Ymiden 16, 720
His footfalls were muted by the lush, mossy ground. The forest floor was wanting no noise during the time of the sun’s fall. With each step he took, a small cluster of organisms were disturbed. As his foot sank into the greenery there was an associated eruption of little insects with purple bodies and ruby gems for eyes. They fluttered about his feet, their paper thin wings iridescent and sparkling amidst the twilight sky.
He stopped and stood still, admiring how his own flesh shimmered, a pale hue. A network of spidery veins- purple, green, blue- all diverging before converging again at a later point in his arm. He twisted his limb and the meager sun’s rays caused his skin to appear almost translucent. He admired the sight, the sound of the insects whirling around in the air, the feel of the brush against his feet and around his ankles.
The long slender blades of grass that joined the supple moss circled his ankle, winding up his leg and embracing his knee. It felt like droplets of dew were condensing on his calves, ensconcing themselves in between the wiry hairs from out his skin.
Moths made out of paper floated close to his face. They’re dusty wings were sharp, enough so as to cut open a rift in time. He watched them flap about, his coruscating irises shrinking as his obsidian pupils grew. He was being pulled in to the moths majesty.
The plant caressed his leg again before tightening abruptly. A throbbing pain elicited a harsh scream that penetrated the quietude. The air was no longer solitary. Noise exploded from around him, sending alarms blaring in his mind. The plant’s hold tightened once again and pulled. He lost his balance, was swept off his feet, landing hard against the wet grass. He was being pulled away. Away to somewhere he knew not. The moths started to shrink, the purple-bodied insects became smaller, the misty dew droplets on his body turning to blood.
He was consumed by an abysmal gap in the ground.
But it wasn’t real. The darkness had no hold on his sanity. The pitch blackness was merely an illusion of his surroundings. He felt in front of himself, touching nothing but musty air. But he wanted the light; he needed the light. He willed any form of illumination, any sort of luminary to brighten the room he was trapped in. It was stifling, suffocating, but he would not let the darkness win.
Even when the whispers murmured malicious things, even when something cold and metallic slithered by his leg he would not let the darkness cause him to succumb to his fear. He willed his energy, a conglomeration of contradictory emotions, intense thoughts, and deleterious memories. It was a mass of threads, each string attached to something different. He could not separate one thing from the next, but he could attempt to calm himself. He could attempt to locate a source of light. Thus, some hope and a little confidence, among other emotives found within the tangled mess of filaments, rose to the surface and conjured a manifestation of light- a candle, the flame dancing like it had someone to impress.
The room was not as dark now, but it was certainly not any less intimidating. To his left he saw the metallic substance that had stroked his leg only moments before. It’s body was made out of steel, crafted so as to resemble a snake’s form. In its head were two opalescent stones that shown a myriad of colours that shifted with the angle of light. It’s face was menacing, angry, as though it demanded something it had not yet received for quite some time.
Zur could feel the proverbial laser of his sight pierce his eyes. His eyes burned, luscious pools of blue catching fire as he blinked furiously. And once he reopened them, the beast was no more. It had vanished, evaporated more like, leaving behind a faint scarlet residue like rust.
“You want to get out of here, don’t you?” croaked a voice somewhere within the dimly lit room. Zur turned and noticed a small door behind him but no other being besides himself. There was nothing around that could have said anything to him or made any noise whatsoever, yet it came again.
“You don’t wanna be trapped in this box forever, right?”
It was then that the young man noticed the lines in the door, the natural grain that gave the wood its texture. Strangely enough, two of the lines were thicker than the others and had an uncanny resemblance to eyes. The small hole under the knob where one would insert a key was deformed, moving as he heard whoever it was speak again.
He crept slowly towards the door, fear very nearly rooting him to the spot. He reached out a tentative hand to the door knob, but the lines for eyes grew larger.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Asked the door, perplexed.
“I’m trying to get out of here!”
The door let out a hearty chuckle, not one of menace, but of pure bigheartedness.
“You can’t leave this way. What do you think, I’m a doorway to another place?”
Zur bit his lip. “Why, yes, actually. Yes, I do.”
The lines for eyes narrowed and the small hole where a key would fit grew metal notches for teeth.
“I’m no door for you to walk through! See me! I bet you walk all over mats too, huh? Like they’re some sort of door mat?”
