Interrelation and Other Works

Time and Nightmare

This was but a dream, an ephemeral reverie devoid of narrative or character, neither a guide for the lost nor a tale of adventure. It existed solely as a spectral encounter, an experience that felt achingly real. In this instance, however, lucidity eluded him; consciousness did not waltz through the fog of awareness. Of the myriad phantoms conjured in his slumber, this particular episode ensnared his mind, leading him to believe it was reality, though, if it were truly so, he would not be chronicling it now.

How effortlessly one can meet oblivion, as if toppling a tower of sticks with a mere flick of the wrist.

What unfolded was not merely an illusion; it was a grotesque nightmare, an unsettling amalgamation of realities bridging dimensions with unnerving precision, creating an almost palpable sensation of being drawn into a void of nothingness. He lay ensconced in his bed within a drab lakeshore tower—an industrial simulacrum of every residential monolith that loomed in the city, its hallways starkly illuminated, devoid of warmth. The walls, thin as parchment, allowed muffled murmurs of unseen lives to seep through, a grotesque reminder of a suffocating elitism that pervaded the air, while the remnants of neglected creatures mingled with the detritus of humanity. It was a tower of sticks, both inside and out.

On an ordinary night beneath a canopy of crystalline stars, the curtains hung half-closed, allowing the sterile glow of street lamps to spill into the room. Reflections of hastily scrawled thoughts danced upon the ceiling, grotesque shapes contorting with each flicker of incandescence from the outside world. Below, a chaotic roundabout swirled with frenetic energy, a dance of desperate souls vying for space in the morning chaos. Everything else faded into an abyss of darkness.

Gradually, awareness seeped in; the ceiling morphed into a surreal expanse of artificial lilies, disturbed by the imagined ripples of an unseen creature. The mind, suspecting the grip of sleep paralysis, cataloged the spectacle as mere vision. Awake, he was beset by an oppressive sense of dread, a shadow rising from beneath the tiles—a sinister summons woven by an unseen force.

A vast, pulsating darkness enveloped him, akin to a monstrous entity perched upon the precipice of reality, its breath a suffocating presence that coiled around him. Breath faltered, heart thrummed with an echo of fear, and a foreboding figure lingered in a corner, its gaze a fleeting moment before dissipating into the void. Gathering what remained of will, he struggled to rise, each movement an insurmountable effort, staggering toward the light switch. Flicking it on, it extinguished almost instantly—a cruel game of illumination, a taunt.

This futile ritual unfolded—on, off, on, off—each attempt drawing that menacing presence closer until paralysis ensued, gasping for breath, electricity coursing through him as though a jolt of horror, accompanied by fragmented memories flitting mirroring shadows in the corners of his mind. Words failed to encapsulate the essence of that moment, a petrifying fraction of existence etched into his very being.

Reality felt like a visitation, a transitory encounter with something profoundly unsettling. The notion that he was born outside the confines of transience seemed folly, yet if he were, and this dark specter sought to reclaim him, what right did it have to intrude upon his existence?

The number of times he had been ensnared by dreams where myriad entities siphoned the very essence of his soul loomed large, leaving him adrift in a state of numbing despair.

Finally, legs betrayed him, pupils dilating as if ready to pounce, but he was ill-prepared. Fleeing down the hall as fast as humanly possible, the door slammed behind him. In an eerie twist, the peephole functioned both ways—a disconcerting revelation, yet oddly fortuitous.

Hesitation lingered, breath hitching, torn between the instinct to escape and the compulsion to look. Peering through the glass circle, a gaunt figure obscured its face with its hands, eyes disturbingly embedded within each palm—a manifestation of primal fears, conjured from the deepest recesses of his mind.

A scream tore through the oppressive silence. The vividness of surroundings began to dissolve; the once-familiar hallway morphed into a tableau of surreal horror. The very fabric of the space around him seemed to warp, bending under the weight of something unnameable, shadows pooling into crimson as they heralded a grotesque merging of the living and the dead.

With haunting clarity, realization dawned; he was entangled in a dreamscape, yet awakening felt impossible. Crawling back upstairs, the viscous tide rose, carrying the lost souls of the forsaken—ethereal entities unable to traverse the void that lay between worlds.

He sat at his door, ephemeral stretching into an eternity, though it was but a fleeting second. In this warped temporal space, he peered once more through the peephole, realizing with unsettling certainty that he had not been born "Outside of Time" but into a dreary night of whispers and shadows.

At first, the specter—a sallow figure obscuring its visage with its hands—revealed palm-eyes that haunted with their blink, a grotesque ballet of horror. A sinister melody echoed in the background, an ironic accompaniment to his descent into madness.

Down the stairs he raced, panting, dragging his shattered self through the mundane façade that now felt foreign and eerie. Luminescence flickered, the hallway transformed, unveiling a pond of shadows and whispers, a lake of despair breaching from outside.

With trepidation, he opened the door, dreading the potential that it might close behind him, as in some cursed tale. He stood resolute beside his desk, a withered plant shedding its leaves like remnants of lost hope.

In the stillness, a creature loomed—its form towering, shrouded in a haze of ethereal smoke. Antlers twisted within the pale fog, while its eyes—dead and hollow—stared into the abyss, teeth bared in a grotesque grimace.

The antlers, echoes of nightmares past, revealed themselves not as mere adornments but as manifestations of something ancient and unfathomable, lurking just beyond the threshold of understanding.