Ron's Worst Nightmares

Welcome to the Afterlife

By Pat Squared

Follow the light.

Ron knew that he was dead the moment he saw the light. It was just like what those survivors said on those shows talking about near death experiences.

It was painful like staring at a spotlight after spending time in the dark. However he was afraid of what could happen if he turned his back on the light. He moved towards the light, but it never seemed to get closer.

Here there was no up or down. Nothing to reference. Occasionally the light would slightly shift left and right.

Then the light went off leaving Ron alone in the darkness.

Ron knew then where he was going to spend eternity.

There were no flames, no imps with pitchforks, no three headed mutt to guard hell.

Ron could not feel anything. There was no heat or cold. There was no gravity or sound. There was no air yet he did not suffocate. There was no hunger or feeling.

They simply left him in the dark.

Eternity – forever, infinity. The months since he destroyed his life seemingly lasted forever, yet they were not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of an eye blink compared to his stay in the darkness.

Ron could not tell if his eyes were open or shut. However, he knew that he was not with his body. If Ron was alive, he would feel the pain. Ergo, Ronald Dean Stoppable/ Vasilii Alexovich Boiarskii was as dead as last week's expired fish.

Ron knew that he was doomed to remain in the darkness forever. The fire and brimstone Christian hell had nothing on this prison. There he would receive stimuli.

Here he waited knowing that soon his mind would turn in upon itself.

Ron waited. Slowly he could feel his mind slipping away. He grasped at the little things. The little memories, something that could be used as a mantra to scare away the demons stealing his thoughts.

A little madness. Taste it. Accept it and you would be lonely anymore.

However, it was fate that he would be lonely. It had to be. Fate gave him a final chance at salvation and he pissed it away on one drunken night. The night of the Bacchus Festival, the night he took his best friends virginity, the night he proved that he was just as evil as his ancestors.

His real great-grandfather, Strumbannführer (Storm Unit Leader or Major) Schlosser was Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office) officer who willingly lead his Einsatzgruppen Sonderkommandos in enacting the Final Solution for Der Führer in Estonia. Schlosser, the son of a jägermeister, was known for his recreational two-legged hunts of enemies to the Reich and his rule of going for the head on every hunt.

Vasilii enjoyed hunting two-legged game just like his Schultzstaffel ancestor. He even hunted his targets going for the head, even though the body would have been just as effective and more certain. When the Russians where moving through Estonia, Strumbannfuhrer Schlosser turned down the chance to return to Berlin, but instead took his Mauser Karabiner 98 and walked toward the Soviet line to take part in Der Endgültige Jagd, the final hunt. Hearing his mother tell him the story, Vasilii as a child could not understand why his ancestor chose death.

Now as a killer himself, Ron now knew exactly why. After the hunt, there was nothing to live for, nothing that would make a man ever feel alive. The hunt was stronger than any drug, any soft curve, or any other transient pleasure. For once you have tasted death; to live one must drink deep draughts.

Even here in the darkness, he could still recall the arousal of the kill, the conversion of a life into a grey and pink mist.

Going back, evil ran in his blood from the Schlosser to the Teutonic Knights that virtually enslaved the local population during the middle ages probably to Cain, the first murderer, himself.

His step-parents used him to replace their real son who died in a swimming pool accident. They made Vasilii Boiarskii act like, talk like, and pretend to be Ronald Dean Stoppable. Whenever they felt that he did not play his role or just for kicks they would beat him ... just because.

Zorpox was the intellectual side of all the hatred floating inside his blood. Zorpox was the part of Ron that allowed him to plan, to be more efficient in Ron's role as monster. During the long walk, Zorpox help Ron prepare his ambushes so that Vasilii could enjoy the sickeningly sweet process of converting life into meat.

Zorpox, Vasilii Boiarskii, and the Innocent Ron Stoppable made up the triangle of identities that was his soul. It was this combination that cursed him to this existence.

What Ron Stoppable wanted to deny, now he accepted as gospel truth.

Kim and the Stoppables were right to destroy his spirit all those years. They unknowingly protected the world from another generation of evil. Now that he was dead, the evil that ran through his bloodlines would not taint another generation.

Hell – Here was his salvation! Here was his damnation. Here he would wait forever in peace knowing that he could not hurt the ones he loved anymore.

The darkness would be the price that he would willingly pay to protect the world from the darkness within his soul.