Zur was beginning to hyperventilate. Whatever was happening to him right now was causing irreversible trauma to his heart and mind. He had been trying his hardest to play along, to pretend everything was alright, to tell himself that this was all a dream and that he was merely walking amongst it, but the situations grew more and more surreal; more and more creepy.
“You go through that wall, you ass hat,” the door rumbled, causing both the ground and the walls of which he was referring to shake. “Everyone and my ma knows that.”
Zur took a hesitant step back, completely oblivious to what the door was talking about. How was walking through walls more logical than doors? A door was literally an exoneration of material, a hole in an otherwise solid obstacle.
The man shook his head an began to press his palms into the wall. It was cold, moist, but it definitely didn’t feel solid. If he had anything he could relate it to, it would be to relate it to a leathery substance. It seemed to breathe even. And that notion alone sent chills rippling down his spine. He continued to follow the perimeter of the room, sending his hands along the wall until he felt it give way. There was an emptiness, though it appeared just as any other part of the wall. He looked back at the door, who’s face still looked perturbed.
“Go through it,” it said almost daringly.
So he did.
Never before had he experienced such a disgusting sensation. It was like coming out of a womb. While he couldn’t recall having done so personally, he had helped his father deliver a baby horse once. The sticky and slimy viscera coated the baby animal like a second skin, which technically speaking, is completely accurate. The substance adhered itself to everything: his hands, the outside of the mother horse, the ground, his clothing. And now, he was covered in it.
Fighting back the unbearable need to vomit, Zur pressed onward until he emerged on the other side. It was a snapshot of a transition. One moment he was coated in a grotesque mess, traveling through a dark and mysterious space, and then he was entirely clean, greeted by an effervescent palace with walls that had a nonexistent end.
He was barefoot again, feeling the smooth surface of the linoleum on his heels. He strode to the nearest wall, finding comfort in knowing nothing was going to sneak up behind him. Then he surveyed his surroundings in awe.
There was a magnificent chandelier hanging from the nonexistent ceiling in the center of the room, home to hundreds of dazzling diamonds a fixed to small lot candles. Directly beneath the chandelier was an enormous wooden table covered in a myriad of foods from varying cultures and customs.
A man stood at the far end of the table, flickering in and out of existence like a flame. The two men made eye contact and chaos ensued in the stranger.
“Wh-who are you? And what are you doing in my dream?” The man shouted, his eyes widening like saucers. And as quickly as he faded in, he faded out of sight, leaving Zur alone. Along with the man, the banquet had vanished too, causing Zur’s stomach to growl in disappointment.
If all this was a surreal vision, which he wasn’t entirely positive it was but was leaning more towards assuming it was likely, then why was he feeling hunger pangs?
He shuffled his feet across the cold tile, going no where in particular aside from away from the wall. The room was endless, continuing further and further down. It almost seemed like it was repeating itself. As Zur had passed the chandelier, it would appear again several long strides later.
The young man was growing frustrated. He wanted out. He was done with this place and it’s craziness. He was done witnessing impossible feats of physics and illogical acts of science. And if it were true that he was in deed dreaming, he was tired.
He stopped walking and subconsciously sat down. The ground felt nice against his feverish body. He pressed his cheek against the tile and closed his eyes, pretending he was somewhere else, somewhere with fresh bed sheets and warm blankets, with natural light filtering in between the cracks of his eyelids.
And then he was home. Or at least, he was somewhere that oddly resembled home. It was too specific and too similar to argue and Zur didn’t. He didn’t question his bed, the crinkles in the pillow case against his head or the fake fern beside the door (a door which didn’t speak to him). Everything felt different; more real to him. There was no numbness to his mind or tingling in his limbs. The light felt right against his skin and he was no longer hungry, no longer tired like he had been moments ago... in his dream.
He looked over at his bedside table and found a glass half empty with water. It was exactly as he had left it the night before. Zur sighed and rubbed his eyes, techni-colour spilling out the edges. Strangely enough he felt refreshed.
For the next hour, Zur inspected everything crack, every divot in the walls making sure nothing odd would happen. He greeted Ash, who seemed as normal to him as Ash could be. He even ate some fruit without any outlandish occurrences. At the end of the hour, he felt relieved. All was as it should have been.
