five minutes last an hour

reoccurrence; part 2

I blinked once,

I blinked twice.

It was hot.

My skin felt as though it was melting, sweat droplets trickling down from my forehead to my chin to my toes.

A long room of classical interior design was filled with golden tasseled pillows on red velvet couches and Victorian-styled carpets under the legs of marble coffee tables. Its four windowless walls that confined me were all decorated with only slightly peeling maroon wallpaper patterned elegantly, and there was an evident lack of a door. This room seemed to stretch out infinitely on both sides, as no matter how far I walked across it, the distance to the end remained the same.

Strangely enough, this enigmatic atmosphere, this smell of newly polished floor tiles, this rhythmic clinking of the chandelier's dangling jewels above my head, this absence of an escape, and this place in general—they all seemed unusually familiar to me. Too familiar for my liking, actually.

My vision blurred, everything around me appearing to be trapped in a heatwave of pulsating swirls. 

I exhaled once,

I inhaled twice.

I exhaled once,

I inhaled twice.

As a response to the tugging pain in my chest, I had to find an exit. I felt as though I shouldn't linger here any longer, as though I were being watched.

For what felt like hours, I paced around, trying to escape from this doorless room, 

Trapped like a prisoner of my own dream.

Until, as if materialized out of thin air, I saw a jade amphora in the center of the room that was not there previously. The jar sat plainly on the floor, perched on neither a post nor a table, whatsoever. It retained a peculiar aura that was almost inviting. Although I knew it was just a jar, it felt as though there was something about it, something more to it...

Tempted and curious, I approached it carefully, noticing that the room had suddenly been cleared of all its furnishings, apart from the amphora before me. When exactly this happened or where they all had went, I was unsure.

Kneeling on the ground, I reached a hand out, and without even touching it yet, felt a tingling coolness from the jade tickling my fingertips. I then held onto its handles on both sides, my grasp tight and firm. Picking the jar up carefully, I peered into its dark mouth. Suddenly, it began to shake, and I was sucked into the bottomless pit of the amphora's belly.

...