The Darkest Hour: Chapter 3, Part 1:
Ever since I started this anti-sporking project, I knew this was going to be the hardest chapter to spork, simply because of how drastically it affected me. The first time I read this, I literally threw up in my mouth (and then threw up for real) and cried so long that I had a headache for the rest of the day. In terms of sheer emotional impact, this chapter was like a bullet to the head. It’s absolutely lethal. So as it is, I knew from the start that I wouldn’t be able to analyse this chapter with any sort of coherency, because I would be too preoccupied in my own emotional reactions than what literary technique caused that reaction.
Before I anti-spork each chapter, I read it once in a hardcopy and make notes in the margins. Then I read it again and write down on a sheet of paper in dot-points all the major themes I want to talk about. Then I copy-paste that chapter into a word document and really anti-spork it in detail. And what sealed the deal for this chapter was that when I got out my hard copy, I found that I simply couldn’t read it. My brain went into full panic mode and basically went, ‘OH MY GOD, WE HAVE BEEN THROUGHT THIS BEFORE, ABORT, ABORT!’ And I’d practically throw it away from myself in panic.
So, this chapter had me worrying for quite some time.
However, then I realised…I didn’t HAVE TO talk about the techniques. A piece of writing’s ultimate goal is to provoke a response from its readers, so the best way to judge any book is by what it made you FEEL. So, seeing as I could vividly remember every detail of my first reading, I thought I’d just share that instead.
Another point would be that this chapter is JUST. FUCKING. AWESOME. Words cannot encompass exactly how mind-blowing-ly awesome it is. If I were to go through and recap and quote little snippets, then inevitably, I’d ruin the beauty of the chapter. No matter how much praise I shower upon it, you’ll never to able to see the perfection of this chapter through dry, rambling recaps. So, just go and read the actual chapter instead, and if you can’t tell why it’s good, then no words from me can possibly help.
I always felt the huge emotional impact this chapter made on me was because of how much it mirrored an incident from my past (NO, I DID NOT MURDER SOMEONE, PUT THAT PHONE DOWN IMMEDIATELY). Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?
I’m a lucid dreamer.
That means I can control my dreams.
I didn’t always have that…that power, I guess. And I can remember exact when I acquired it. See, the first step to lucid dreaming is that you have to realise you’re in a dream. After that, everything just comes naturally. But the thing is, no matter how ridiculous the dream it, it always feels perfectly natural when you’re inside it.
Some years ago, when I was 14, I think, while I was away in Japan on a holiday, I had one of the most traumatising nightmares I can remember.
In the dream, my cousin had moved in to live with me because his parents had to go back to China for something. I wasn’t quite sure. And I’d just like to make a little disclaimer that my cousin is TOLERABLE in real life. He is an OKAY person. I am OKAY with him. But for some reason, my subconscious decided to twist him into the most asshole-ish person you can possibly imagine. The first half of the dream is almost entirely made up of how he can ruin every single little thing that I can POSSIBLY enjoy. And of course, because he’s a guest, I couldn’t do anything except bear with it. And the frustration and anger from every incident just kept piling up until I was on the verge of tears in my dream.
Well, in the second half, my dad, my cousin, and I were walking down a street when he decided to buy for us one of those huge slabs of chocolate from a vending stall. My cousin demanded that my dad buy a separate one for him, even though the first was big enough to be split in two for the both of us, and there’s no way one person can eat it all without being sick afterwards. My dad refused, and so my cousin shoved him rather roughly.
And he stumbled back onto the road, just at the moment where a truck was coming down the street.
That dream was one of the most ridiculously detailed and realistic ones I’ve ever had too. And I could never figure out how. I mean, it’s not like I’d ever witness a car crash on person, so how did my brain create the exact look of horror on my dad’s face, the sharp, ear-piercing screech of tire on asphalt, the sickening crunch of impact, and the dull, wet thud of a body hitting the road? I’m not sure if it’s adrenaline, but the moment seemed to be stretched into slow-motion, and I could see the exact way he…sort of just crumpled and hear the snap of each and every single bone.
My dad had been in a car crash before, when I was 10 years old, where he broke three of his limbs. And I reacted quite well at that time. In fact, it didn’t even occur to me that the very same car crash could have killed him. I always just assumed that, yeah, he was really badly injured, but it’s not like he’s gonna DIE or something.
And I remember just standing at the edge of the footpath, not wanting to look, and yet not being able to look away from the distorting, barely human lump and the pool of dark red liquid rapidly spreading beneath it. And the chocolate slipped from my hands.
I didn’t know what overtook me then. I couldn’t even tell what the hell I did. I just remember my vision literally narrowing onto my cousin, and suddenly, nothing but him existed. I didn’t care about the pedestrians and on-lookers. Everything faded to black except HIM, and I felt all the pent up anger from before that had been simmering in my stomach for the entire dream just erupting forth like a volcano, and by the time I came to, I was straddling him, pinning him to the ground, and stabbing his stomach with a knife (that I got out of thin air).
