Reflected Horror Part 2: Dream Deception

                              Reflected Horror Part 2: Dream Deception

                                                            By

                                                  Brian Bykowski

                                     



         Seven, long months have elapsed before me, as I sit in this accursed cell that’s isolated me from the world for too long since. Since, that is, the night I acted on my yearning for freedom. Until he caught up with me, one I’ve for so long feared of encountering. The monster of my past life had only seemed to me one that I only remember from the nightmare realm. One that only belongs in the most terrifying phantasms conjured in the most sickened, ill mind. He was an escaped mental patient that had been pursuing me through the mass forests of Redpine Valley. There, a strange group of shadow men hunted me down and brought me to this hellish asylum and left me in this cell. In this very cell I had opened up a vista of knowledge which had almost killed me. The psycho that I had been running from wasn’t a disturbing nightmare creature, he was, in fact all too real. I looked in that forsaken mirror and saw him staring back at me. I know all too well, now that I am the one being I’ve been the most horrified of having to face. This thought was to never leave me and hasn’t ever since, I am only constantly reminded of it every waking moment. The concept is extremely complicated to explain, but can be summed up as saying I fear my own self the most at this point. Knowing there is no difference between me and the psycho thought to only exist in dreams. The one thing that made this all happen I’ve only developed an intolerable dread for, mirrors. I can no longer stand the sight of them, let alone look into them, without falling into a fit of utter lunacy. My existence now only consists of agony, fright, and complete darkness of the mind. I beg Death aloud to take me away, wherever the soul carries on. To the golden walls of Heaven, the flaming deserts and the boiling, blood rivers of Hell, to the warrior’s paradise of Valhalla, to Nirvana, or to the morbid tranquility of nothingness if that’s what awaits me. Death, harness my soul. Save me, save me!

          I sit in a solitary visitation room now, awaiting my unknown guest to appear. The light is dim, given off only by an old, electric lamp on the steel table in front of me. My hands are locked behind me, held back there by reinforced chains. The fact I even have a visitor amazes me, for I have not seen anyone for as long as I can remember. I haven’t even seen any of my family. They to, must wish to leave the painful memories of me behind. Am I to blame them? He finally enters the room. Guards follow in behind him, but he turns around and tells them he wishes to be alone. The guards leave reluctantly and slam the heavy door behind them and lock it, probably in case I attempt to escape. The man in the room with me is a stout, cold looking man wearing a brown suit and over that a white lab coat. He has the eyes of someone who always has a plan for everything and everyone, and would know what to do to defuse any situation. From the I.D. tag he carries I see that he is a scientist of some kind, the field he specializes in I do not know, as well as noticing his name is Boyd Conann. He glances down at me through thin-wired spectacles, ready to speak to me.

Without even greeting me, he begins with “I’ve studied your pain, I’ve researched your anguish, I’ve devoted my whole life to people sadly damned much like you; and over the years I’ve created solutions to set them free.” His words mystify me yet intrigue me enough to let him continue, “You to, can be saved. I now have specific methods tailor-made just for you, to get rid of all that’s been torturing you. To get you away from those that have tormented you, those that are tormenting you now, and those that will torment you in the future. I know of the thoughts in your head that constantly rip your sanity apart. I can eliminate them and make them disappear forever. You’ll forget all about them, and without them you’ll be just like everyone else. You’ll be able to enjoy a comfortable existence and never have to deal with any of this again. So what do you say?” These words drive me to the point of such happiness and alleviation, I almost cry in thankfulness. Without hesitation I accept his gracious offer that I thought only a deity was capable of giving. The scientist has more for me, “The process involves undergoing a few short trance sessions and being administered certain drugs that have been tested and proven to work. In fact, you are to be given your first injection as of now. The drug will take effect as you sleep.” He looks back toward the door and announces “He has accepted, you can come in now.” An assistant of his hurries into the room and tells me to roll up my sleeve. He mixes a bright, orange colored liquid and fills a syringe with it. He injects the needle in and administers the liquid into my veins. Directly afterwards he disappears out the door as rapidly as he came. The scientist gets up from the chair he was sitting in and prepares to leave. “I wish you luck on your first night of treatment, we’ll continue the process tomorrow afternoon.” The scientist leaves me silently with a look of triumph, another success for him no doubt. But an even greater success for me. Orderlies file into the room and lead me back to the one place I very much wish I wouldn’t return to, my cell. Perhaps, once this is process is over and done with, I’ll never have to look upon it’s grim atmosphere again.

