"This is evil, " Paul said as his consciousness crawled its way back from an unknown interval of holiday. His voice was hoarse from dehydration and tormented by realizations. The sun, now halfway through the sky, felt like it was burning judgment directly into his soul.
He lay on his back in the place where he last collapsed. The taste of sand filled his mouth, his lips now cracking and lightly bleeding. His body ached everywhere. His bones felt hollow, yet immovable in every way. Unrelenting visions have flooded his sight for half a day, leaving him to assemble like Legos. They whispered to him a path of never-ending sorrow.
He pulled himself up onto his ever-trembling arms. His worn cloak slipped from his shoulders and onto his forearms like it was nothing more than an old, nasty rag. The wind roared around him in unpredictable gusts, like something was slithering beyond the veil. At this point, he couldn't tell the difference between reality and paranoia manifest.
The hidden machinations of the esoteric, once desired, were no longer a gift. It was a seductive apple laced with the poison of the void. He was a mere fly lured by honey and motivated by disdain for vinegar.
"This knowledge is the fruit of the tree," he whispered. His voice was cracking under the weight of certainty. Eternal damnation was no longer an abstract theology twisted by humanity, but instinctual certainty.
He could feel something about him change as he left that temple, something he could now identify with crystal clarity. A chasm has split his spirit, an emptiness left by grace no longer there. Leaving shadows that promised hellfire with their corrosion.
What he once dismissed in scholarly arrogance, understood by the common, now stood revealed as the light piercing through all. A textbook example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action. The unyielding truth of creation hung over his head, but just out of reach.
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," taking on a meaning lost to the uninitiated. His power, his knowledge, and everything he wished to gain from it now contradict his purpose of existence. Revenge.
His dominion now lay over forces long condemned by the Almighty. The metaphysical is reality, and it has rules. Consequences are not of moral fabrications, but logical implications determined by cause and effect.
Here he was, in the middle of nowhere, armed with a blade he could not use for a hunt that cursed his bloodline. Destined only to color the stain on his soul. The sigil in dust he had drawn on his cloak arm glared at him. It's an energetic being, and symbolism is the language of the subconscious.
Salvation was distant, like an unstable candlelight in a storm of temptation. And Paul was now clinging to it with all he could muster. A careful line must be walked.
Climbing to his feet, he forced himself out of his daze. He pushed the conflicting ideas that raced through his mind unceasingly to a corner to be revisited. He brushed the sand and hair out of his mouth and off his face. He went to his tent and made a halfhearted attempt at cooking, producing something that one could only describe as sludge. He refilled his canteen and began to gather his few belongings in preparation for the hike back to the city.
He didn't want to leave. The camp offered temporary refuge. The rituals he now knew were not holy or profound, as he imagined. They were tools crafted from vice. And to participate now, without the excuse of ignorance, is to incur an unpayable debt. His paranoia surged. Everything was watching him.
He began the walk. Time blurred as he marched under the desert sun. Ley lines glowed dimly in the sand, their white light concentrated in a dark outline. He ignored them. To act now, on anything, without careful deliberation and preparation, would be equivalent to inviting an obvious vampire into one's house.
After hours of nonstop walking, his feet began to bleed. The sun had set quite some time ago, but Paul was not concerned. The only thing keeping him going right now was the thought of a nice meal and a comfortable bed at the hotel he departed from not many days ago. Buildings were now in sight. His heart pounded. Anxiety overstimulated his senses, and his breath began to shorten. His eyes narrowed in expectation of what he might experience once he arrived.
"The real darkness isn't in this desert. It's waiting for me in the streets."