Somewhere in the Middle

By Melissa L. Freya

Running away from a failed Marriage, Melissa takes off to start a new life in the first place that came to mind when she started to run, an island paradise in the Caribbean. It is on that island that she comes face to face with both good and evil, drawn to both, she journeys through past lives and shifts from this world to one of darkness to find answers. What she thought was reality is shattered by monsters, demons, and the heir to Satan’s throne. In her journey for answers she learns that that there is more to each side than meets the eye. Melissa must choose between the two, and her choices will change the world as she knows it. Can she make the right choice? Is there a right choice?
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Melissa L. Freya
• Release date: Oct 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466051782

Book preview

PREFACE

As I glide through this life, day-to-day, I am always amazed by the people that I meet and the things that I see. Who would have known that I would find myself in the very place that I have wound up, the place I have come to dwell in, a place filled with the most intricate of detail and at the same time utter nothingness. An aura of vertigo surrounds my very being no matter where I plant my feet. It doesn’t seem to matter if they are on the ground or perched atop the highest building, it finds me. Sometimes I am sure, or as sure as I could ever be about anything these days, that if I cement my legs into the earth, even digging myself waist deep, the chaos and craziness would pluck me from the cement as easily as a flower is torn from its stem.

I’m not saying that it’s been all bad, but of late, it has come close to it. We all move from year to year, creating a time line of events that, in their own insignificant way, seem to ripple small circles into the lives around us. It’s similar to tossing stones into a lake, the ripples grow larger and larger until we are unable to distinguish them any longer, but does that mean that they really end? If we throw that stone into a lake, and that lake runs into a river, and the river into an ocean, would that seemingly small ripple make its way to far off lands? A year ago I would have answered that question with conviction. I would have been unequivocal when saying that the ripples end when they are no longer seen, but today, in this reality, I am not so sure.

All that I am sure of now is that things are different. The world is stranger. All of the simple things in life have taken on a dangerous quality. I will never believe in the impossible, and never completely trust in what seems to be reality and neither should you, if you know what’s good for you.

***

The evening sky had just started to overshadow the cloudless day when it all started. As the sun was making its way towards its resting place, and the moon began to climb for her turn with the stars, a brilliant orange and yellow streaked the horizon; painting it with the most vibrant colors I had ever seen. I could almost hear the hiss and see the steam as the hot sun touched down, sinking into the Caribbean Ocean’s aqua marine water.

One more dive, and we can start to head back, I said, as the crew started packing up the dive equipment.

Not a wise idea, ma’am one of them replied quickly, It gets very dark out here at night, and the water is even darker. Not safe, not safe at all. We should pack up and come back out in the morning.

I had been staying on the island for three weeks already, and had just begun to explore the beautiful waters that surrounded what could be described as nothing less than paradise. I was sure that I would be here for quite some time, but I felt like I would never be able to see enough. When I decided to leave home, or should I say run away, I knew that I would never go back. There were so many reasons to leave. I had been married for nearly ten years but the last three had been nothing short of failure. I had done everything that I could think of to make it work and no matter how hard I tried things kept winding up in the same place. On the morning that I realized that I had nothing left to give, and couldn’t think of one reason to stay, I decided to run. I was packed and in the air within two days. I just picked the first place that came to mind and I went. I had no friends on the island, but that didn’t matter. I took the first decent job that I could find that would let me work nights. I spent my days learning to dive, and had gotten very good at it. Even as I started to make my case with my dive crew for a few more minutes, I was sure that running away was the best decision that I had ever made.

How many times do I have to tell you, please don’t call me ma’am? My passport doesn’t say ma’am, it says Melissa. Besides, I’d like to think of you as friends, not just my dive crew. Hell I’ve spent more time with the three of you in the last few months than I spent with my husband during the last three years of our marriage. Then I flashed them a smile hoping that it would be enough to get my way.

I am sorry Ma’am…. I mean Melissa, most of our passengers are not like you. Most of them think that they are too far above simple men, such as us, to ask or even allow us to use their first name. I suppose that I’m just not used to it he responded with sincerity and I could have sworn he was blushing.

One more dive? I asked, as I stepped towards him, hoping that he would change his mind.

He paused to look at the sun, as if it were marked with a large dial that told the precise time, and smiled at me. That was all I needed to know, his smile was assurance enough that I could go down once more before we packed up and returned to the marina. I threw my arms around him and kissed him lightly on the cheek, Thank you.

