It’s always the same spot. Every day I awake from the same spot I arrived in, on the warm yellow grainy sand along the salted shore. I’m always stuck in the same spot. It’s as if when I awake day after day after day I’ve just first arrived again and again and again. I keep reliving that same day. I’m slowly going mad.  I’m alone. I’m stuck. It’s always one step forward and three steps back. Ill travel far as the scorching heat burns my skin every day. I lay to rest, and then awake by the shore. Its only in my dreams that I leave this eternal hell. Only,I don’t dream, so the thought of leaving is a mere grasp away from me I just can’t seem to grip it. It’s like it’s not even there and I’ve imagined the thought that I will someday escape. I’m not stuck. I’m trapped.

Did I die? Am I burning in hell? The torture is never-ending, and my pain has become and eternal suffering. I probably am dead. I have no reelection of how I ended up in this hell hole.

Maybe I died and now my punishment is to burn alone in my own personal hell. I’ve accepted the fact that it’s too late for me to change, because if I’m already in hell there’s no point to try and climb my way back up the ladder when you’ve fell to the bottom. I’m trapped with no way out, no escape. Eternity is like a circle; it just goes round and round and round. Theres no corners to cut. It never ends. There is no beginning if there’s no end.

Dreadful but beautiful. Alluring but horrid. A blessing but a curse. Perfection that could kill you. It’s a beautiful poison flower, but you can’t resist the temptation to pull it from the ground, so you end up dead. It’s a gorgeous hell. How can you see the eyes of God but feel the fiery pits of hell?  It’s as if God created it but Satan rules it. But it’s not hell. Its and Island.

One week. 7 days. 168 hours. 10,080 minutes. 604,800 seconds. Time doesn’t exist anymore. It’s always the ungodly hour. But for some reason, I haven’t given up hope. Hope is when you’ve lost everything. You think all is lost, life feels dire and bleak. I have hit my lowest point that I have ever felt dead or alive. But I still feel that there is someone or something out there willing to bring me back. I say how I’ve given up and excepted my fate. This isn’t the end to my story, no, it’s only the beginning of me starting a new life.

I start Day 8. I walk through the scorching heat once again as the boiling sand burns the bottom of my feet. The ocean is even hotter, it’s impossible to try and cool off. The heat is everlasting. I have no shoes or socks, just a shirt, shorts, and whatever sand is stuck to my dry body. Mostly on my arms and legs, there’s some in my hair but that’s from sleeping on the sand every night. I smell and feel dirty, inside and out.

When you part ways where the sea meets the sand, you enter danger. There is nothing and no one out there which is the most dangerous thing of all. The silence and loneliness that surrounds the island feels deadly. The arid sweltering sand borders the outer part of the island as the shallow turquoise sea. After you hike through the sharp and gritty grains that guard the evil that lies within, you enter “Chrome”. I’ve given this name as the angelic and bewitching appearance of the island is like a perfect polish to cover the crude and cruel reality that lies within. Chrome begins with one color. Green. Monsteras, Ferns, and Palms surrounding you so much that you could choke. Along with the typical island flora there comes the more exotic green. Philodendrons, Foliage Alocasias, and Calatheas caressing the ground as they stemmed from the rich soil that laid below. I took a class my sophomore year of college on horticultural science as the study of botany fascinated me. Ironic that I’m surrounded of what I once loved. The scent, the aroma all of it now makes me sick. I feel as if I am slowly becoming the color green.

After green, a cream-colored pathway made of the smallest flattened gravel that has a clean shine to it slowly starts to become visible. Ivy vines growing from every direction softly hugging the path. It begins to expand as you travel further into the nexus. The nexus is where all the island’s beauty and glory lie. The center of what stems the glorious hell. To enter nexus is an affliction of torture. It makes you spasm with soreness. Beauty is pain, and to reach it you must suffer agony. You must travel through the pain bush. African poison ivy. When contact is met your body starts to burn causing livid swollen rashes with

Blisters. The creamy sap laden with its deadly chemicals are laced with cutthroat sharp thrones. You endure physical pain as it slowly seeps into your bloodstream and your insides slowly goes into a state of comatose. The shortest walk only a few footsteps but, the pain is an everlasting suffering. You try and scream but no one can hear you as your throat starts to swole with blisters. I feel that I am slowly becoming immune to the pain. Who knew that you would have to feel death in order to encounter the life?

Nexus is heaven. You get lost in all its charm. You feel your soul leave your body as it is an out of body experience. The pathway stops and shapes itself into a center point of the universe. You see color that hasn’t even been born. The soft bliss aroma makes you feel nothing but calm and centered. Peaceful and perfect is the only way as it is an indescribable beauty. The sky isn’t visible, only the sun that peaks through the trees as they lean over blocking the view from above. Flowers of every color in existence bloom in a bright fiery passion. Leaves that drape from branches above with a silky-smooth feel that when touched make you melt from the inside. It fits like one perfect puzzle piece. The nexus makes the world seem dull and colorless as it doesn’t seem to even be a reality.

