New employer cont.
The path chosen, simply put, was unusual. He had no idea of the destination. Simply walking on the path. The path was only visible for a few meters in front of him. The path followed the lay of the land yet somehow felt designed to be so. Straight, curved, flat and level, bumpy, incline, declining, cambered curves, off-camber curves. It felt like walking all around the world. Every now and then the topography would change and Gilchrist would adjust. The only constant, the darkness.
The darkness all consuming and comforting. Cold yet warm as a cup of tea on a February morning. Nothing at all yet the source of everything. The absence of everything yet the purpose everything exists. Nowhere for the lost lamb yet exactly and precisely where the waiting wolf wanted to be. The lack of environment yet the existence of everything he was feeling somehow was calming for Gilchrist.
No, darkness implies the absence of light. This feeling of being in the presence of unquantifiable vastness and discreet qualities. Unspecified behaviour due to prophetic action. This was something more. More than the random novels and stories he read through out his life. No one described this before. We a few did, but everyone thought of them as insane and delusional. Some things written by the classically renowned authors and poets made some sense. At the same time, also made no sense. For one thing he realized was, everyone has their own demons. And he's already met his.
Walking in the blinding darkness. Gilchrist saw scenes from his life flash by. His childhood and early teens. Playing cricket with his friends in the park and on the school team. At age 15, 26 May 2006, getting the news his mother has passed away in an accident. The pain and the loneliness he went through. Being hung out to dry by his mother's family because he was a disgrace and stain upon their reputation. Funny that, commoners fancying themselves royalty, while the royals do t give two shits, to the royals their inbred cousin from Newark shitting on the chesterfield is probably more of a shock than another bastard in the family. Joining the Royal Marines at age 16 after his GCSEs. Completing basic training. Getting qualified as a Royal Marine. Finishing his A levels and engineering degree. Being promoted to Corporal. Applying and getting selected for Officer training. Going to Sandhurst. The operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Being nervous for the first few days there. Going outside the wire. Being bored. Being scared shitless when under mortar fire. Being bored under cover. Moving positions. Getting back to base. Firefights and skirmishes. Being under heavy small arms fire and laying down the law. Moving under machine gun fire from a pickup truck. Said pickup truck blowing up thanks to ample use of grenades. Killing. Watching his own men die. Doing BDA after an air strike. The burning bodies of men, women and children. Dogs and crows ripping into the corpse of a dead man. A kid kicking his football to the wrong spot and moving an IED trigger. Meeting Danielle. Looking up and seeing her face, then the rest of her, in several smaller parts. Applying for the SAS. Completing selection. Almost getting poached by the SBS. Saying no "I'm sick of the water". Still having to do the Swimmer Canoeist course. Being an officer in the SAS. No respect. Leading missions as much as possible. Training like Armageddon is tomorrow. Operations going smoothly. Operations going tits up. Injuries and trauma all round. A few funerals. And finally getting the news of his illness.
He closed his eyes as he continued to walk. The emotions playing havoc with his mind. He felt happiness like he's won ten lotteries. Sorrow and despair like his soul was being torn asunder. Anger that could move mountains. Anguish that made him wish he'd died. Resolve that would make God fear for his immortal life. Calmness as if all is right with the world.
Gilchrist continued walking. Seeing his life. Flash around him, threw him off. It was unexpected. Giving himself a moment to feel and process his situation. He decided he's having a near death experience and he should continue with the experience part of it. 'Let's see what death has is store for me'. He thought, as he continued on the path.
What Gilchrist didn't notice was the the faint discolouration in the darkness was now gone. He was moving on muscle memory and instinct. Turns out marching up and down the square has its uses.
He soldiered on. His life laid bare in front of him. And boy was it a shit-show. A lot of his life was cringe worthy. Like seriously I said that to Susan Heath in class 8? I that how I got laid for the first time? How drink was I? And drunk was she? And many minor soul destroying disasters.
An indefinite amount of time later, the light show changed. The visions of places he'd seen in movies or glimpsed in passing were all around him. Two groups of people waving sticks about and shooting colourful light beams at each other. A gold dragon sleeping on what can only be described as a shit ton of gold. A 7 headed snake-lizard monstrosity spitting clouds of gas. An adorable white haired girl getting fucked doggy-style by a giant of a man. Men in robes sitting at a table, deciding the fake of millions. A man in golden armour sitting on a throne with a wall of yellow circles behind him. Seriously that face, if I could I'd blow torch the smug smile off of it. A man with really long hair going straight up fight a woman who by all accounts looked bat-shit crazy. A kid in a orange jumpsuit with what looked like cat whiskers on his face. A boy who can only be Goku with his hair and how much he's eating. A stretchy freak punching someone really really fast. Like Dragon Ball Z fast. A man in a captain America costume deflating. 'What the fuck happened to you? Somebody die?' Huge humanoid robots which Gilchrist recognized as Gundams from his childhood. Groups of costumed people, every colour of the rainbow fighting. Fighting each other, fighting a single costumed person, fighting what can only be described as a purple nut sack. 'Was that Wolverine? Cool!' 'Holy fuck that's Batman!' A horde of creatures so beautiful and terrifying that one forgot to breathe. And abominations so vast and vile that one couldn't comprehend how they were created. 'Wait was that David Suchet? Poirot? No couldn't be.' A sea of grey and discoloured flesh walking. Unending and unceasingly. A Dracula wanna-be impaling peasants and criminals on stakes. Men of the cloth committing more sin than a drunk sailor in a whorehouse. The acts bring the blood to a boil, yet the tongue stills. More sights of known and unknown places.
Gilchrist kept walking. And walking. And walking.
He felt a slight difference in temperature, a slight drop. and the hair on the nape of his neck rising. It would be imperceptible to someone who perhaps is sitting at home reading or watching T.V. The temperature and environment is constantly fluctuating. But since he was in a constant environment Gilchrist subconsciously felt a change.
Feeling like he's close to someone or something he hurried his pace.
The environment got more and more precarious. At first the drop and rise in temperature was gradual. Now it was sudden. Every hundred or so paces the temperature would change wildly. And to add to disorder. There was now a significant pressure pushing him down and back.
Still he soldiered on.
And on.
And on.
As he walked through what felt like a cool refreshing shower and collapsed.