For you…anything. Just don’t be too long, he said as I released him and sat on the edge of the boat, preparing myself for my dive.

I won’t, I called out as I rolled backward into the water.

The water was warm, despite the late hour, and it washed over me like a welcomed friend. As I cut through its mass, making my way down to the ocean floor, I marveled at the beauty of it. The setting sun was casting prisms of spectacular light through the water’s surface, surrounding me in colors that I never dreamed could exist in our world. Ever since I had arrived, I had never felt so at home as when I was diving. It was as if the entire world had been silenced, and all that existed was this amazing subterranean world filled with coral, fish, and me. I dove deeper, feeling the pressure increase, and the silence grow wider. As I closed in on the shell covered ocean floor, I caught a glimpse of something large and shining off in the distance. The bright reflection forced me to squint, like I was looking into the sun, to see if I had discovered anything worth exploration. I tried to bring the object into focus but the water was growing dark with each passing moment. The sun was almost asleep across the horizon and I knew that I wouldn’t have much time to swim the distance, reach the unknown finding and explore properly, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn the other way. A force was pulling me towards this shiny submerged treasure, like a magnet would attract metal without any way for it to retreat.

It was at that moment that I began to hear his voice. I wasn’t convinced that I had heard it at first, because one never knows how the mind can play tricks on you. I was almost sure that I was running out of oxygen, and experiencing some sort of dementia as the voice grew stronger. The harder I tried to listen, the more confused I had become. It had sounded like the voice was calling out my name, but I was under water, much too far down to be able to hear anyone from above. I knew that it couldn’t be anyone from my dive crew calling me back to the surface, but I was also aware that it wasn’t possible for someone to be calling me under this blanket of water. Even if it was some type of submergible craft, I thought, how would they be calling me by my name? How would they know that I was here?

I swam towards my discovery, not realizing that I was moving with such aggression that I covered the distance quicker than I could have under normal circumstances. The closer I came, the louder his voice had become. When I was only a few feet from the object, I could hear his voice clearly calling…singing out, Melissa…Melissa…. Come. Come to me Melissa. His voice was like dark music flowing through me. It seemed to coil around me, like a snake coils around its prey, and tug me gently towards its speaker. Calm passed over me, relaxing every part of my body and mind. I was no longer swimming, but being carried through the water by this musical voice. The shining object came into clear view as I floated towards it. It seemed to be some sort of crypt submerged in the ocean floor. Perhaps, I thought, it was once resting on land or maybe it was built on a small island hundreds of years ago that had since, sunk into the vast blue waters, never to be remembered or recalled. At the time I didn’t know of its danger, all I knew was it called me.

The crypt door opened, the voice grew even more powerful, as I was carried in on the wings of his music. When the door closed behind me I was surrounded by darkness and the reality of this situation began to seep back into my mind. The voice had stopped, I was closed inside a crypt filled with water and darkness, and my oxygen had to be running out. The fear of suffocating gripped me, making my stomach turn, and my head spin. I turned myself around and swam toward where I had entered, hoping that I could find the door. I prayed that I hadn’t been so disconnected and disoriented by the voice that I lost my sense of direction, and I knew that if I were lucky enough to find the door, I would still need enough luck to find a way to open it. I reached out in front of me and my hands struck the cold wall. It was like touching ice with a wet hand in the freezing cold. I was stuck to the doors surface, and it hurt as I recoiled in terror, trying to force myself free.

It reminded me of a movie I had once seen, Dumb and Dumber, where a not so smart man licked a ski lift pole in the dead of winter, and he was stuck there for most of the day. He rode that ski lift up and down until someone removed the whole pole, and he was forced to walk around with it fused to his tongue. I remembered that someone had to pull him free from the pole, and his tongue stretched out of his mouth like it was a taffy pull. I thought to myself, in a fit of hysteria, that this was a really crappy way to die, and even crappier was the fact that my last thoughts weren’t going to be of friends and family, but of a movie about some idiot with his tongue stuck to a ski lift pole.

The water began to grow colder as I fought to pull my hand free. I was hoping that I wouldn’t leave most of my skin behind, as I had grown fond of it over the years. I knew that once I did get free, I would still be stuck inside the crypt, but I could only deal with one crisis at a time. If I were lucky to have enough oxygen left in my tank, I would have to search for something to open the door with, I couldn’t risk touching it with my bare skin again. Bracing my scuba fin against the wall next to my hand, using my whole body for leverage, I struggled to get free. The water was no longer my friend; it was more than likely the only thing that would keep me from having enough force to remove my hand from its newly glued position. The more I pulled, the more I felt like I would never escape. I began to panic, the oxygen in my tank was thinning, and I could feel its depletion with each desperate breath. I had been under water much longer than I should have been, and even though I was fairly new at diving I knew that my minutes were ticking down to seconds.

