I had probably eaten something bad yesterday, or maybe it was the ****-ing tumor, because when I woke up again-  

I was seated in a velvet armchair on the slope of a burning mountain bordering a sea of smoke. In front of me was a Blackjack table with cards laid out upon it. Each card's vertices and corners seemed to smolder before my eyes, kindling before the inferno and waste around me. I felt awake, yet somehow these sights didn't register. I-

Terror seized me suddenly. I was not alone here. Facing me in his own chair sat a nightmare. Before I knew it I was shaking, and as I opened my mouth to scream-

"Anthony, were you lost in thought again? It's your draw." it chuckled in an impossibly deep voice. From the darkness of its massive frame its saffron eyes, billowing like fires, regarded me with cruel, decadent amusement. Those orbs I knew saw me as I would see a fly on my steak at a restaurant.

My mouth worked endlessly, lips smacking like a fish in the open air. "Wh-who-a-are you? I-I-I'm not dead yet, I-"

The thing cut me off suddenly with a booming shriek, a kind of laughter not unlike the scream of dying children from ages long, far past. I thought, for one dead, cold second, I could hear Karen's voice somewhere in there, down in the dark. "Of COURSE you still live, fool! This is but a vision, a shadow of our one, true meeting." it snickered.

Hearing such, I found myself feeling terribly sick as my eyes drew themselves forward unabiddingly: from that darkness in the opposite chair I could see it smiling. Its teeth were bloody, sharp, and impossibly large. Unable to pull my gaze away, other things came to my mind as well, hints of a picture I’d never wish, not in a thousand years, to ever have a glimpse of; gore-drenched scales, slimy manes of hair, a penis as thick as a baseball bat, red like a monkey's, stiff and standing high above my head...

I covered my mouth, felt vomit rising from my bowels. This wasn't happening, this was impossible. The thing before me, this demon, looked exactly like a picture on an old card I had glimpsed long ago. He was, he looked just like-

-It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns, a sign execrated by initiates. The chains are loose. They can be slipped..own torch can light the way out. Back to the surface-

"The Devil, right?" it chortled in a high pitched squeal, the suddenness of which nearly caused my heart to burst. The thing's undescribable face pinched into a shape which made my insides curdle. It stood up, the size of its body dwarfing me beyond all measure. "I'm here in Hell, waiting for you Anthony! In fact, Everyone You Know and Will Ever Know is waiting for you also! When you get here we will form a circle, we will touch..and touch...grope...be together..." it crooned as its penis descended to point directly at my head. "When you get down here with me, you will suck on this forever!" he cried out in a clotted, inhuman voice as his bowled hips thrusted toward my face-

I screamed and screamed and screamed for what to me was an eternity or so before I finally, blissfully, blacked out, and when I woke up again God knows when later the Devil was gone and I began to fear the end in a way I hadn't previously.

Yep, my mind had become a giant run-on sentence, and I felt very, very awake. To be otherwise would mean to return there, and see His smile once again. **** that. From my pillow, I saw the clock read 1:03 A.M. Two hours since I fallen asleep. Perhaps I would never sleep again.

Maybe.

Three minutes later, there in the dark, my eyes began to bleed.