Daaaad?
JOE BOAT
(shouting, weeping)
Pray, son, pray! It is your only chance! Repent now, Yaw! We can do it. I feel their fear! Pray, godamn it, pray son!! Come on, son! I for-ced them down but they’re coming back! I can’t hold them off much longer! Come on, you damn fool!!
Perhaps it is the insult, and perhaps it is the agony he hears in his father’s voice, but it finally pene-trates to Yaw Boat that somehow, by some miracle, his father has done the impossible: he has somehow managed to for-ce himself back on the demons, and throu-ghsheer will he has reigned supreme, holding them back so that his son can breathe and pray!
It isn’t supposed to happen, of course.
He has entered into a contract of death with the Devil, a contract that gives no room for negotiations, a contract that is sealed and delivered in blood.
Joe Boat is supposed to be the docile host, the container that has housed the evil beings for so long, and has begun to develop rust and thus must be replaced; he is supposed to be the br@inless sheep, led by the nose and unable to question.
And yet, somehow, that sheep has developed fangs, unknown to the abusive manipulator. Somehow, Joe Boat has been able to for-ce his way up and bite for the first time, catching his masters by surprise. He has gone against the rules, and has totally abrogated part of the contract.
That is unacceptable, and the consequences can be just as deadly.
Somewhere in the madness that is in Boat’s br@in, he finally un-derstands this sacrifice his father has made, and also un-derstand that it is the only chance he is going to get.
This is what a father’s love is all about.
This is the ultimate sacrifice.
And then, finally, after all the agonies and all the fear, Yaw Boat finally un-derstands that he is a pawn, that he is helpless… and that he is a sinner that nee-ds a saviour.
And at the point of helplessness, at that point of death, at that point of seeing a loved father suffering so much, at that point of knowing he is a powerless pawn in the hands of an atrocious collection of demons, Yaw Boat finally makes his choice…
His heart is at peace, and he believes…
Painfully at first, filled with sincerity, the words pour out from his soul, written in blood and delivered in love.
He feels moisture on his face and realizes that a new feeling is moving throu-ghhis body, a heightened level of un-derstanding that he has hitherto not believed he is capable of having.
He sees that his father is beginning to lose the battle.
His eyes are turning a terrible red, the crown of his heard beginning to pout.
BOAT
(weeping)
Dear father God. I am a sinner, sure, and I don’t know a whole lot about this repentance stuff, but believe me, dear Lord, I’ve seen enough, and now I believe. So please, come on, I believe in you, man, and I believe the Lord Jesus died to save my sins… yeah, it sounds good. I can’t say I love you profoundly, but I guess that will come later.
I don’t really un-derstand why you allowed Christ to die on the cross when you could just have killed the wicked humans and left the good ones and let us start all over again. But I’m being honest and sincere here so that you know my heart. So I guess later you’ll let me un-derstand all about why Christ died. My heart is ready for you, so come and stay in there with your son and the Holy Spirit. Deliver me, and use me, Father God. Amen.
Is it enough?
Was that even a prayer?
Boat doesn’t know, but it is the most sincere talk he has ever had with God, and he believes every little word of that prayer, and he indeed means every word.
It has come from his very depths.
Boat can ba-rely keep his eyes open, but he sees enough to notice that his father’s face has become one hu-ge map of perverse insanity.
It keeps changing shapes, flic-king from one hideous enigma to the next. One second it will be an unbelievably thin and long head above a snake-like ne-ck, the gaping mouth stretching from the floor almost all the way to the ceiling.
And then in another second that head will shrink to the size of a tennis ball, the eyes sticking out grotesquely, almost popping out, only supported by thin membr@nous muscles, and then it will swell outward to gargantuan proportions.
And within that rapidly changing face his father’s countenance keeps emerging once in a while – sad, agonized, wailing, tortured.
It is enough to drive any man crazy; but it simply breaks Boat’s heart.
In the craziness of his agony tears well up in his eyes, and slowly trickles down his cheeks.
Finally Joe Boat’s spirit is overcome, and the physical ugly beast appears.
hu-ge, horned, hairy, webbed and infinitely evil.
It growls in that rumbling ancient way which shakes the foundations of the building. It does not have its red eyes now, but the terrible abyss ones.
Its shoulders are hunched, angry, and ready to unleash terrible repercussions.
When it speaks there seems to be fire burning somewhere de-ep within its gullet, tiny flames that leap towards the roof of its throat, filling its mouth, and puffs of smoke emerges from its ears and nostrils.
JOE BOAT MONSTER
(evilly)
HOW DARE THEE!! THOU ART MINE, MINE, MINE!! THY BODY IS MY ABODE, PUNY EARTHLING!!
Yaw Boat stops weeping.
His cold eyes drill into the ugly monster.
Fear is no longer a part of his emotional make-up.
Tbc….