And I can’t deny that I really enjoyed it at first. Somehow, after all that he’d done, it just felt...good to see his face contorted in fear and pain, feel him shuddering beneath me with every stab, and know that he was powerless and the mad scrambling of his blood-coated fingers can’t possibly stop me. And I plunged the knife into him again and again, perversely enjoying the way his flesh gave way, the way the warm blood oozed all over my hands, and the gurgling, rasping breaths he drew.
I never knew blood was so hot. It almost burned at first, the way it’d spray out of the wounds, and then sizzling on my face and arm. But then it’d turn almost wonderfully warm, only to cool to icy cold a few seconds afterwards, so I’d have to stab him again to get the warmth back. Somewhere along the way, I’d thrown away my knife too, and I remember shoving my hands into his wounds, and then digging in and ripping out chunks of flesh, pulling out organs…
And then, I don’t know how, but it suddenly hit me what I was doing. And I froze in shock, my hands still buried in the rapidly cooling warmth of my cousin’s stomach, and I slowly looked up from the gaping wounds that closed about my wrists to his mangled chest, not a single inch free of stab wounds, to his face - mouth hanging open, eyes bulging out, his head tilted at an unnatural degree, so that his ears rested on his shoulders…
And I practically flew off of him in my haste to get away, and I’d looked down, and seen how my shirt was absolutely drenched with blood, and my hair was matted with it, and everything I could see was splattered and dripping with blood.
And I did that.
And then a horrifying realisation hit me.
I was in a dream.
This is MY dream.
I’d wanted this, on some level, for it to happen. I’d wanted this, and when it happened, I LIKED it. The first few moments of the murder was the most exhilarating experience I’ve ever had, when I just let go of all the anger I’d been carefully pushing down and vented it against the struggling creature beneath me.
I HAD to have wanted it, because this was my DREAM.
I could have gone after my dad and resurrected and healed him, because it was my DREAM, my brain controlled what happened. I could have just terminated the whole dream and started over with a new scenario, because I decide what happens. But no. I didn’t do any of that. I attacked him because I was angry at him, and I wanted to satisfy my own anger. I can’t even claim I was doing it for my dad, because there were so many other ways I could have helped him - zapping the truck out of existence, stopping my cousin when he was about to shove him…any number of things.
But I didn’t.
I’d done it because I wanted it, and I LIKED it.
And that was when I’d used my lucid dreaming powers for the first time, just tearing the image of my cousin’s mangle corpse to shreds because I didn’t want to look at it, and if I just pushed it away, I can pretend it never happened.
I ran.
And I spend the next couple of nights afterwards making sure that my dreams were nothing but me floating in a dark void.
I know that, in the end, it was just a dream, so it can’t possibly compare to what Edward went through in this chapter. And I probably look like a wuss, being so traumatised by something that didn’t even happen. But still, it’d left a very deep impression in my mind.
At the end of the first chapter of The Darkest Hour, I’d felt heart-broken, frustrated, and a bit anxious for Edward. At the end of the second chapter, however, all I felt was…sort of numb. So many things had happened that I’d exhausted myself, and in the end, after all the tears and rage, all that left was a gnawing numbness that just refused to go away.
But at the start of this chapter, almost immediate after I’ve started reading it, I realised just how much it paralleled my dream (except worse because, to Edward, this actually happened). The way he was TRYING to make himself enjoy the lights and sounds of the city, and yet one jerkass after another came and rendered null any effort he made at pushing his anger away. The way his resentment towards people, towards society, simmered just below the surface, becoming more and more overt, barely contained under his rapidly cracking self-control. The frustration and pain and anger and EVERYTHING just mounting up, and him wanting nothing more than to just lash out and destroy everything. The way a previously perfectly OKAY thing (humanity and my cousin, in each scenario) rapidly became contorted into a target of hate…
From the very start, I knew where this was going. His “dark side” had edged out a bit in plenty of encounters before, and the first time I read this, I honestly wasn’t sure each time if this is where he was going to snap. But it was at the start of this chapter that I realised, yeah, no question about it, he’s gonna do it here. He wasn’t staying away from humans because of his own moral compass and his love for them, but almost as an act of habit. And I knew habit wasn’t strong enough to keep him in check the next time he was provoked.
But as much as I was screaming at him that no, he was wrong, that humanity was so much more…I also couldn’t help but agree and sympathise with him, because…I do understand where he’s coming from, and what with being so in sync to him, I felt the same frustration and aggression building up inside me with each encounter. And I was so torn between fear at the knowledge of what he’s going to do and sympathy with him and perhaps a little bit of agreement as well, just because I was so immersed in his character, that at some point, I forgot this was a story. When I think back on my experience, I can’t recall scrolling down, I can’t recall any of the words Mrs. Hyde used to paint the picture. All I can recall is that freezing day in Chicago, the dancing lights, the sneering faces, and the panic and simultaneous aggression building up inside me.
