“Hey, there’s another package I need you to deliver.” Isaiha’s boss walks into the shipment area, clipboard and flashlight in hand. 

“But it’s the end of my shift. Barry can do it,” Isaiha scoffs. 

“No can do. It’s on your route. And I know it’s the end of your shift, so I’ll put as little extra in your paycheck.” He hands Isaiha the flashlight, then exits out of the cold, dimly lit room, followed by Barry who walks away without saying a word.   

Typical of his boss to leave the last-minute work to him, but since the pay suffices to afford to take care of his mother in his expensive hometown, he guesses he can’t complain. But, when the day comes to leave this horrid place, he will not hesitate to slam his resignation letter on his boss’ desk.

 All packages ready for delivery are stationed by their respective trucks. Next to his truck is a large, brown box marked “fragile,” loaded onto a cargo cart. Isaiha lets out an exhausted sigh as he loads the box into his truck, but then furrows when he gauges how light the box is. But no matter; he closes the back doors and continues to the driver’s seat, what’s inside the package has nothing to do with him. 

The GPS is logged to the destination; however, for it being on his route, he does not recognize the address. It’s already an hour past the time he should be home, so instead of calling his boss or googling the neighborhood to make sure the address is correct, Isaiha turns the key and gets moving. 

No sun in the sky. The low-beams of his car provide little light in the foggy night atmosphere. He can swear there are pedestrians wandering the streets because of the human-shaped silhouettes catching his eye in the rear and side-view mirrors, yet when the fog clears as it passes by, there’s no one in sight. 

Hours have passed, yet, on the GPS, his car appears to be in the same spot. Something else strange catches his eye; every street on the map is the same. Isaiha wipes the sweat from his brow, pulls over to catch his breath, and inspect the broken GPS. “It must be the weird weather messing with satellites or something,” Isaiha utters to try convincing himself. 

His eyes can’t help fixating at the abyssal fog. He’s never seen it so dense and wonders if he should drive in these conditions, so he tries radioing his boss to confirm—nothing but static on the other end. The woman on GPS startles Isaiha when she announces he’s arrived at his destination, he notes it never spoke until now and he has that setting turned off. He gives the screen a few taps with his finger—the car shuts off. Bewildered, Isaiha jumps out of the car and into the fading fog that trails all the way to the left, diverting his eyes from the truck to a quaint, brown and yellow house. It’s the only house on the block. His heart thumps in his shirt as he reads the address on the mailbox. 

All he wants to do is deliver the package and leave, never return to this creepy neighborhood. Isaiha swings the truck doors open, grabs the box and speed walks up the creaky porch stairs. He knocks on the door—it thuds on the floor, showing nothing in the house, but darkness, but then a blinding, amber light covers everything. Within it, Isaiha sees nightmares mixed into one horrid panorama: his body cooking in a cauldron soup of half-melted bodies, his limbs forced out of their sockets by hideous, humanoid creatures, his eyes explode; roaches and spiders crawl out of the bloody holes, his intestines keep falling out of his belly, boulders rain down from above and crush his body—repeatedly he dies.

The package falls out of Isaiha’s hands and disappears. Human hands reach out of the light and pull him in. 

“L… Lianna?” Isaiha rubs his eyes, questioning the beautiful woman in front of him who resembles one of his ex lovers. His eyes open to a beach of beautiful, pearly sand and blue water that sparkles like gems. He asks himself if he’s dreaming, but he doesn’t want to wake up.

“Isaiah, it’s been so long!” Speaks, the woman in the white summer dress. 

“I must be dreaming, if you’re happy to see me.” The last memory of her is their breakup, when he decided they should go their separate ways because the relationship was getting too serious—he was too young, and she wanted to start a family.

But he has to be dreaming! Even though it’s warm and when the breeze blows, sand crystals brush his skin. And he can’t deny the drastic change calms his heart from the horrors his mind was just consumed by. 

“Isaiah, this…is what it could have been like. I spent a lot of time thinking…” She gets closer to him, the warmth from her breath sprays the back of his neck. “… about what you did to me. To us.” 

Isaiha stands his ground. “I did what I needed to do. I already told you the relationship was sufficat–”

“I remember what you said!” Lianna’s soft, honey voice transforms into rage. She backs away from him; suddenly, the sand turns black. 

I have to be dreaming. He looks down at his work uniform, not a scratch on it. Back to his ex. Her eyes, once amber, now crimson, stare at him with hate. “What the Hell is this? Where are we? Did you kidnap me? Is this–”

“Real?” Lianna interrupts. “I can assure you…” She conjures a silver dagger from her hands and walks toward Isaiah. 

He bolts in the other direction, his legs racing with his heart. So many questions swim through his mind; why is she doing this? Did she really do this or is this just some bizarre dream? Did he even go to work today? Maybe he actually went home on time and is having a nightmare? If only the lucidity of the dream weren’t so intense…

Lianna appears in front of him, making him slide forward in the sand. In a second, she’s close to him, breathing down his neck with the knife stabbed into his gut. His vision fades as the words “I am very real” seep into his ear. 

