DANDEMONIUM

He opens his eyes and sees what seems a flicker of white, radiant light amidst the blur of a mountain of starlight. The dazzling effect of his perception of this light leaves him in a confused somewhat dazed state, disconcerting to him, but he remains not yet fearful or panic-stricken. He blinks. Several times. His vision eventually clearing and he is fully awake now, all senses on high alert, it is only then he can take a note of his surroundings.

There is no longer any such light. Here is the new beginning, complete darkness unimaginable to any person. He can only compare it to being thrust into the belly of an abyss – no beginning or end in blind sight – the centre of a black hole. He draws in a slow, deep breath.

His head lolls back involuntarily. He tastes fresh cold water. Chillingly cold. He discovers he is floating on his back, and suddenly feels his damp clothes, his cold, wet, damp clothes cling to his body, like another layer of skin. He shivers. Not from the freezing, spine-tingling cold, but from the can only to him be described as the unknown. The fresh river water carries him forward in rapid motion, but then the pace changes it is as if he is almost elevated in absolute stillness, but he feels the pull and moves against it with less resistance; then swiftly, with haste, the change of pace occurs once more. It feels to him like he is on a production line. His turn will come.

His mind diverts to his physical body. He is unable to move his arms, his legs, his feet. Neither his toes nor fingers. He is more or less paralysed yet he is aware of the way his gaze can move from side to side and ability to open and shut his mouth although no sound comes.

He draws in another deep breath. To keep calm. As with all unknown, stressful situations…he can deal with this. He resists the urge to panic. Yet he shivers once more. From the ice in his bones? Who knows. He doesn’t. All he does is continue to focus on his breathing. His eyes wide open. Still nothing; but empty solitary darkness. He has adjusted to the darkness, but there remains nothing for him to see.

After some time, he does detect something in the dark skies above. A darkness within the dark. Shadows. Moving in quick succession in jagged style as if they were enlarged, mutated bats. They appeared to be well above him at quite some distance. But he notices how so suddenly one of these bat-like demons swoops down in a zig-zag like manner towards him. His muscles tense, his jaw tightens; and he grits his teeth. That is, he wishes his physical being would react this way, but he is semi-paralysed. He wishes to retch, yet all he can do control his breathing. He panics but almost instantaneously he wills control. And he remains calm.

The shadow-like creature that swoops down halts abruptly in the most unnatural of ways. It hovers, for a moment, just above his torso. He can feel the air between them lifting and circulating fanning the sting of that damn chill by the frenzied flapping of its hideous wings brisk heavy, wet slapping sounds emanating from the wings that offset against the thick, muffled density of its furry little body. As the shadow creature glides lands ungracefully and moves along the man’s stiffened, paralysed body, it pauses above his face and there can be seen two crystal-shaped dark, glistening pearls of eyes, and a darker, blacker light (if that was at all possible) within these dark pearly eyes; and - he could swear on his own lift it had any value- he could see into the shadow-creature’s soul. In that very instant, he realises - and with such indescribable horror never experienced by any living man - it is his own reflection that looks back at him. And yet, it is not only his soul he sees; but that which with the passage of time begins to pass between the two of them. That which has no name. No identity. No source. No energy. He cannot look away, even if he wants to, he cannot resist the allure of these mysteriously fascinating yet equally terrifying eyes for what seems like an eternity but is merely a fleeting moment. The shadow-creature abruptly without warning moves away and upwards in its typical jagged way to join its fellow shadow-creatures. Yes, there are many more. So many they add to the blackness with their blackest of black eyes and black furry bodies and elongated threatening blistery wings. But their eyes, magnified, at a distance, cavities. Something beautiful but most obviously obscene. Abhorrent. Unworldly. No place for such creatures in the world of the living. And it is then for him the undeniable ultimate truth eventually sinks in ever deep. He is no longer in the world of the living.

There is more movement, he catches it from the corner of his right eye, aside from the shadow creatures above, there are other forms of consciousness floating all around him above, below and beyond. He senses their presence and sees movement and outlines, silhouettes. All despite the darkness. He can hear the muffled cry of a new born. A man’s groan. A woman’s high octave shrill, an agonising scream, prolonged it seems by the sound of frenzied flapping and a new sound of tearing - no ripping - of both flesh and muscle. The scream eventually (thankfully) dies away into the hollow emptiness which first experiences when cruel consciousness awakes and greets him. Sound draws the attention of the shadow creatures. Another truth. Sound. Another of his five senses finds him and grows in gradual strength as does his vision. There seem to be varying degrees of darkness now as his eyes adjust to a new world. A world between two worlds.

Time passes. He continues to float, with the strong current, drifting in a single direction for much time, but what is time? He no longer knows. There is no sense of it, here, no beginning and no end. Just presence. And awareness.

And then another sensation, he discovers, touch, something hard rubbing against his forearm. He shivers; but does not tremble. He is terror-stricken for sure now. There is only so much a man can take after all. There should be nothing after death. Yet here there is every terror unimaginable. It is nothing short of debilitating for him. To conclude, it is simply the unknown that finally starts to chip away at him, his calmness - his inward compulsion to fight against panic and the will to never flee from his adversary - here he wishes to flee; yet there is nowhere to go. He is trapped. Imprisoned in his own body, his trusted armour and vessel. Now of no use to him and he cannot discard. It is an unfortunate state of affairs. Even in death, he must fight to another kind of death, finishing or ending, he knows not what to call it. The beyond must cease somewhere. It cannot be…eternal?

Meanwhile, whatever presses against his forearm, ever so slowly, crawls up his arm and rests for a moment on his shoulder, before it continues its journey along his neck and across his face and finally, into his ear. He feels the somewhat hard slight of something alive, and in motion, which in a deliberate and purposeful fashion brushes across his ear lobe. Intent on entry. And in his despair, he finds, he still has no command of his limbs, he just cannot move to swipe and be rid of this new horror; he cannot see – no matter how he desperately tries to reach the very corner of his eye-sockets - how it folds itself - again and again - to make itself smaller, small enough to fit its bristly, scraping body deep within his ear where it comes to rest. Its journey coming to an end. For now.

What insane absurdities he feels, what on earth is he experiencing. Please be a night-terror. He thinks. Please awake. He desires. But he knows this is no dream. This is no night-terror. No terror you can wake from, remember for a moment and then forget. Dreams take on their own reality with a surrealism and a stimulus that is unique to dreamers, most if not all are undiscovered in the waking life. This is something else entirely.

This is no dream. This is no surrealism of a kind previously experienced by man who lives to tell the tale. His awareness eventually shifts to the water that carries him. He loathes the water he is in. He fears what is to come. The thing in his ear, it knows. It knows everything. It is the interconnector. He knows this. Somehow. The Thing. The Interconnector. It has become a part of him now, and him a part of it. And as his journey continues, they accompany each other and become one, not only with one another, but also with the river.