Trempulcahue

Right before my night's sleep I took a stab in the dark and saw a glimpse of light on the floor. A tiny wick barely lit. It was as if it expected me to gape at it in awe. The next thing I knew I was transported into a vortex of unknown quantity. The moment's blur was too quick for me to count the time, but I quickly collected my consciousness not too long after the sordid affair, and I was standing in front of a kiln with a haunting figure attending to it, and the creature that stood before me had a terrible countenance, almost demon-like in its appearance, neither man nor woman. It stood there as if it expected me to be there. It paced around as it lit the machine. It never acknowledged my presence, but I knew it knew I was there. I neither spoke nor moved out of fear until it opened its mouth revealing a hideous-sounding voice, deep and gravelly.

The creature, still attending to its machine, then asks, "What is your verdict?"

I had no inkling of his subject, so I stood there not saying a word of response. The creature gazed at me and reveals its face and ashen eyes. A monster, I thought.

"A verdict is required so I can reveal your intentions. It may seem quizzical to you now, but I am here solely for that purpose," he said to me. "I am not a friend nor foe. I merely serve as a conduit betwixt your physical form and your soul. There is nothing else I require of you except for the verdict. The answer you will eventually provide me will serve as precisely that."

He drags a lifeless goat-like animal from the floor and chucks it into the machine.

"Are you ready to share it?"

"I have no intention to parlay."

"Then so be it." The kiln flares up in bright-orange light, revealing the cavernous space we now both occupy. Loud crackling flames filled the air screeching like a banshee in circles. I stood there watching as the floor started to cave in. The floor began to tremble. Light was screaming to escape from beneath it.

"This ends here." The monster lifts up a comically massive maul and sluggishly bandies it on his neck like a toy. Part of me felt as if every step he took added to the discomfort of the swelling ground beneath us. It inhales the puff of black smoke coming from the machine and heaves a sigh before smashing the kiln with its oversized weapon. The clang bounced me a few inches backwards and reverberated echoes  throughout the space. One reckoning of that spells hundreds of my life's swift doom.

The kiln shivered and was about to burst and I find myself asking, "What is my verdict?"

"This is yours now. Your struggle becomes your verdict in perpetuity."

He looks for the last time and grins frighteningly. It was the last thing I remembered before the floor came down and erupted like a million malfunctioning suns.

While I could no longer feel my corporeal form present, my mind remained to function as if normal, drifting into a sea of stars. What felt like minutes became years, and all throughout that slumber my thoughts constantly wandered. Have I died?

What is my verdict?

Blackened emptiness consumed me. My mind stopped to think. I no longer had anything to tell myself or think to myself. I was essentially and fundamentally finally completely alone.

And when I came to be. I woke up in a sofa, back to the real world, mid-day. A candlelight flickered on the floor.

Is this my verdict?

The wick shrank to its final tip. I watched as the last gasp of air from its tiny flame dissipated into the cosmos.