         Back in the cell, I gaze at the oddly stained walls whilst sitting on my bed against the wall. The call for sleep begins to take its toll as it weighs down on my eyelids and neck.. My vision becomes but an indistinct blur and in an instant I collapse onto my bed and fall into a deep, relaxing slumber.

         I sail through daemonic vortexes, travel through ethereal, barren landscapes beautifully lit by a fantastically exaggerated moonlight; this journey continues as I glide over silver waters under shimmering, cold stars. All of this is much too wondrous to be real, undoubtedly the products of traveling through the dreamland. I glance up towards the moon while walking through a void plain far beyond the ability of describing, when a monstrous sinkhole crashes open in the ground and I fall through and again find myself descending madly through the daemonic vortexes until I’m back in my cell. This appears to be my cell, but I couldn’t possibly be awake. A yellow haze dwells in my peripheral vision as I scan the cell. The door to my cell suddenly opens and I am inclined to find out why it has been. I leave my cell finding an empty hallway, but something is just not quite right now. The pipes on the ceiling above burst and out runs a black ooze that begins puddling in the center of the floor and begins to a form stream running down the hallway. This black ooze continues to pool up from the drains on the floor, starts leaking through cracks in the concrete walls, and bursts through weakened sections of the ceiling. The black ooze engulfs everything it flows over, and I freeze in fear, afraid to come in contact with it. I let out barbarous screams when the black ooze unexpectedly drenches me from above. Yet I am somehow motivated to keep moving forward down the hallway. As I do so, scaly, tentacle like arms burst outward through the little windows on the doors to other cells. The arms beg me to join them in their frightful dwelling places, reaching for my soul, but to no avail.

         I see the figures of three orderlies coming to my rescue, most likely due to hearing my cries. They run up to me and ask me why I have left my cell. I do not answer. One grabs my arm lightly, and in the most diabolically distorted voice tells me “Come now, we’ll take you back to your nice, cozy room now.” Peering into his face, I see his eyes are a shade of bright, neon green. The eyes seem to bear more resemblance to that of a demon. An unnerving feeling gnaws at the back of my brain. Once we are back at my cell, I see it’s drastically changed in appearence, for the worst. Looking inside, blood is slathered on the walls, floor, and ceiling. Bloody, punjabi spikes jut from the walls at irregular angles. Beds of razor wire and broken, shards of glass are spread across the floor. The orderly next to me begins commanding me again, but the words “Get back to your cell” begin to sound more like “Get back to your hell” This is all too much for me as I seize the nightstick the orderly is carrying. The orderly lets out a hellish screech that shows he is purely not human. It is not morally responsible to let such a demonized creature walk this earth. I take action as it looms back ready for attack and bring up the nightstick above my head and bring it down several times before it can lunge at me, ending the existence of this fiend in the guise of a man. Braving the tentacle arms and black ooze flowing from all directions, I frantically run through the entire building aimlessly, finding every other human being in here is actually a diabolic being from a realm of chaos. Every one of these creatures I encounter, I hesitantly maim with the nightstick I carry with me.