But then, even that panic got left behind. I’m not quite sure where, but somewhere in the description of Edward scrambling to get out of the city, I’d completely merged with him, and it was me that leapt onto the train, and it was me that jumped onto the docks, and it was my head that was filled with the babbling voices of the workers.
And when Edward heard Reggie’s thoughts, perhaps I’d felt a tinge of sinking realisation and horror, but it didn’t matter, because it wasn’t me. I was skidding to a halt in the alley, and I was trying to suppress the bile and disgust and horror at what the man was planning, and I was trying to suppress the bile and disgust…and yet the paradoxical and instinctive excitement at the realisation of what the man was planning.
And when Edward attacked Reggie, my hands were twitching against the mouse, because I was looking for something to grab onto and twist and throw away. And I was straining against my chair, leaning forward as though I could scent prey, and I was shivering from the rush of adrenaline as though I was on the hunt. And when Reggie stabbed Edward, it was in my chest that the previously pent-up anger bubbled forth, oozing and spreading and permeating every cell of my being and turning me into something monstrous.
But I didn’t care, because I was crushing the little vermin’s hand, and it felt so good to watch all his pomposity and arrogance and malice rupture and all he could do was writhe and scream, because he was powerless. And I didn’t care about Edward’s downfall, and I wasn’t worried about the atrocity of this act, because I was revelling in my power-trip, and it just felt so wonderful to be able to finally let go and just do what I’ve been wanting to do for so long, too damned long.
It was exactly the same as before. The heady rush of exhilaration washed over me, and all I could do was pursue it, wringing every drop of pleasure I could out of it, and I didn’t care who got hurt in the way, because it was dopamine and I needed more, and when blood came pouring forth from Reggie’s head, my first reaction was a simple, whispered, ‘Yes.’
And then I was drinking, and never have I been so in sync with Edward, because everything of his were mine, and every sensation, every taste was resonated in my body, and this had to be an orgasm, the way my muscles wound tighter and tighter with tension even as blood filled Edward, filled me, and I wasn’t breathing and my fingers were scrambling against the edge of the table, and I needed something to grab onto, I needed leverage, because then I was exploding and I couldn’t see anything except blinding whiteness, but I didn’t care, because it felt good, and I liked it. And I wanted more.
And when Edward threw back his head and laughed, I couldn’t help but chuckle as well, because things had never been better, and I could still feel the thrum of pleasure inside me, and it was obscene the way I couldn’t help but grin along with him and let his joy and revelry fill me, because it just felt so good, it was impossible to care.
And then Edward saw Reggie, and it call came rushing back. My dad, in a crumpled heap; my cousin, a barely human lump with intestines spilling out of his stomach; myself, covered with blood, bits of flesh still stuck to my fingernails; and Reggie, dried, broken, dead.
Edward had killed him.
I had killed him.
And I didn’t just kill him. I symbolically RAPED him…and I LIKED it.
I wanted it.
I just watched someone, fictional or not, get brutalised and raped and EATEN, and I’d spiritually participated in it, just because it FELT GOOD.
And to be honest…what Edward did here was probably EXACTLY what I would have done were I in the same situation. After all, I’d done it before. And I’ve liked it before.
I’d- I’d watched someone being symbolically raped to death, and I fucking LIKED it. I liked it so much that I was fucking WET. Not a single fucking pornographic piece DESIGNED for titillation had aroused me before, and watching someone being EATEN did.
No, that’s wrong. I wasn’t watching.
I was participating.
I killed him.
I murdered him.
I ate him.
I fucking RAPED HIM.
And it all became too much, and I flung myself from my chair and half-stumbled half-crawled to the toilet, clasping a hand over my mouth to hold in the bitterness of bile. And then I vomited into the toilet, the sourness of half-digested food and stomach acid making my eyes water. And before I knew it, I was TRYING to dry-heave into the toilet bowl, but the sobbing and hiccupping and tears formed such a lump in my throat that I couldn’t get anything either down or up.
I didn’t know how long I spent just hanging onto the toilet, but eventually, my bawling calmed to a sniffle, and my head and throat and eyes were hurting, and my fingers too, because I was clutching the porcelain so hard.
I know I probably sound like a wimp, letting a piece of fictional writing affect me so much, and so physically too…but it’s undeniable that this chapter is the single most devastating piece of writing I’ve ever seen.
I’m sorry for not being able to override my brain’s Epic Panic Mode and deliver some analysis. I’m weak.
I’m sorry for dumping all of this personal stuff on you. I’m weak.
I’m sorry for reacting so melodramatically. I’m weak.
And hopefully, I’ll be slightly stronger next time and not bail on you guys like this.
For now, I need to go get a box of tissue because just writing this little piece made me cry again, because I’m fucking WEAK.
Go Forward to: Chapter 3, Part 2, Section A
Go Back to: Chapter 2, Part 2, Section E