I didn’t know how I would get free, but I did know that I wasn’t happy about dying in this tomb. Would anyone find me? My crew knew I was here, and they seemed to like me. One of them would come down after me, I thought, as I continued to manipulate my hand in the darkness. They would get here in time, let me share the oxygen in their tank as we surfaced and all would end well like in the movies. Things like this don’t happen to people like me, so logic would show that it had to turn out to be a happy ending

I tried to concentrate on moving my hand back and forth, but my mind was becoming foggy. I couldn’t seem to force my hand to move, or even hold my leg up against the wall any longer. I cried out in my own head because the oxygen was almost gone. I wanted to take shallow breaths in an effort to reserve what was left, but I couldn’t stop myself from gulping the air in as if it were a glass of really fine wine. My mind didn’t allow me to control the behavior of my body any longer, and the world around me, if it was possible, seemed to be growing blacker. My head was filling up with nothingness, and the panic became the only thing that I could see in the darkness of the crypt. I was thrashing about violently when the oxygen flow stopped, and I was sure that my life was over. A feeling of serenity had begun to flow through my body, it was the same feeling I had when I dreamt that I was dying. It felt like a warm blanket was being wrapped around me, and I was being filled from head to toe with a calm that one would think uncharacteristic of someone in my situation. There was just enough of my coherent mind left to decide to give in and let the feeling take over, let my last moment be one of epiphany rather than terror. I closed my eyes even though the crypt was completely black, and I tried to force a thought of happiness into my head, hoping that it would carry me through the rest of the oxygen deprivation and into the arms of death smoothly. My effort proved to be in vein, with only emptiness filling my mind. I felt a sudden sadness wipe out the calm feelings, as there wasn’t one thing from my time on earth that was fulfilling enough to think of while dying. The curtain of darkness came down even further, until there was nothing.

***

I paced back and forth furiously, unable to stop my own movement for even a moment. Some strange force shuffled my feet ahead of each other in an attempt to take me somewhere that my mind didn’t yet know of. I began to question if I really wanted to know more than the average guy on the street. I was privileged to information that most civilians wouldn’t be capable of processing, and up until now I was sure that I would always be able to disconnect myself from the strangeness of it all, but as I walked back and forth in the stark white hospital room, I knew that this case would prove to be far more dangerous than any case I had ever bargained for.

I had been with the State Department for twelve years. When I first signed on I had no idea that I would wind up facing some of the most questionable realities possible. I agreed to take the position under the assumption that I would be chasing down leads that never amounted to more than the ramblings of some not so coherent crazy people, making it a walk in the park. If I had known that some of those crazy people were far less crazy than they appeared, I may have passed on the offer and remained in the public sector, chasing down common criminals rather than seeing the impossible become reality. By the time I realized that my new job was more than a comfortable position, I had already found myself accepting its duties and intrigued by its complexities. I wasn’t going to move on, at least not in the near future, but I was sure that there would come a day when I would see or hear one too many disturbing facts, and would either join the ranks of the crazy people or walk away without looking back.

My mind was racing through the facts that I had gathered about this particular sighting. I was sure that something had been seen, and that it was going to prove to be one of his more interesting cases, but I was still unable to piece together its origin. I kept going back over the statements that I took from witnesses, most of which were close enough in description to prove that there was basis for further investigation. I knew that I would have to call in to The State Department with a preliminary report, but my thoughts kept returning to the woman in the hospital bed. I didn’t want to make contact with my superiors until I was able to take her statement, but I wasn’t sure that she would regain consciousness anytime soon. My thoughts strayed for a moment and my mind focused on my mother, she used to say that I should take time to have all of my ducks in a row before I took action. I didn’t have them in a row; actually, they were still flying in different directions. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Clear your mind, I thought to myself, and the rest will eventually fall into place. It always does.

***

Take your place at my side, where we will rule together. Open up your mind, and give me leave to crawl inside. Invite me in, and I shall give you all that you have ever dreamed of. I shall provide for you all that you require. I need you. You need me. Together we will find our destiny. Together we shall become what everyone. He whispered in my ear in his low, hissing voice. I could feel his words wash over me like the tide, rough, yet soothing at the same time, pulling me towards him with fury and then releasing me from his grasp.