         On the other side of the asylum, I rush into the church, which now resembles more of a sinister house of blasphemies than a house of worship. Looking down a row of pews, I see Robert West, the one man whom I actually found trust in and could speak with, kneeling in prayer. I call out his name and he turns to face me. His face is obscured by shadow as he walks toward me. He stops in front of me and asks, “My God, what have you done?” Before I answer, I peer into his face regretfully and see not a human face, but one that had been mutilated by unearthly, unseen claws. Yet he spoke so easily and painlessly, it seems as though he doesn’t know of such a nauseating wound. His eyes to, give off a neon glow that reveals his true, evil form. After this, a corpse gurgle begins to emit from the mouth of this infernally corrupted man. I know this is no longer Robert West I am speaking to, but a horrifying beast that must not linger on this earth. Closing my eyes, I swing the nightstick wildly and the mad swings connect a few times before this animal is no more.

          I flee from the corpse on the ground in front of me and almost run into the priest. But he is not the priest I remember him to be. He now strikes me as a minister of the unholy, bearing inverted crosses on a chain around his neck. He wears a blood red robe decorated with the design of a sabbatic goat in black outlines. His eyes give off a neon glow as well, but instead of green, they are bright red. These horrid eyes look me through and through as this minister from Hell begins to babble satanic mantras. I shout out as loud as I can, trying to drown out these satanic messages. Nightstick in hand, I charge the evil minister and leave his corpse in a state of mutilation that leaves him unidentifiable, silencing his satanic babble forever.

         The house of blasphemy now begins to darken and every door in sight disappears into the walls. I am inclined to escape immediately, not wishing to meet a fate too terrifying to imagine. On the altar, a large figure begins to rise from the floor. As tall as the ceiling it is, its shoulders splintering the wooden beams to the sides of the figure. My head begins to pound, my vision becoming far more warped. The figure appears to be that of a large baphomet idol, widely worshiped by followers of Satan. I can’t think straight, I walk closer to it to get a closer look at this idol. At a short distance away from it, I notice the eyes suddenly move and glance down at me. The terror chokes me in such a terrible way, I simply cannot stay for another second. I move to my left and smash open a stain glass window and leap out into a parking lot.

          I run through the night across the parking lot, all vision nearly fading completely, when I notice a lone vehicle with a back door opened. A figure all too familiar to me appears outside of it beckoning me, a man in black. His reflecting eyes conjure unimaginable carnage in my emotional stability, yet blindly and not on my own volition, climb into the back seat of the vehicle and close the door behind me. The vehicle begins to move and I notice out the windows the ground falling away into a black abyss. The vehicle moves into a netherworld never before seen by human eyes and with this all eyesight falls into a blinding, yellow glow before everything disappears into darkness.

          I walk down a continuum-type hallway in a complex completely foreign to me. Earlier today I woke up in this new building with no knowledge of how I got here. Upon asking others I had been told that I was transferred here in the night as I slept. I was also told that this building I am currently inside of is privately owned by a top scientist. The scientist I had met previously at the asylum approached me as well and had told me of a “trance session” I was going to partake in as part of the process to the healing of my mind and my life as well as revealing to me that he is the owner of this complex. That’s where I am currently going to now, to the room where this procedure is taking place. Nervousness and trepidation begin to consume me and wrap themselves around my courage with crawling and lurking arms. The feeling suffocates me and I suddenly have a yearning to turn around and leave.

          In the procedure room now, I sit in a wooden chair in the middle of an auditorium in front of a large projector screen. A group of specialists and technicians sit behind me monitoring computers and a variety of strange gizmos and gadgets, all connected to my head through a vise latched very slightly into my skull. The screen before me begins to display a variety of symbols, while this happens I am asked by the head scientist what I think the symbols look like or resemble the most. I find that most of these symbols are of different religions or at least that’s what they appear to be. Then the lights in the auditorium fade and leave the projector screen being the only source of light, which draws my gaze to it. Swirling patterns and blurring fractal designs are revealed on the screen on a dark red background. My only feelings toward this are those of curiousness and reluctance, but when headphones are placed over my ears, these feelings change. A type of soft music emanates from them, but what hooks me is the sound of the music playing. I can barely classify its genre or begin to give a description of its sound. Its composition I have never heard in my walk of life and out of all the music I’ve ever listened to. It daringly crosses the line between actual rhythm and being mere ambient noise, but yet it carries such a pattern to it that resounds in my ears as music. But only the lightest, most gentle and subtle form ever encountered. Liquid-like chimes ring out occasionally, nothing more I can tell you about the music. It immediately locks all of my attention to the projector screen and its odd displays. The same patterns I saw before are still present but now seem all so life like and real that they appear to leave their prison of the projector screen and float about freely around the auditorium. A beautiful, female voice quietly calls to me through the headphones in the labyrinth of the spectral music.

