The Ascension and the Punishment: Freedom

Chapter 1. Entropy

            You wake up. You don't remember much, you are experiencing feeling of nausea and strong headache. It feels that you barely can sense reality or pick your memories up. You remember that you was in a forest, but everything seems to be like an almost forgotten dream. You remember, trees, feeling of fear, running, lights, remember a knife, dogs. You also remember a giant stone ring which you were running towards and then it suddenly shined. As it did, you run in and everything turned dark. You don't even remember how you appeared in the forest, what was your goal and what you was running from. You probably don't remember the events of last few days.

As you are standing up, you find that it's surprisingly easy to do. You barely can keep yourself on your feet, but you don't fall. It feels that some kind of substance is supporting you. You find the surroundings pretty dark but you can't perceive the images of the objects that are around you yet. Slowly your vision turns clearer and you find yourself in a dark place on a path. You see no objects near you, you can't see in distance. You look up and see a slight almost faded shimmer in the far. It's quite high up, and you see some strange shapes on the sky that look like edges of trees, yet there is no forest to see. It seems that the shape of trees is painted right on the sky itself, because as you slowly walk the path you encounter nothing. Just the ground with some grass and the path itself.

There is no wind, but the air is rather thick. You can breathe freely, though it doesn't feel like it's getting in or out of your lungs. The grass is moving like as if it is inside some sort of liquid and there are barely noticeable waves. You look up again and see nothing on the sky, except that distant light. It is weak and blur, like as it was going through an old dirty glass in a completely dark room. It is not enough to light the surroundings. There are no stars. There is nothing. A bit of light is under your feet, barely noticeable, yet it allows you to see what's around you in about 4-5 meters.

You barely feel like you can control your movements, yet the pain in your head goes, getting replaced with feeling of something shrinking in there. As it continues, you seem to get the feeling of strange emptiness inside of you. It feels like your mind is returning to you, as well as your feelings, but not memories. You can't remember what your motives were, and... pretty much of your past. All you feel now is howling feeling of mental emptiness. For whatever reason, a very familiar feeling. Feeling of frustration, desire which didn't come true, desire which is not even found. It feels like you need to find your desire, because it seems that you lack it. Suddenly you realize the feeling very well. It feels meaningless... Somehow it feels that this feeling is right, it makes you feel that you are... meaningless. You feel guilt, some memories echo in your mind with blur images but with clear feeling of guilt that you abandoned one's feelings, ignored, was ignored, feeling that everything went wrong, but the wrong is inside of you, inside of your nature. There is a hole in your soul, lack of contentment, and now you realize it can't be filled. Somehow the light that you see in distance feels resembling this feeling you have inside.

What are you to do now? This place is so... Quiet. Surprisingly quiet. So quiet that there is no even sound from your ears which you can usually hear. It's just peaceful. And warm... It feels like night. Cozy, calling for falling asleep night. Calling for seeing dreams...

Somehow this place feels so... Comfortable... Its darkness and warmth feels so good, it feels like... protecting. It feels like it covers the reality itself like a blanket which protects from monsters. And you decide step off the path.

The air gets thicker, but warmer. It becomes harder to move, you are like swimming. You lie down in the embryo pose. You want to cover yourself in a blanket but the thick air starts to feel like a blanket itself, or like a warm water of a basin. It feels so comfortable to sleep.

You close your eyes and enjoy the feeling of protection. No one around. Nothing around. Only you, darkness and the light... And the loneliness...

Did you ever have any purpose? Did you have any meaning? All the memories you possess, do they remind you of the life you wanted? Did you truly feel that your actions can lead to anything good? What do you have left behind? Home? Loved people? Friends? Well, but did you love them much enough? I mean, did you give them love the way you wanted? Did you make anybody happy? Did you make anybody TRULY happy? There are so many questions... You realize that all your life is a lie, because there is no certain "yes", there are doubts... there are questions... what does it mean? It means that there is nothing to hold back, it's better without you there... Your memories start to disappear...

Slowly it starts to feel that you are floating. You don't feel the ground anymore, you don't feel anything but the thick liquid-like air, warmth, safety and silence. This light... it doesn't make it completely dark, though it disturbs slightly. It feels like it's... Living.

You decide to go towards the light. At that moment you feel that the air gets not so thick and it lets you go, you are slowly laid at the ground. It doesn't feel so safe anymore. The darkness feels... You realize that the darkness can manipulate your body. It still feels pretty safe, it seems like it obeys you, but the feeling that the surrounding obeys your will partly doesn't feel easy. You try to remember how you stepped off the path and go towards it. And then you realize that you can't find the path anymore...

The light blinks. It doesn't shine monotonously anymore. You head towards it. You feel some sort of... Pulsation in the environment. It feels like there is some kind of a beat, very-very deep one, very-very far, rhythmic one. Like it's heart beat, and it's barely noticeable.

You encounter something as you go. You encounter a brick wall. It doesn't cover the light from you, it just goes alongside with you. You move along the wall as it leads to the light. You keep the wall and you see that you are moving very slowly. Unnaturally slowly. It feels like you are making same much effort as for running, but your speed is so slow that you barely pass a brick in a couple of seconds.

You start to realize that the light just appears to be distant, but it's not really so. You start to feel the space around you. Before, it felt like an endless void, now it feels like a small box. It even seems that it's getting smaller and smaller...

You notice something wrong about the light. It seems to be very unreal. As you get the realization, you get to the edge of the wall. It won't let you go further, and it has a window. It seems that there is no glass in it, and the light suddenly seems to be right behind the window. You put your hand on the window and you feel something like jelly. Suddenly the whole wall starts to feel like jelly. It still feels like stone, just... much less real than earlier. You push your hand into the wall, and... the light surrounds it. Your hand disappears in there, stuck. It feels like you are getting sucked in slowly, but you can push the hand back.

Unnatural feeling of fear takes over you. You start feeling figures behind you. You turn back and the feeling goes away, but as you look at the window again, the feeling comes back. You feel people. Many-many people. You don't even feel like there is something observing you, you... know they are observing you. It's like getting a sudden realization of their presence. They are there. You know. You don't feel – you know. And they don't have good intention. It feels like the only way is getting inside the window. You put the other hand in and try to get yourself deeper into the unknown which is behind the window and you can't see. It seems that the figures are coming closer. You put your head in and you see that you appear in some sort of jelly and you can't see anything except for the light which is right in front of you, very close... Your legs are still in the dark void, and it feels that the entities considering capturing you and pushing you back to the darkness. Suddenly, as you are almost in, you realize there is a giant eye right behind you, watching. It stares. It sees. You make an effort to push yourself further and you fall out. Your eyes are not used to the new surroundings yet, but it's bright in there.