I got home from work that day feeling on top of the world. I had just been promoted, and the whole office had taken the day to celebrate. We laughed, danced, and partied all day long. It was a great day—one of the best in recent memory. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and I had no reason to suspect anything.
But then, I saw the lamp.
It was the same lamp—Rachel’s grandparents' lamp, always standing as a symbol of warmth and family. But now it was strange, almost impossible. The light was inverted. It hung upside down, the light emanating from below rather than above. I blinked, rubbed my eyes, but nothing changed. The lamp stayed like that, its reality warped.
"This can't be real," I whispered to myself. I felt something unraveling in my mind, like a taut string snapping under pressure. The feeling that something wasn't right flooded back, stronger than ever, but this time it drowned me. I couldn’t stop looking at it. No matter how sore my eyes became, I kept staring. The last ten years of my life—they flashed before me, and then they shattered.
It wasn't real.
THEY WEREN'T REAL. My wife—FAKE. My son—FAKE TOO. EVERYTHING. TEN YEARS of love and hope, of family, and what was it for? What did it mean if it wasn't real?
I spent hours, days even, trying to make sense of it. I stopped eating, stopped drinking, stopped everything but staring at that lamp. The days blurred into one long nightmare. By the second day, I lost control of my body, using the bathroom on myself like an infant. I must have reeked of death and sewage. I was a broken man, a prisoner of my own mind.
Rachel, terrified for me, called in a professional by the second day, but it did no good. I didn't speak, didn't respond. I only stared. My eyes burned a furious red, barely blinking, the veins throbbing against the whites of my eyes. I was losing myself, slipping into something darker.
On the third day, I began to see things—faces on the lampshade. Twisted, bloody, and fleshy, they stared back at me, frowning in pain. The lamp grew wider, expanding, engulfing my entire perspective. I heard the screams then—horrific, tortured screams. The voices surrounded me, echoing through my skull. The anguish and the horror swallowed me whole.
I screamed. I screamed until my voice was raw, until my throat felt shredded. But I didn’t move, didn’t look away. My vision twisted, warped, like I was seeing through water. I wanted to wake up, to escape from whatever hell I was in. It felt like an eternity, an eternity spent alone in pain and fear.
But eventually, I woke up.
I woke up into a new nightmare—one even worse than the one before.
I was in a coma, they said. Ten years of darkness, of being trapped in an unending void. I couldn't see, everything was pitch black—blacker than black. But I could hear. I could hear voices around me, doctors talking, machines beeping. I could hear clinking metal, feel something tight around my neck. They were operating on me, trying to fix whatever was broken.
But I could feel it all. Every cut, every incision. The blade biting into my flesh. The pain, excruciating and real. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. My voice was gone, trapped like the rest of me. I was awake, but it was like I was still asleep—still trapped in that void.
In the abyss of sleep, I lie still and deep,
Silent screams in my mind, secrets to keep.
Darkness surrounds, no escape in sight,
Lost in the void, trapped in eternal night.
They didn’t know I was awake. They didn't know I could feel everything they were doing.
In the realm of silent screams,
Where pain resides and darkness teems,
The surgeon's blade, a sharp dread,
Navigating through the thread.
I wanted to beg, to plead for them to stop, but no sound came out. Only my mind screamed, over and over, until it was nothing but a broken record of pain. I gave up. I stopped trying. I stopped hoping. I just wanted it to end.
"Should we put him down?" I heard someone say. It cut through the darkness, a question asked in a voice so cold it made my blood run even colder.
No. Please, no.
I managed to move my head, just a fraction, enough to let them know I was still there. I should have let them do it, should have let them end it. But I didn’t. I was such an idiot, clinging to a life that was no longer my own.
And then, it was over. The pain faded, and I felt my consciousness slipping. I slipped back into the darkness, into that deep slumber, and when I opened my eyes again, I saw the lamp. The same twisted, evil lamp.
This time, I didn’t hesitate. I walked up to it, my heart pounding with rage. I grabbed it and smashed it against the wall, throwing it with every ounce of strength I had. I hit it over and over again, with anything and everything in sight, screaming with all my might.
The lamp was undamaged.
It lay there, mocking me, as if nothing had happened. I screamed even louder, my voice tearing at my throat, until everything went black again.
When I awoke, I heard someone crying.