         I have now completely left my body behind, I sit inside my mind, taken by the hand by an unseen specter and lifted into dark clouds. Irregular visions take place below me as I glide over an oblivion high above the heavens, far beyond the galaxies known and unknown to mankind. The visions consist of glimpses of landscapes so spectacular, I cannot comprehend their very existence. Among these landscapes I see glinting mountains of crystal, vegetation of the most rich and vibrant color, running rivers of glowing sapphire full of exotic and alien fish of the most artistic sort, waiting to be classified by man. Seeing these landscapes awakens within my memory primal instincts thought lost to all humans. A will of survival on the earth, so known and familiar to me, yet so unknown and unfamiliar to me all at once.

         I begin to return to the earthly realm and the feeling of sadness overcomes me as I am forced to leave the spectral land I had begun to yearn to inhabit for all time.

          Suddenly, I awaken back in the chair, the vice on my skull now removed along with the headphones. I am overwhelmingly tired and crave sleep, but fight the feeling off as I look up to the head scientist. “The procedure went extremely well, not a single thing was off. Your healing is going along smoothly.” He smiles down at me reassuringly and it causes me to smile back. “But now, you must be given another dose of the chemical we gave you the night before” At first, I feel rather uneasy and make my feeling known to the scientist. “It’s quite alright, please do not be alarmed. There is nothing to worry about and I assure you it’s quite necessary to your healing. In fact, you are due to be administered the chemical right... about... now!” From behind, the needle of a syringe is quickly lodged into my neck and the drug is injected into my veins. The need for sleep has now over run me, my eyelids weighing down heavily. I gradually begin to slip into unconsciousness and fall into a deep slumber before I was able to leave the auditorium and go back to my room.

          I walk, on and on in nothing. My feet don’t connect with anything yet I stand as though I were on solid ground. All that surrounds me is empty blackness and hollow air as I for the first time truly experience nothingness for what it is, morbid beauty. There is no temperature, no feeling, no surface, no scent, no sight, no sound, nothing. All that there is, is nothing, yet something must exist if I can walk on it. But whence I reach down to feel the surface I walk on with my hands, my hands touch nothing, only dead air. I stand in the ultimate solitary confinement. I cry out and I know I have made a sound but I don’t hear a single utterance.

         God knows how long I’ve been running idiotically in this dead space. I do say idiotically because I take no heed as to how I could’ve arrived here or to how I could escape. Now, in front of me, a single speck of reflecting light appears. The lovely rays that could emanate from it are restricted and suffocated by the strangulation of nothingness around it. All I see is the light barely glowing at its miniature source. I reach out to grasp it in my fingers, to take hold of something now extremely meaningful to me. Who’d know that such a small thing could have large meanings attached to it. My hand eagerly takes hold of that light and immediately afterward, the darkness and nothingness lifts. Dazzling and brilliant light floods my world once again and allows me to look upon the lands I had begun to miss.

          The gleaming, iridescent light of twin suns fade into twilight, however, there is still enough light for me to see given off by a lack-luster moon rising in the sky. I stand in a pond of muck-filled water lost in a boggy swamp that seems to stretch on for miles. A familiar, yellowish haze has already surrounded my peripheral vision and refuses to leave it. These events, no doubt, are the result of a dream cycle I have begun to undergo, yet again. I have the urge to glance up at the sky and see a spectacular interconnecting web of shining stars that appears to serve as a net to contain all things in this not-so-welcoming landscape. I feel something attached to my thigh, I look down at it to notice a machete strapped to me. After pulling it off, I stare long and hard at the blade and keep it with me.