***

He’s surrounded by darkness. He can see all around him, yet he lies very still, eyes closed, vulnerable due to lack of clothing. He wants to open his mouth to scream, but an unknown force keeps his lips shut. 

The snapping of a finger wakes Isaiha’s mind. 

Strapped to a chair by barbed wire that cuts deep into his skin. He glances down at the blood leaking from him onto the floor, even his bare feet are wrapped in the spikes. In front of him, Lianna sits in a throne made of squirming, human arms and legs, eyes red and calm, dressed in a long, transparent, black dress; from his damaged eyes he can make-out her crown of human fingers. 

The pain… this is definitely real. 

“I’m sure you’re wondering…” Lianna’s emotionless voice echoes in his ears, “why you’re here right now. We haven’t seen each other in so long, let’s say, two years, and yet, here we are, with you on the brink of death. I bet if that lying mouth could talk, you would beg to be set free.”

Isaiha remains speechless. His heart already exploded dozens of times, but he keeps resurrecting back to this terrifying situation. She’s right, they have been broken up for two years now. He blocked her from everything in his life after she kept calling him. A distant memory of her warning him about how much he’ll pay for breaking her heart crawls into his brain. Now, he wonders, as his heart gears up for another cardiac arrest, if she is even human. If he could, he’d ask why she chose him. 

“Do you really want to know?” Lianna’s question collapses Isaiha’s heart. Unfortunately, only for a moment.

His heart pumps, thoughts regain. “Did… did she just…”

“You’re in my world, Isaiah. I can see and hear everything!” Lianna cackles. “You want to know what I am?” She stands from her throne. “I am a godless being. I came to Earth in hopes of a reason to spare humanity; my first interaction was with you. I saw right through all of your lies. I watched you, every day, after you decided to leave, and during the time, my hatred grew for you and the rest of the pigs. But, don’t take it personally, you could have been anybody. There are so many humans like you.”

Isaiha’s mind can’t help picturing what tortuous tricks she will kill him with. 

“Your insignificant, weak mind could never imagine such master works of art,” she answers him from inside his consciousness. Isaiha has no control of his own thoughts anymore. All he hears is Lianna’s sinister cackle bouncing off his skull. “At first, I thought I’d get rid of you before I turned everything you know and love into fire, but now, I think I’ll make you see what I’ve been planning.” 

His brain searches thousands of images per second, humanity escapes him. His body, numb and cold, almost euphoric, appears to drift into nothing, with only Lianna’s voice to guide him. Like waking out of a coma, he now sees the world, but it’s different. Nobody notices him standing above them, it doesn’t make sense. Am I…in another dream? They all look like ants. Why is he so high up? He can’t see his feet, only the people, buildings, and cars. There’s a nice breeze up here; warmth and reality on his skin. 

Now, there’s fire.

People float in the sky, their clothes stripped along with their skin, then flesh. Their bodies make it to the sky and form into mist that creates a blood rain. Giant creatures made of morphed, disfigured humans climb the skyscrapers of the city and crash through the glass windows to pick out innocent humans and eat them. There’s so much screaming… and death. 

“Can you hear it, Isaiah? The sweet sounds of their misery and demise. Like cattle in the slaughterhouse,” Lianna speaks from his consciousness. 

“I don’t understand. Wh… where am I?” He doesn’t recognize his own echo.

“You are nowhere, because you are nothing.” The scene changes to a familiar grassy field, home to an older, brown house. An elderly woman walks out of the screen door, towel in hand, walking toward the clothes line swinging in the breeze. “Do you recognize her, Isaiah?” 

“That’s… that’s my… mother.” No emotion in his voice for the woman he cares for and supports on his own. Sadly, she has no idea that he’s watching her right now, and if he could, he would call out to her one last time. 

Lianna’s words glide like molasses, “deep down, she’s responsible for this too.”

A hideous, inconceivable creature comes out of the shadows, crawling towards Isaiha’s mother. The woman takes a pause, peaks her face up to the air and smiles. Blood sprays in the air as an elongated arm shoots out of the beast’s stomach-or where a stomach would be- and splits her in half. 

A fire consumes the house. 

Lianna laughs her way to the next destination, stringing Isaiha’s crumbled spirit along on her murderous adventure; a world collapsed by chaos, driven to apocalypse. 

***

Her hair flows in the wind, the moon illuminates her red eyes and the ever-growing fire. The sinister smile on her face is the subject of everything going according to plan. Now, for the final step—Lianna returns to her realm.

Isaiah, bleed to death, remains in the torture chair, bound by barbed wire. 

“Do you know what comes next?” she asks him. The touch of her finger on his cheek revives him; blood leaks on the floor, again. She snaps her finger, and the chair turns into a metal cage too small for Isaiha’s body. “You get to stay here with me.” 

Lianna sits on her throne, stares at her new slave… an idea sets in. The cage is lit by fire. Instantly, Isaiha screams, squirms around in the tight cage, barely able to move an inch in any direction. And when the screams no longer entice her, she resurrects him and summons tiny mouths to gnaw on his flesh. 

This is his fate. For all eternity, at the whim of his former lover, a new death.

THE END