I witnessed something no man was ever supposed to possess memory of.
By
Updated 3 years ago,September 23, 2022
Christmas has always been a hard time for me.
Ive never felt the warmth of family coming together or the anticipation of opening gifts.
Tim Mossholder
Ive never helped my mother make ginger bread cookies or gone caroling.
But Christmas isnt hard because my life has lacked those holiday essentials.
No, instead its because of the memories that surround that annual celebration.
The reminder of what I went through…of what Ive seen.
Im getting ahead of myself.
It happened when I was six.
I was living with my mother.
My father was out of the picture, just a hateful name on my mothers tongue.
I never met the guy.
And to be honest, I never wanted to.
We lived in a small house on the edge of town.
Looking back, they probably would have if they found out.
But they never did and I spent a lot of time in a world of make believe.
I didnt mind because I didnt know any better.
I spun worlds and characters, imaginary friends, and silly things that little boys fantasize about.
I was a space warrior, a pirate, a solider, anything I could think of.
Eventually, the sun would set and I would end up asleep in my bed.
So you see, she didnt have a lot of time for me.
She didnt have time to get us a Christmas tree, or decorate our house, or anything.
Christmas was just another day for me.
But God, I wanted it to be so much more.
I became hungry for those things.
I wanted them more than anything else.
It was all so festive, so magical.
Now, Im not telling you these things for you to pity me.
I dont care about that.
Im telling you this so you understand why I did what I did.
About why I went to Christmas Land.
I stirred in my bed and listened to mom shut the front door behind her.
I rubbed sleep from my eyes and bundled up in my covers.
It was cold, my breath pluming out before me.
Mom must not have been able to pay the heating bill this month.
As I tried to go back to sleep, my mind wandered.
Buried under my blankets, I started to drift.
The house was silent and dark, my bedroom door open to reveal the barren living room.
Hey…hey kid.
The voice shattered the serenity like a hammer on glass and my eyes shot open.
Mom had just left, I was supposed to be alone.
Pssst, hey, kid.
I sat up, breathing fast.
I hadnt imagined it that time.
It was a male voice, low and deep but inviting.
It had come from the living room.
Its ok, I just want to talk to you for a second.
Swallowing hard, I slid off my bed and tip toed to my door.
I peeked around the corner, trying to see through the black.
Had mom brought a friend over and left him here?
I thought about turning on a light, but for some reason the thought scared me.
What if I didnt want to see whoever was out there?
What if it wasnt one of moms friends?
Over here, by the fireplace.
I squinted towards the ashy, empty space against the wall.
I didnt see anyone.
I stopped in front of the fireplace, scratching my head.
I jumped, taking a step back as the voice echoed from the chimney.
As I settled myself, my mind began to spin.
Who was up there?
And how had they gotten there?
The only person I knew who went down chimneys…was Santa!
Fear subsiding, I knelt down and cocked my head up under the fireplace to look up the chimney.
Dangling from the darkness was a long, charred hand.
It hung motionless, like a dead pendulum.
Long fingers hung like silent chimes, the skin as dark as soot.
The hand was attached to an incredibly thin wrist that disappeared into the black.
Hey kid, The hand said from no visible orifice.
I just stared at it, mouth dropping open.
What the heck was this?
How was a hand talking to me?
And what was it doing in MY house?
Youre a tough guy huh?
I shrugged, still not sure I was awake and listening to a hand in my chimney.
Well, let me cut to the chase.
I heard you like Christmas.
I told the hand it was.
Still unmoving, the hand continued, Well…thats great.
Because I have a surprise for you.
If you want, I can take you to a magical place called Christmas Land.
In Christmas Land, its always snowing just like the North Pole!
Not only that, theres also hundreds of dazzling Christmas Trees like youve never seen!
And Christmas lights all through the sky, oh theyre beautiful!
Christmas Land is full of little boys and girls just like you!
Doesnt that sound wonderful!?
Dont you want to see it?
I shifted in my empty living room, curiosity pushing aside fear.
That did sound good.
That sounded like exactly what I wanted.
It was a nagging in my head, a whisper behind the voice I heard.
I bit my lip and thought about my mom.
She wouldnt be home for a couple hours.
She didnt have to know.
The hand swayed gently, I promise to have you back before your mom gets home.
You want to see the lights dont you?
You want to play in the snow?
And honestly, I was so desperate to experience Christmas that it didnt take much to convince me.