          The swamp I stand in is intimidating by nature, its vegetation giving off a thick feeling of damp, melancholic reverence that seeps into my skin. The shrubs are so massive that one knows that there must be some hideous creature inhabiting them. With this in mind, I cannot possibly exit the pond and continue onward, but an unnameable force urges me forward. I leave the pond behind and heave through towering shrubs and weeds, trample through sinking mud patches, tear through entwining vines that hang down to the ground, and wade through bottomless rivers and streams. A terrifying growl carries out above my head. The growl is that of a horrid rumbling and high pitched hum that frightfully enough is carried out almost rhythmically as though it were trying to communicate to me. I slowly bring my glance upward and notice the most blasphemous pair of eyes staring back at me. They stare at me with the most sadistic intent, hellbent on ripping my body apart. Instantly, it falls from its hiding spot and drops on top of me, forcing me to the mud. It holds me to the ground with abnormally sized pincers, pushing me into the murk and the darkened mud-water below. I bring my eyes to that of the creature and see the cruel gaze it sends to me. The gaze is so obscene and yet so human at the same time. Mercifully, the light is too dim to see any other part of the creature’s body, sparing me of the sight of a form so horrifying as to shatter one’s sanity and force them to retreat to the inner most recesses of dementia.

         The hilt of the machete is in my hand, and I know that there is no escaping the creature unless I kill it. The blade is stuck in the mud, and I fear I may not be able to retrieve it in time. The creature lets out that awful growl again, but this I am able to make out words of the English language! I am only able to make out a few of the words and they are as follows, “...deny them... lose your freedom... controls *garbled* by dream deceivers”

         I don’t care to hear anymore of this or to bear the sight of this demon. Finally, I pull the blade from the mud and commence to hack and slash whatever the blade connects with. I don’t stop until this daemonic creature ceases all movement. Even after it lays still, the sadistic gaze is still there, still cutting into my soul and attacking my mind. I run away, far away, tripping over mounds of mud and clawing through the miles long bogs.

          A strange rift on the horizon beckons me to come forth, I have finally left the swamp and can breath again without inhaling pure dread. Tiredness from running and dehydration has weighed heavily on my strength and my will to continue on, but the rift motivates me to attempt to approach it. The rift lies a few meters ahead of me and I figure I’d best take my time and travel at my own pace. Up from the ground, many dark figures simultaneously arise from the cold earth of the barren lands. I know them very well, all too well, they are the men in black. There must be at least 30 of them, a small army! One feature they bear that I didn’t notice before, are rictus grins from ear to ear, fastened shut by a long zipper. Some carry sickles, night sticks, or shovels. While others hold meat cleavers or baseball bats with steel spikes jolting from them. At once, they sprint after me. In utter fright I flee from them towards the rift ahead that beckons me. They are getting closer now, I can see blood stains on their weapons. Now one is right behind me waving a night stick above his head, ready to strike me. The rift lies just a few feet away, I can make it. I stumble and fall to the ground, into the rift. As the men in black converge in on me, I am carried off high into the sky, above the hazy clouds where I remain for a few seconds, hanging in midair. During these seconds I watch the morning begin to dawn on this accursed land before the burning light of the twin suns blind me. This light begins to combine with the yellow haze in my peripheral vision and they unite to consume me completely before all descends back into darkness once again.

