DEVIL TRIAL

In memory of -

Grandpa Adolphus Davis aka Huggins Jeffrey.

Darkness, absolute darkness. Wasn’t staying that condition. For penetrated by a gradually rising voice as waking takes effect, allowing some consciousness into the black void. The darkness vanishes when someone’s eyes open, vision merely a slit, because the eyelids are partially open. They wanted to close eyes again, the idea disrupted by that voice. And something else, greater awareness flows inward and perceived another sound – a tune at low level. A dark song.

That stimulation slanted to have the brain elect to oblige the eyes in seconds open fully and steadily adjusted and showed…nothing recognized. Obscure it was to their vision and directly in front due to the wall’s closeness and color. The front portion of the skull forward of the neck within a horizontal, flat surfaced indent, running along the entire wall side they happen to be, several inches high and a few deep. Surely to accommodate the front of the face, thereby precludes forcing the head back or sideways.

The anatomy belongs to a person that exuded a fleeting groan. Enough space letting the head be level and permits a range of movement looking sideways and partial up and down, not to be taken for full range of movement, the indent gives the front a paltry few inches room from their face, shoulder down the body’s front flush to the wall surface, actually pressed to it, none too tight, evidently to allow manageable breathing. What’s more they are held in place by what they didn’t think to find out. Outstretched arms and widened legs are immovable. Anyone’s arms in that position are not designed to stay that way before beginning to hurt.

They were certain it was an individual on either side of them a few feet away. Turning the head allows barely more view and of surroundings. The dark song plays on, intermixed was that voice again this time louder because next to them and behind. ‘I need you to speak to me friend.’ A man’s, but the listener’s head can’t turn sufficiently to see.

‘Tell me what’s happening,’ the person said shakily.

‘Comin’ up short myself. For better or worse I need to have your name.’

‘This has to be a joke.’ Adding more desperately, ‘Tell me what’s happening!’

‘I’m Beyander and I got like zero clue. I gotta have your name.’ From his point of observance, the back, he could tell the distressed a snazzy clad fellow sporting short, silver hair. The response predictable enough. ‘If I did you anything against you lemme go and we’ll cut a deal!’ The emotion panicky.

The speaker did not change his message. ‘Try this angle. Come across a cat called Beyander?’

‘Um…no.’

‘There. Tells you what yuh need to know.’ A stranger wouldn’t avenge themselves.

‘But…’

The voice cut him off, ‘A sign on the stinkin’ wall is pretty insistent on what has to be done. You’ll believe me I promise but only if you do what I told yuh.’

‘Erslie.’

The silver haired person heard footsteps walking away a few seconds before they ceased. He hadn’t caught a glimpse of his tormentor in his mind, throughout the unabridged conversation. judging by sound, a body was shaken. ‘Like what gives man?! Said I’d get down.’

‘From the mess you in you should’ve figured by now the pot stew cooks a certain way.’ It’s impossible to release him in short order. He now calls out to the body, ‘You can’t stay knocked out. Wake up please.’ Shaking more elicits no response. ‘Damn it to hell!’

‘Of all the…’ That brief sentence marking frustration passed, Erslie operates from the perspective begging for the one thing he had – his life. ‘Lets take a breath can we? I crossed you, a friend? I can rest a deal on the table. Nobody has to die.’

‘Man, catching on fast is the only way off the wall.’

Erslie only a second away from expecting death. He cannot swallow the reality. Beyander to the body, ‘I can’t get away if you don’t!’ He shakes more to the same effect as last time. ‘Wake the hell up!’ The song transitions to a new one but retaining darkness.

The absolute darkness here too pierced by eyes gradually opening. The brain registers a sensation of mild pain, localized to the back of the skull. The point Beyander administered a none to gentle tap. Fully peeled eyeballs transmitted the image to the brain as the case of Erslie, the wall’s indent gives only a few inches room in front the face. Groggily, ‘Aw man.’

A voice from behind he unable to see the source of, ‘Cool man?’

‘Hey I can’t get up,’ says the man nonplussed.

Erslie had confirmation his vision and now ears, hadn’t two-timed him. ‘Really are other people!’ he whispered.

‘You gotta hear me out carefully OK? My name’s Beyander. I don’t have the answers except you are pinned front first to a wall and the only way to free you is giving your name.’ From his vantage point behind, the man ahead of him was a white man who appeared to be in his late 20s.

‘What am I doing here? And I can’t see who’s talking.’

‘Can’t see much because you’re stuck on the wall, somehow they wanted me to free you.’ Beyander didn’t want to get into the writing on the wall again for now. Just make things more of a needle to the ass. ‘I absolutely have to get your name.’

‘Van…Van Husen,’ comes the uneasy reply.

Beyander reiterates to both men hold it together, he has nothing to do with any of it, after all floundering in the same morass. He’ll get them down and the only way is arousing the others.

