The Lair of the Endless Dreamer

Chapter 3: Infernal Touch of Mind

The floor kept squeaking near the door, this old parquet groaning and moaning in the night as if there was someone eerily approaching my bed. I felt locked, lying there on my back in the darkness, frozen to the bone by this terror growing inside me. My eyes kept fixed on the ornamental ceiling. Maybe if my gaze does not stray, I will not see those horrors lurking in the corners - I thought. 

here was this... hunch. Creepy feeling in the back of your neck as if someone's staring at me, watching my every move. And maybe it was, I don't know. The nightmares never ended. My dreams and reality merged into one. I could not escape. I could not fight. All I could do was lie there, hoping that this feeling will pass soon. But, it didn't.

The seconds turned to hours, hours became an eternity. I was drowning in my dread, the horrible noises becoming louder and louder as if the room was alive. There was something scratching the wall just beneath my feet, like a wolf trying to tear it open. The old floor squealed and cracked, pressed against a heavy, unseen boot. A smell of decaying fish and algae which wasn't there overwhelmed me. My ears became too sensitive even to the slightest sound, the drip of the kitchen sink echoing like fell drums in my tired head. I did not remember when or how I passed out.

Suddenly, I was standing in an utterly strange corridor. Or at least I think it was one. It resembled a bizarre mashup of a hallway and a cave, its shape twisting and twirling like a vortex in front of me. I felt dizzy, disoriented and I leaned against the wall. It was slimy, uneven, having holes and gaps of perfect shape like the pore of a dark skin; a material I haven't seen before. Upon touch, it felt like it was alive. I could sense the pumping and flow of something beneath the surface. Almost as if I was inside the belly of a monstrous beast. Could it be?

But, in the distance I noticed a pale, blue door of wood which definitely did not belong in this alien realm. It was easy to tell that it was man-made, the only thing different being its floating in the air.

I pressed the handle. The door gently opened with a squeak, as if it were a very old, rotten piece of wood barely hanging on its hinges and yet, it looked like it was in a perfect shape. What my mind witnessed after my passage is beyond any scientific explanation or common sense. I thought I would go mad by the very sight of it.

Curving, round shapes twirling and intertwining as if made of clay. No. They appeared like built of obsidian. Hundreds of stretching tentacles, bending in wicked forms and webs, so unnatural and strange; impossible by any known laws of science. A strange, pulsating light birthed and faded in the distance; a cold color resembling a cyan, or perhaps green, no, white maybe... I cannot be sure. I felt utterly lost and confused, like a newborn infant coming into a new, unfamiliar world. A most disturbing ringing reached my ears, resembling a constant clutter of teeth, the clinking of kitchenware and porcelain and a deep groan of a behemoth beast. The feet below me began to slide, as if something was pulling me through the endless space. I did not know what was up or down, left or right. Everything seemed so chaotic and utterly unnatural that the only thought passing my mind was the worry that I would get lost in the darkness, never to find my way back.

I stared in the mouth of the abyss; an infinite blackness that had swallowed the sight before me. Invisible hands dragged me towards it, leaving the pale lights and caverns far behind me as I wandered towards the endless void. I barely felt my body, numb and twitching as if having a shiver, although I knew it was not sickness that bothered me but an unimaginable dread. Cold sweat dripped down my skin. My hair turned greasy, my eyes becoming red and swollen.

And my heart halted for a moment; a few seconds which felt like eternity, when the abyss gazed back at me. Endless number of chaotically moving eyes, as large as the castles of ancient men. Eyes moving rapidly in various directions.