Topic: The Other Side of the Veil

Glenn Douglas · Date: 2016-05-30 12:34 EST

Might as well try this again.

My name is Glenn Douglas. I was born in York. The rest is just distractions. I had a father, a mother, brothers and a sister. They're gone now. Every last one of them died a long time ago and so that's that. I'm the last of the line of Douglas, and there probably won't be anymore after me. I'm pretty sure I don't have any bastards and if I did, they're all doomed anyhow. And I sure as hell don't want to have kids of my own so there's that.

Introduction's out of the way. Don't know why I bothered, I'm not writing this for someone else to read. Maybe it's to remind myself who I am, when all is said and done. That line can get blurry at times. Confusing.

__________________________________________________ ___________

I died.

There, I said it. I died. That was some shit. Let me tell you about it. Madison Rye and I (yeah, that Madison Rye) were fighting off the Hexxen in this fucking tower and I brought it down on me. Bad idea, in hindsight. Dying sucks.

At least she made it out alive. That was the whole idea, anyways.

But, I died. And when I died there was this long period of nothing. I don't mean the nothing like when you sleep and wake up and can't remember the dream you know you had. I mean nothing. Not black. Not darkness. Nothing. For a long time.

I remember opening my eyes and seeing this light all of a sudden. It was brilliant, blue and green and red and every color at once. And then I remember feeling cold, then hot, then both. Like my body couldn't fucking decide.

Then I felt pain, like the weight of that tower crashing down on me again and again. And then nothing again.

That's all I can say about it right now. Just thinking it, writing it, it's making my hand shake. I'm sitting here alone, sweating, panicking like a fucking baby. I can't stand it.

Glenn Douglas · Date: 2016-08-21 11:18 EST

I'm bad at keeping up with this. But better late than never.

Death has a funny way of changing the way you look at the world. I come back and everything's been turned upside down. Madison Rye don't recognize me anymore, or at least she pretends she don't. She knows who I am, sure, but she fights with all her might to forget what she is. I guess that's what happens though. People change. She's changing. Or she's trying to change.

I know she'll never make it out of this life, though. Hard as she might try. Too much fire in a woman like her to settle down peaceful like, the way she pretends she wants.

This Tag fella's got my head all screwed up. I can't figure him out, but it ain't my job to do that. He's decent enough, it seems, and for some reason he don't hold a grudge for all the shit I've pulled since I came back to town. If I were him I'd have already killed me. Says more about me than it does about him, I guess.

I got his daughter a knife like he asked. I'll turn it over to him in a few days. It was a weird request.

Glenn Douglas · Date: 2016-08-21 11:18 EST

Foley is dead. I killed him myself, but not before I took out his god damned eye. Fucker deserved to suffer a lot longer, but I didn't know how long until I was found out. There was an old man there meeting the rat bastard. Gotta look into him, too.

Glenn Douglas · Date: 2016-08-21 11:25 EST

I dug into it a bit. That old man I saw when I killed Foley.

Guy lives in a big house on a big hill, rich and fancy like. His name is Leo. Leo Ortiz. Gods, that name sound familiar but I can't place it. Like something from the past long forgot but a scrap, a shred, and it's clinging to the back of my mind.

I'll work it out.

I don't know what all this guy's into yet, but from the company he keeps I can assume he ain't no saint. If need be I'll put him down, too. I'm tired of men like him coming in and thinking they can control me. Not me. I'll tear the whole world apart before I let someone like him get their way.

I met a young fella named Elias a while back. Runs a shop in the market where he sells and apparently identifies little trinkets and the like. He's the one who showed me how to use the little copper thing that broke the window at Leo's estate. Handy tool. I'm gonna keep it around for a spell, gods know I break into a lot of places and anything to make that easier is worth having.

Glenn Douglas · Date: 2016-10-09 18:55 EST

Jesus fucking Christ.

What a night.