Using the proven tap to the head, the four remaining souls awaken in the span of twenty minutes. Five people arranged side by side, a few feet separating. Their heads are the same height matching the indent. Owing that not everyone is actually is as tall as the other, forbids anyone’s feet touching the floor, the exception being the taller individuals. A macabre exhibition. By now several songs had come, again all dark.

Beyander was in an it’s one of those days moments. He’d given his name ensuring all knew and explained or did his utmost, the predicament. He stood adjacent to a particularly oversized it looked, small car sized trunk roughly twenty feet behind the people, looking at their backs. The peculiar object carries a motif calling to mind death.

Their heads had movement however, the bonds meant the rest of the body below cannot so much as turn. That final fact abundantly upon any trying to loosen themselves when woken. People had desperately wanted freedom as they gradually stirred, emotions run from astonishment to fear, even anger directed at the man. It took time calming them down - for the time being anyway.

He says the instructions plainly on another wall they cannot see, and not himself, is responsible for what came next. He has no idea who put this all together. Sealing the trunk are five wordlocks in padlock type. The code is one thing - individual names. The motivation for his asking. Told be extra careful, he proceeds to bring his finger into contact with the first and rotates the rings. Nirvana. Minutes follow and all five names entered. Now to loosen steel shackles of the locks.

Except it didn’t happen.

Took one of the restrained people to coax he hadn’t succeeded. ‘Oh boy,’ Beyander mused and attempting to settle five other nerves, whilst holding his own, starts explaining why he has to keep trying.

Erslie verbally whips, ‘Cut the exposition and get us to hell down!’ he demands.

Van Husen seconded that. ‘Can’t say I oppose him.’

This was a lot asked of any human to process. A voice elevations its presence again. ‘Just what’s holding us?’ a female wearing a grey skirt reaching below the knee and white top and short socks compliment black shoes.

‘Chain, Nervana,’ said Beyander simply.

‘C-c-chain!’ she blurts out wrapped in astonishment. Finally all knew it an infernal chain. So as to drive the point Beyander walked over to the wall and shook one part of it so the clanging felt and its metallic sound heard by the five. Better off being a nail to the spine. ‘I-I can’t go on like this!’ Their bodies could feel the meatal.

Each soul chained to the wall.

Van Husen directs another crack of the whip at him, ‘It’s hard on your ass standing around, but think about ours!’

Beyander sighs.

‘Jeez man should’ve told us!’ exclaims Van Husen.

‘Panicking you like a chicken is supposed to make this go faster?’

A voice interjects, ‘Chewing him up is the way to keep us in chains, not free us.’ The reasoning came from a black man.

Van didn’t stifle his need to outburst voluntarily. ‘Excuse me being flesh and blood…’

The speaker does it for him, interrupting the man he says, ‘Beyander, our only hope is you. The only thing that will break in here are chains, not our minds.’

Taking the encouraging words to heart, Beyander walks back to waiting letters. Changing music the constant presence, he bumped into the locks’ multifariousness. Spelling was asked of the chained – Theodoriss has two Ss instead of one, Komer spelt with a K and not C, Nirvana incorrect.

The names were as they should so why the locks still refusing? The steel shackle for any wouldn’t budge a millimeter. Chained and unchained trade words back and forth, Beyander scans intently with the eye and hands the trunk. Searching the spartan room, at someone’s suggestion, where he could see every conceivable nook and cranny, yet driven to walk over to a spot and scrutinize for a key, for anything, in vain, there’s regret for that deviation. Any slip-ups and this shall be a final resting place.

Hits each lock also corresponded with a poor soul’s position. Thereby Erslie is fourth from left, so too is the lock for him. Ay yai yai! He went to work re-entering some names. That was devious. Took time to figure that arrangement.

Try again. Nothing. Beyander’s face was ready to break down. Attempting to raise an immovable only added to his trauma. All along he was trying to hold everyone’s nerves together. Now it looked he reached the limit. The black man Komer’s voice says his defeat spells everyone deaths. More discussion takes place, any suggestion no matter how small sought. Went over the steps preceding. Then again something hit – Van Husen is spelt with a space. A wordlock is merely a combination one that has letters in lieu of numbers. True the amount of rings on a given lock corresponds to a name, for instance Komer carries five, his carried eight. After the first n, it found turning the one immediately after had a blank area without a letter.

One by one and minus Beyander’s added input, left to right is the audible sound to everyone the steel shackles opening. For that to happen each lock had to be entered with the precise word.

That wash of elation.

Beyander took them off, throwing them to floor and raised that godforsaken trunk lid. The span of the five being actually awake between this moment was roughly forty minutes. Outstretched arms cry for salvation.

A fresh song played, an ominous number. One Reason by DWB and Fade, encapsulating the dilemma to a T.

Beyander says only one thing inside. The voice of what had to a second female speaker says worry about that later and save their asses.

Small enough to fit in the hand, it’s a symbol representing evil. As the track continued playing, Beyander searches the walls and inserts the object beside a part where the beginning of the infernal chain starts.

Immediately from right to left the bonds fell away from the victims.