I discovered the nexus on Day 1. I still haven’t gotten sick of its beauty, and I don’t think I could ever. More beauty lies ahead but nothing will ever or could ever compare to what is the nexus. The path stops at the nexus, but the island continues. You must lead off the path and free yourself. After the nexus there’s not a tree in sight. The island then takes the form of a grassy field. It’s radiant color shines with the sunlight beaming through the cloudless sky. Daisies scatter themselves throughout the field as it seems like a never-ending journey.

Its where I always stop, as the field seems too never. I rest. I wake. I journey. Everyday, its always the same. It repeats itself, infinity.

I suddenly ask myself a question. What if I don’t sleep? What if I don’t rest and continue to journey? I will not wake. Will I end up where I always do? Or will I finally break the cycle?

I ask myself so many questions in the moment. I’ve decided not to sleep tonight. I will instead continue to journey this infinite hell.

The sun begins to set, and the sky looks the same as it grows tired each night. The sky lights up with a brilliantly red and orange. The yellow that projected above was as eternal as my fate. Crumbs of an apocalyptic purple completed the silent garish sky.

As I hike through the field the night sky arrived with shades of darkness. The night is far from cold. The humid air makes you sweat and beg for a cold feeling. I begin to see something in the distance. I sprint, I run, I jump. I took a leap of faith. I don’t stop. I tell myself I will never stop. I run so fast that I almost fly, then I stop. I stop to rest. I stop to catch my breath. I stop to see…I don’t know. I’m not sure what I see. It looks like…. some sort of mirror? No… a gate? No… a border…it’s a border. It looks angelic and magical. The only way it can be described is when the sun shines on a puddle of oil and it has that glimmering rainbow shine. The border now feels that it’s the only eternal thing. It stretches across the entire length of the field. I feel that I have finally found the end. The field has ended. My pain has ended. The beginning finally kissed the end. I drop to my knees with a gasp of relief. I start to cry with tears of happiness, as I was finally happy. Despair, anger, sadness, they had all exhaled out of my body. I didn’t believe it; it was truly a miracle.

The moment soon is over as something strange begins to occur. The border starts changing. It’s almost as if it’s glitching. It soon becomes transparent like a mirror only I don’t see my reflection.  I see, a woman. Only I don’t see a woman, I see my salvation. I see my savior. I see a goddess, an angel that has fallen from above. She has a dark complexion with even darker short hair. She wears a violet long sleeved shirt along with jeans the color of the sky. She has no shoes like me and looks to be about 35. Her clothes are torn, tattered, and dirty. She is glowing as I feel that I am saved. She is aware of her surroundings, and I find myself gazing into her confused eyes. She seems to be looking at the border unaware that it was part of existence. She turns her head as we lock eyes. I smile as I feel warm inside. I start to yell.

“Hey! Hey!”

I soon realize with the doubt in her face that she can’t hear me, nor can she see me. I begin to panic and start to scream.

“No! Please help me! No! Please! I need help!”

Tears start to rush down my face as I am determined to not go back. The woman turns around and starts to walk away. My heart drops as my stomach is a bottomless pit failing to reach the bottom.

“NO! DON’T LEAVE ME HERE! PLEASE! NO!”

I become determined and desperate. I stick my hand through the border as I feel a rush through my body. A raging pulse gives me a roaring adrenaline. After my hand I step forward with my right foot and then my left.  I then begin to put my chest in and at this point I am fighting. The border tries everything it can to pull me back. It wants me to be forever trapped. I pull my head and the rest of my body through the border as my anger and rage gives me the strength to keep pulling. As my head strikes through the border the woman turns around with a shock. She slowly starts to step back as I fight my way through the border. I let out a shriek as I pull one last time as my body falls to the ground exhausted. I can’t seem to catch my breath. My body is gasping for air. I lay looking up to the sky as it seems normal. The clouds the trees, are all there as they once were. Birds chirp in the silence. Pine colored trees grow from thick sturdy beige branches. The juniper grass I lay on feels coarse but soft. Normal. I sit up holding my chest as I turn around the woman stands there with a gun pointed at me.

“Who the hell are you?” says the woman.

“No! Please! Don’t shoot! I beg. I have been trapped for what has felt like an eternity, and now I am finally free.”

“I asked you, what is your name.” says the woman as she still held the gun to me.

“My name is Ander. Who are you?”

“April, my name is April.”