I've decided something. Dying fucking sucked, but coming back was worse. Not because being alive is hard, but because coming back changes the way you operate on a fundamental fucking level. I don't know what it is that's changed, but it's sure as shit something. I'm different and I don't know if I like it.

I barely recognize my face in the mirror and the sound of my voice has an edge I don't remember hearing before. I can't sleep, I barely eat. Whiskey don't taste as good as it used to and I ain't drinking as much as I did before. It's more out of habit now, like visiting an old friend.

I was out there at the clearing and I couldn't figure out where I was, not really. I could see the air moving in a way that man shouldn't, I could smell the earth shifting under my feet. I could feel the campfire but it wasn't warm, it was cold. And everything was off.

I came back and sat down on the floor in front of the cot and stared at the chipped paint on the walls like they might tell me something, but fuck if I can glean anything from a fucking wall. The fact that I tried is reason enough to declare me insane and lock me up with the rest of the fucking nuts in this town.

A word to the wise, if any of these pages ever get out there to the public eye.

If you die, stay dead. It's better that fucking way.

Glenn Douglas · Date: 2016-10-14 11:24 EST

It?s like?I can?t die now. I can?t be hurt, not physically. I don?t feel pain anymore so?my heart is making up for what my body can?t. Because I can?t feel that knife in my belly or that bullet to the head, my soul hurts a thousand times over. And I don?t know how to stop it. I?ve never felt like this, this deep seated pain in my chest. I feel like at any second my heart will stop and I won?t be able to breath, and I?ll just sit there and slowly suffocate and I won?t feel a thing except for that ache.

I hate that pain, more than anything. Because it?s a pain I can?t describe, I can?t fully explain it. It?s a pain that I can?t escape. Sleeping just means I dream about it, drinking makes it worse. What do people do when they go through life like this? Morgan told me that it?s normal. He said that after what happened between Madison and I that it?s about time I started feeling something, even if it is so late. I ask him how people deal with it and he just says you suffer and then you move on.

I?ve suffered enough, God damn it. I?ve suffered more than most. My whole life is one big fuck up after another, one let down, one disappointment. I?ve either betrayed or been betrayed by everyone I?ve ever known, and so I learned. You don?t get close to people.

You don?t fucking do it.

And then Madison Rye comes into my life like a fucking whirlwind and throws everything upside down. And I died for her. If I had told my younger self that one day you would die for a woman who will stop loving you, he?d laugh and shoot me. Jokes on you, you little fuck . I was write.

But I died. I came back, and we fought and fought and we fought.

And we reconciled, or have some sort of semblance of reconciliation. We?re done and we?re both moving on with our lives. She?ll always be important to me, but that chapter is over.

And now this shit with Salome?s got my head all fucking spinning. Man, I just wanted to get laid. Ain?t even fucking done that, yet. It?s all tangled and upside down and wrong and I fucking hate it, but I can?t stop myself from diving headfirst. She hates it too, I know. I know she feels the way I do and that she?s as scared by it, too. I know that just as clearly as I know anything. The difference is, I think, is that I?m subconsciously scared of never feeling anything ever again.

And since the only kind of pain I can feel is pain in my heart and my soul, I?m seeking it out, just so I can feel alive for a while longer. Wonder what I?m going to do when things blow up and she stops wanting to see me.

I guess if worse comes to worst, I can always use Papa?s gun.

Glenn Douglas · Date: 2016-10-16 12:43 EST

You go away for a long time and return a different person - you never come all the way back.
- Paul Theroux

That's what happened to me, I think.

I died and I walked along the in-between and when I found my way out of there and finally started to make sense of myself, I didn't recognize the man I had become. Because that man is me but it's not the same me that went down in that tower those years ago. Hell, even the coyote seems not all there anymore. I don't feel that burning need to run wild like I used to.

It's a scary thought. What if I had been gone longer? What happens if I go back there? How long do I have to stay in the in-between until, if I ever come out again, no one recognizes me anymore?