I told the hand I would come, making it promise to take me back home before three.
Smiling hesitantly, I reached up and grabbed the hand which was now opening its fingers.
On contact, I felt something jolt through me, like a quick blast of icy wind.
I gasped and I heard the hand whisper something to itself from the darkness.
Before I could respond, the hand gripped mine and I was lifted off my feet in a rush.
Darkness blasted around me and I squinted, my eyes watering.
I could smell ash invade my nostrils, the chimney squeezing in tight around my shoulders.
We should have reached the end of the chimney by now.
I blinked, wind tearing my eyes and I realized I was falling.
I was falling fast and the hand was nowhere to be seen.
I started to scream, realizing I was falling towards the earth from high up, impossibly high up.
And everything was wrong, all wrong.
I expected to see my house, my neighborhood, a dark landscape below me.
But what I fell towards was nothing like that.
I fell towards charred earth and dusty mountains.
I fell towards pits of fire and empty wasteland.
I fell towards a mass of something wriggling and screaming.
Faces stared up at me, terrified, tear streaked faces.
Confusion and horror crashed together in my young mind like two trains on the same track.
I didnt know where I was, what was happening, or what I had just fallen into.
I kicked at the hands grabbing me, frantic to be free from their touch.
I rolled over and pressed my face against the mesh, looking below us.
And then the net began to move.
The vision that awaited me still haunts me to this day.
We were hanging above a vast plain of red earth.
Foothills rolled below us, empty of forest or foliage.
Rock formations jutted from cuts in the dirt like emerging infections, sharp angles and dangerous surfaces.
Ash rained from a crimson sky, a constant curtain of never ending flakes.
It looked like snow.
Walking across the expansive plains were dozens of towering, naked, sexless humans.
They were rhythmic in their movement, order to their steps.
They worked together, all across the horizon, bringing down nets and emptying them into colossal piles.
Stretching across the expanse of the sky, from horizon to horizon, was an absolutely titanic human body.
It was naked, like those below, but its skin was pale, almost white.
Its head was bald and its moon sized eyes were closed and unmoving.
Its mouth was a long line across its face, a pasty trench of overwhelming size.
And it just hung above us all, still and silent.
Peaking around the colossal body was the broken remains of a destroyed galaxy.
And thats when I noticed something.
And the more it breathed in, the more it began to take on color.
They were trying to wake this thing back up, revive it from whatever state it had fallen into.
Before I could even digest all this, our net dropped and I was falling once again.
I heard my voice join the others, screaming, howling.
We were being emptied onto a new pile of children.
I hit the squirming mass with a thud and felt myself slide and somersault down it.
The ground shook as one of the massive, sexless humans approached carrying a blazing boulder.
Me and three other children began to run, hauling away from the pile as fast as we could.
I didnt know where, but in the distance I saw spires.
I headed towards them.
The giant holding the boulder kicked at us and two of my companions were destroyed instantly.
Tears pouring from my face, I ran and ran and ran.
I could hear roaring behind me, a great bellow of fury at my escape.
The ground shook and fire blazed and hell was all around me.
Hundreds and hundreds of chimneys of all shapes and sizes.
Together they formed a field of stone and brick stretching for acres and acres.
Nets hovered above them from spikes the size of sky scrapers.
I didnt have time to feel sorry for them as I reached the edge of the chimney fields.
Sobbing, I said a prayer and took one last look behind me.
The titan in the sky had opened its eyes.
Wind suddenly whipped across my face and suddenly I was deafened by a great roar that shook the heavens.
I fell until all I knew was darkness.
Red lights flashed across my blurred vision and I blinked back black.
Questions rained down on me, worried voices that became jumbled to form a roar of noise.
I blacked out soon after.
I awoke a few days later in a hospital bed, my mothers tear-streaked face staring down at me.
Mercifully, she held her questions back.
Instead, she hugged me tight and kissed my face, whispering her love.
It wasnt until I was released a few days later that I was told what had happened.
According to the people who found me, I had suddenly appeared in the middle of a highway.
A highway three states over from my house and home.
It was a miracle someone didnt hit me with their car.
My mom took me home and for years didnt ask questions.
I let her believe that despite the contradicting timeline.
Ive never fully recovered mentally from that night.
I witnessed something no man was ever supposed to possess memory of.
I saw something that defied…everything.
Where had I been taken?
Where was it now?
Was it some distant future or some alternate plane of existence?
And just what was that thing in the sky…and where was it now?