          I refused breakfast this morning. After the nightmare I had, I simply wasn’t motivated to face anybody after I woke. It’s become a possibility now that maybe the nightmares are some sort of side effect from the drug I have been having administered into my body, at least that’s what I think. The door to my room opens, and Dr. Conann enters. He greets me heartily and asks if I’m feeling well. I tell him that I’m troubled by the nightmares that have been plaguing me and inquire about the drug. The details he gives me are basic, he reveals that the name of the drug is Hexentocal and that it had first been tested five years ago under a private study that specialized in people afflicted with mental disorders. He doesn’t let me know any specifics about the nature of the tests and the subjects after asking him, but he does answer my question about side effects. It seems I was right, as he tells me, “Cerebron focuses mainly on the flow of electrons in the frontal lobe of the brain. It distorts the common pattern they flow by, thereby rearranging a few of your personality traits, in this case the negative ones you are here to be rid of. This process affects the dream cycles of the brain and can flood one’s mind with odd, if not frightening images in their dreams.” After explaining this, Dr. Conann reminds me of another trance session that is to take place early this evening. With that, he turns and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

          It’s been half an hour, and the same pattern has been repeating itself. The same spectral music, the female voice which calls my name endlessly, and the shapes that glide to and fro on the screen before me. Before undergoing this particular trance session, I had been told that this one was very important and vital to the process of living a way of life I had found joy and love in. No longer being haunted by the psychotic maniac that is only visible in mirrors. Now, the auditorium is as silent as the grave, all the technicians and scientists behind me are intently monitoring the strange machinery that is connected straight to my head through the vise that is latched to my skull, like as though it were trying to completely invade my head and pillage my mind. My eyes are now drawn all the more to the screen where the shapes drift amidst a dark red background. I feel it pulling me in to its parallel universe, to a place never even dreamt of by the human mind. Another journey to the eldritch worlds far beyond the stars is yet to begin.

          Isolation takes me in this evil land I now wander through. An exact opposite to the lands I yearned to inhabit, I am completely alone. My mind roams here as my body has chosen to stay in the earthly realm, a slave to the laws of nature. A cold, red sky hangs above me and ominous thunder shatters the silence as jagged lightning bolts impale the clouds. I walk on a barren plain, completely void of any life whatsoever. The vegetation that once must have been here, now long dead, lays in piles of dust on the dry, cracked ground. I don’t wish to be here any longer, but I cannot not physically do anything to change the course of this dark journey; I am only a spectator now.

          A mass legion of bulky, crimson-red clouds is now fast approaching on the horizon. Fear in its purest form chokes me, suffocating any screams that could emit from me now. The clouds draw near at an impossibly fast rate, plunging all that they dwell over, into darkness. Even so, I continue to move forward, straight toward these apocalyptic clouds. They will be over me within mere minutes. In the distance, I can make out great amounts of figures running underneath the clouds at the same speed, trekking rapidly across these stillborn plains. These figures maintain a primate-like form, running on all fours. A low rumble now carries across the lands and makes my eardrums throb chaotically. As the clouds draw closer however, the rumble is revealed to be the growling of the creatures racing with the clouds, all in unison as if carrying out some sort of unholy war cry. Even still, I race onward, about to clash with the army of nightmarish creatures.

         They all surround me now, fleeing past me, taking no notice to my presence. These creatures are ever more repulsive up close. The facial features are completely skeletal, with almost unseen, dead eyes that seem to protrude from the eye sockets themselves. Their bodies are horridly hunched over, with spines that crook in unnatural directions. They walk on gangly arms and legs, all completely hairless with a leather-like skin. Within no more than a minute, the creatures and clouds disappear. I am most thankful for their leaving, but really wish to leave this damnable land.

My wish has been granted as I fly back through twisting worm holes and fall through countless universes. I break through the atmosphere, tearing down to the earth’s surface and back to my body. Oh, how I for once actually began to miss the earth realm.

                                                           II

         One year, everything at once has swiftly passed me by. In one year, I’ve never felt more relieved of an incredibly painful burden within me. One year is all that it has taken to banish my past which is now no more than a hazy nightmare that I can scarcely recall. I’m told that I used to cower at the sight of mirrors, how foolish I must have been. There was once a psychopath that lived in me, that’s what they tell me. Now, this seems impossible and it’s hard to believe such nonsense but I can only take their word for it. They also told me that I used to be such a miserly man, but as of late that seems to have changed. This is a time where I’ve never felt more joy in being alive, where I’ve never seen more light in an extremely darkened world that we live in. I now look forward to a jubilant and optimistic life ahead outside of this mere confusion.

