On Saturday, November 21, 1997, my husband, John, and I spent an evening at the home of my close friends, Mike and Barbara. There was nothing unusual about that evening. After a beautiful dinner John and I headed home around 12:00 midnight, and we fell into bed shortly thereafter, unaware that my life was about to experience a huge and difficult change.
Suddenly, at 4:00 a.m. on the 22rd, without any warning, I found myself being hurled through the air, and then I started falling rapidly to the ground completely out of control. When I landed on the ground something or someone begin poking me in my side with a spear as sharp as a two edged sword. With my eyes completely shut, I laid there kicking and fighting while this thing or person continued to stab me repeatedly with the spear. Confused and afraid I curled my body in a fetus position with the hope of protecting myself from further attacks from this horrible nightmare. The thoughts in my head started racing swiftly causing me to feel as though I was spinning. I was so afraid that the poking of the spear would start again any moment, so I laid there on the ground perfectly still and quiet while trembling, crying, praying, wishing and hoping that those awful attacks would not begin again.
Then out of no where appeared an eerie silence. There was fire and the sounds of smashing teeth. Children, women and even men appeared to be screaming. But after a few moments that eerie silence returned. I could feel the darkness like a thick cloud of smoke closing in as if to squeeze all the life and breath from my body. I wanted so badly to open my eyes but I was too afraid of what I would see. I was struggling with my thoughts and my fears and I knew that this thing that hurled me into mid air could smell me and my fear from a far off. While struggling with my thoughts, I then begin to notice a foul smell. This smell was so bad that it made me violently ill to my stomach. My body began twisting and growling as though I was possessed with thousands of legions.
As I attempted to bring my heart rate back to normal, I could suddenly feel a thick liquid pouring through my ears and eyes and all over my body through my skin. I was desperate and I needed to see what was happening to me and where I had landed. I knew I was in a strange place, and I could tell that I was no longer in my home.
In the midst of my world crashing down on me I begin to wonder where John was during all of this. And why didn’t he try to protect me? What has happened to him? Did he see what happened to me? If so, why didn’t he help me? Why didn’t he try to stop it? As these and other thoughts raced through my mind I couldn’t help but to cry uncontrollably. But then, I started to get angry again and I really wanted to see who hurled me in the air, but more importantly, I wanted to know where I was along with the whereabouts of John.
As I sat up to open my eyes, the dried mucus and dried blood had to be pulled away so that I could see clearly. Feeling like my eyes were playing tricks on me I begin panicking as I embraced the vision of a woman with cataracts, and I pulled, wiped, and stretched my eyes wide open only to discover that I landed in what appeared to be a prison cell.
The walls of the cell were made out of rough hewn stone and had a door made of thick, metal bars. I was completely naked, which added to the vulnerability of a captive. This was not a dream or nightmare by any stretch of the imagination. This was real as I could now see, smell and touch this strange and awful place and I wanted out. Fully awake and cognizant, I had no idea what had happened, and even though I could see through my blurred stain eyes, I still had no idea where I was, what had just happened, how I had traveled there, or for that matter where my husband John had disappeared to; until I approached that huge thick metal door with the bars.
As I tipped towards the door pushing on the huge bars, I noticed thick brownish slime covered my fingers as I gripped tightly on the bars. I pushed the door open and not knowing what I would face on the outside, I slowly stepped out of the cell and as I looked to my right, I was slapped across my face with the force of a large tiger’s hand with nails as sharp as knives cutting me across my face and eyebrows and knocking me down to the ground. Again, I curled into a fetus position trembling and waiting to see if there would be another strike of focus. Suddenly I could hear breathing that sounded like a huge bull or animal of some sort. The beast or whatever they were began to moan and cry aloud.
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened: and the voice which I heard was as if it were a trumpet talking to me; which said, come up here and we will show you things beyond this world and your ability to comprehend. Immediately I opened my eyes: and, a throne was set before me, gigantic in size with a huge shadow sitting on it. It was a dark pitch black shadow of smoke formed to look like a man sitting on his throne. When I opened my eyes further I could see that there were twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four men sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. Suddenly I noticed lightning and thundering and voices coming from the throne: and seven red lamps of fire were burning before the throne. I slowly begin walking towards the throne and I noticed a sea of glass like crystal: and in the midst of this throne and round about this throne, were four beasts full of eyes in front and behind their heads.
The first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face like a man and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. As I stood in fear and shock, the four beasts came down from the throne and begin to circle around my paralyzed frozen body, while starring at me with their head of piercing eyes. The sound of thunder and lightning continued but grew louder and louder. These beasts were so big and ugly I decided to put my head down and attempt to close my eyes until they went away. That’s when I noticed my body completely covered and frozen in a cube of ice. I thought to myself, how is this possible when I’m standing in a pit surrounded by fire?
When I opened my eyes again I noticed that my body appeared the same as the one I had before this all begin, except there was no blood or water in it. To my horror, one of the beasts placed one of his ten-inch nails straight in my ear as though it was digging and/or searching for signs of blood, except there was no blood or water in my body. Life exists in the blood, and water represents life. Screaming at the top of my lungs I quickly learned I had neither. Suddenly the other beasts started coming down from the throne to torture me as the man looking beast was doing. I was able to endure suffering at the hands of these beasts that were now causing death to my current physical body immediately. Amazingly, other than that, it felt like a normal body and all my faculties seemed to work, without the blood and the water. My emotions were still there, and although my strength was almost nonexistent, my physical senses were acute-I could see hear, touch, smell, and taste.
The torturing of the beasts became so unbearable I fainted and fell to the ground. A few minutes later I awaken to a strong arm pulling and dragging me on the ground to a place in a very hot and dark large cell. The place was an inferno. I saw the pit-a mile across and consumed with fire. I saw the liquid fire that fell like rain. I felt the extreme heat, and I smelled the stench of burning things, such as what appeared to smell like human flesh. When I pushed back away from the pit of fire in fear, the arm in darkness came closer to my face and with a mouth and teeth attached, told me very plainly to jump in. I screamed and yelled, “No please, let me live” several times but there was no mercy for me. The arm with its mouth begins telling me to jump in the pit otherwise I would be thrown. I continued to talk back to this arm trying to explain that I was happily married, expecting a child in the near future and that I was young and deserved to live.
Instantly I realized I was doomed and had been taken to the lowest bowels of the earth. A sense of absolute terror gripped my being. As I starred at this pit, small spider-like demons were crawling up from the pit and they began crawling all over me in total darkness and isolation. These demons taunted me for hours! And the smell was horrid, nasty, stale, fetid, and rotten and evil mixed together and concentrated. Stinking, crawling demons mentally delighting in making me wretched. My terror mounted until I was ready to collapse into utter hopelessness, crushing despair, abysmal loneliness. I was eternally lost and abandon by my husband John and the life I once knew, so I stood to my feet weeping bitterly feeling the clammy wet walls would hold me crushed for eternity without escape; I ran to the edge of the pit and without second thoughts, I jumped in feet first into this pit of fire.
As I lay smelling my burning flesh I lifted my eyes to the top of the pit of fire and there to my surprise stood John unveiling his face. The beast with the face of a man was my husband John. I screamed aloud hoping to awaken from this nightmare; only to live and breathe to this very day in this pit of fire, better known to man as HELL.