He held himself back from me, letting me put a face to the voice that demanded such an un-natural action. As my eyes met his, I was filled with a twisting feeling from the very pit of my stomach, almost as if I needed to turn myself inside out to make myself right again. His features were amazingly handsome, chiseled into his face with a perfection that I had never seen in a man before. I leaned closer, trying to see past the haze that was blanketed between us, wanting to take in every detail; I needed to etch this dreamlike scene into my memory. His eyes were a deep blue, deeper than any blue that I had ever imagined could exist in the color spectrum, so deep that I felt as though I could fall into them and never hit bottom. I reached up to touch his cheek with my finger tips, wanting to know, no… needing to know if his skin had felt as smooth as it had looked. I couldn’t believe that I was being so aggressive in my attempt to make contact with this man, if that was what he truly was, as I would have never dreamt of being so physically forward with a stranger, even under the best of circumstances. As I brushed my hand across his skin I felt a sudden jolt of pain run from my fingers, up my arm and into my head. It felt like lightening was pouring out of my eye sockets, my mind screamed, as I tried to pull my hand away to stop the pain. His response was quick. He grabbed my wrist and held my hand to his face, forcing me to keep it there, not letting me pull away for even a moment.

You feel it! He screamed as I cried out in pain. I looked into his eyes, pleading for him to show me mercy, to let me go before my body ignited into flames. I had never in my life felt anything so full of raw energy. The tears began to well up into my eyes and overflow down my face. Please stop. I moaned, while meeting his gaze in hopes that he would answer my plea in time. Just when I was sure that it would never end, that he was holding me until I fell into a pile of ashes at his feet, he released my wrist and smiled. The smile only lasted a brief moment and was followed by laughter, laughter that showed how very proud he was of his strength. The instant the contact was broken the pain ended, leaving no physical after effects, not even a inkling that I had just been the conductor for enough electricity to power all of the lights in the City of New York. As crazy as it may sound, and as scared as I was, I was angry at what had just happened. I was angry that I was being held in this creepy limbo, I was angry that this man…. whoever he was…. had just taken it upon himself to basically mind-fuck me with his Zeus thunderbolts and then stand there and cackle like an escaped mental patient.

I am not sure what possessed me to do what I did next, but I had to retaliate. I lowered my head, cocked my arm back and when I raised my gaze to his once again I let my fist go. It catapulted forward and met the side of his head with full force. Perhaps he was taken by surprise, even though he seemed to be looking for this reaction, because when my fist made contact his body was hurled backward into the mist.

Squinting, I tried to make out any sign of movement, but there was none. Even the haze that enveloped me appeared to have become stagnant, not even stirring as I moved my hands in front of my own face. He’s gone, I said to myself, But now what the hell am I going to do about getting out of here. The last thing I remembered was trying to free myself from the crypt that I so stupidly locked myself inside of. I knew that my oxygen had run out, and then nothing. I must be dead, I thought, or even worse, but then again what could be worse than being dead? Being somewhere with him, that was definitely worse. Jesus, I hope that he got the hint. I muttered under my breath as I began to move forward, hoping to find some way out. I stretched my arms out in front of me, feeling for a door or wall even though I wasn’t sure if I was in some kind of limbo or still inside the crypt. I just knew that I couldn’t stand still and expect freedom to miraculously find me. I felt like a deer caught in the headlights of oncoming traffic, mesmerized by the unknown, but if I were to just wait and see what happens I was sure he would come back, and I wouldn’t be so lucky the next time.

Cautiously I edged myself through the thickness of the air surrounding me, thinking that I would probably just walk onward forever, never making contact with any wall or door, just walking off the end of the earth into another unknown abyss. When my hands struck a solid surface I recoiled quickly, afraid that I would find myself stuck back where I had begun this strange encounter. When my hand didn’t show any sign of holding to the solid surface I let out a sigh of relief. All I needed to do was move myself along the wall and hope that I would eventually come upon some sort of exit that would lead to my escape. I faced the wall, even though I couldn’t see it I could feel that it was there, and placed both my hands flat against its surface. Slowly, I slid my hands across the wall as I moved to the right. I wanted to move as quickly as possible, but my fear of missing an exit was stronger than my desire to pick up the