          This is unbelievable! I have had enough of this. I simply won’t accept another one of those injections of nightmares. How they have the nerve to want to pollute my blood and infest it with that horrid chemical is beyond me; I have no choice, however, so I must go through with this. The chief scientist had entered my room this morning and alerted me of a “finalizing injection” that was to take place tonight. The only thing that convinced me to go on with the proposal was what his guarantee, “After this injection takes place, you are allowed to leave tomorrow afternoon. I promised you salvation, and I have nearly given it to you. My obligation has almost been fulfilled, I just need you to accept the final injection and all will be complete.” His words were persuasive and had all the truth in the world behind them. He had fulfilled his promise, he was not lying. I have given him all of my trust and I have no other option but to let the man finish his work. It’s near impossible to recall what I hate so intensely of the injection, but when I try to remember them, chills inch their way up and down my body.

          I pray that this final step will be painless and as soothing as it can be, or else I feel I won’t be able to make it through the night. May any spiritual figure that may exist in the sleeping stars above keep vigil on my sanity.

          The needle has already slithered its way into my skin and retracted as quickly as it had come, leaving its venom to fly free in my veins. I lay in my bed, waiting for the call of slumber to be answered by my anxious eyelids. Sleep, a place where one can encounter unnameable horrors, the only place one can go for tranquility; what an interesting concept.

         Forward I fly, gliding through an eldritch, red mist that seems to guide me to an unknown destination. Looking down, a continuum of the red mist is all that there is. On all sides of me, the red mist goes on and on for aeons. What this mysterious mist hides I could never imagine, nor do I have any desire to see it. In it’s presence, this oblivion is simply amazing and awesome to look upon. I am falling in love with it, it’s pure and flawless beauty never leaves me. The greatest form of love overcomes me, I feel I’ve become one with sweet and dear oblivion. How could I ever leave?

          In my admiration, great beacons of light dance their way out of another dimension. This paralyzes me with a lust for joining them in a place where there is no ugliness, only beauty. Rays of light that twist like mechanical arms, entwine each beacon to one another. Linking together to form a massive portal just waiting to be entered. The ring of light beckons me to pass through to whatever world awaits me beyond it. As I begin to glide toward effortlessly, I can hear an innocent, little voice crying out to me. A child is crying inside of me, begging me to resist the portal. “Please! No! Do not enter, you shall be damned if you do.” I ignore it, a voice means nothing to me, the portal is everything of value. It is simply worth more than any wealth man could wish for. Passing through now, the feeling of remorse overcomes me and nearly forces me to retreat back through the portal but I fight it continue on. Into an abyss I enter, and I go about twisting violently, wrenching my arms and legs all around me hoping to connect with something. But there is nothing to grab hold of as I begin to spiral down through the abyss that fills my mind with the absolute, most terrifying visions of mutants reaching up to earthly skies. I can see them tread on all land, crushing those in their path. The ones that survive go mad and are never truly human again.

          The visions don’t last long before I find myself on a forest floor struggling for air. Cool air enters my lungs after minutes of choking and heaving, this revives me. Weary, I slowly rise to my feet. All I’ve seen had been too spectral to be real, neither can any of this that surrounds me now. I pause and stare in amazement at the trees everywhere. Trees of amber, with silver leaves glint brilliantly in the gleam of the moon’s sorrowful reflections.

I’ve been walking for what seems like an eternity through this endless, silent forest of amber and silver. The random paths that I step on seem to take me nowhere and it’s been very frustrating. But that frustration is calmed by the melancholic atmosphere of these woods.

         A blinding flash of light flies through my head, and when it passes I now stand outside of a somewhat desolate, dimly lit house. It seems to have roots that trace back to the homes that the settlers built centuries ago when traveling to the west, it’s marvelous to think how this house has stood here all this time. My wondering is interrupted by the most awful feeling that is forcing me down and grinding away at my conscience. An axe, stuck in a tree log steals my gaze. I look at it for many minutes, the most evil and blood-drenched thoughts chaotically swirling about in my mind. It is all too much for me, my hand quickly reaches down and grabs hold of the axe, and rips it out of the log. I don’t want the axe in my hand however, and I fight my grasp on it. Throwing my arms around, batting at the hand that holds the axe, biting it, smashing a pointed stone against the hand; but it’s all to no avail. Out of nowhere, on the strangest of all whims, I make a bitter dash for an open window on the east side of the house and crawl through it without a single thought of resistance.

          Now, inside a room void of any light, I begin fumbling around for the exit. Upon gracing my hand across a wall, my hand connects with a light switch which I flick on. The room is illuminated for me to see that it is a bedroom belonging to a young girl. She sleeps on her bed but begins to stir and awaken due to my abrupt entrance through the window. When she sees me standing before her, clutching an axe in my bloody, gnawed hand, with gore running down the head of the axe, the most frightened look crosses her eyes. But it is also a look of surprise and wondering, as though she knew me in some way. Her mouth slowly opens to speak to me, but all that falls out are garbled tones and spectral phrases not of this realm humankind accepts as reality. A familiar neon glow of vivid, eldritch color floods her eyes as she utters daemonic expressions to me, hinting at her inhumanity. I remember now! I have dealt with this sort of monstrosity before in the nightmares that plagued me so many months ago. There were so many of them, haunting a blasphemous form of the asylum that kept me captive for years. The only thing I did in the dreams to these unearthly beings, was kill them. Preventing them from ravaging this earth with their existence. With no control over the axe wielding hand though, it arches back up above my head as the hellish being before me screeches painfully in terror. The axe swings madly downward unto the creature on it’s own will, brutalizing the thing until it shall not wake again.

          Another girl, though slightly older, rushes into the room through the door, and freezes. She stares at me with the same uncanny eyes of these demons that invade my dreams. In a tone of recognition, it attempts to speak to me and again, all that is heard are bizarre words I could never describe despite my best efforts to do so. The hand clutching the blood-stained axe swings back swiftly above me again, but the insane amount of power conjured in my mind holds it back from thrusting back down. This girl now collapses before me, tears that beg for mercy flow through her eyes. She whimpers the same two syllable word over and over again that I cannot figure out, as it is spoken inaudibly. But fiery rage held back inside my brain sends a shockwave of bloodthirsty intent that shatters any pity I might have felt for this damnable creature as well. Within a few seconds, the creature rises no more. In blind confusion, I stumble out of the corpse filled room into a hallway.

Within a few seconds of my exiting the hallway, a middle aged woman runs toward me. For a few moments, she seems to show the sign of an innocent, but the eldritch glow shines from her eyes to. She falls to her knees before me, crying tears of pure fright. For the first time, I can discern actual words as my vision starts to blur and be blared over by a shade of gold. The words sound something like this, “please... why are... don’t you know who...” before she can finish her partial sentence, the axe flies out of my hand and bites its way into the creature’s body. The creature falls to the floor, and ceases any movement after a minute of agonized death throes.

Following this, I crash to the floor alongside the brutalized corpse. I fight to rise up, but an overwhelming force overcomes me and impairs my vision completely. To no avail, I struggle to get on my feet before finally falling into a void of unconsciousness.

          Awakening now, I rise to my feet. Upon wandering about my new environment, I find myself in a desolate home. There are newspaper clippings strung about the ceilings and walls, envelopes lying unopened on the floor, and pools of blood staining the carpeting.

          I feel the most awful pain in my hand stinging its way from the knuckles to the fingertips. Once I look at it, I see why. Bite marks that go hideously deep into the skin and scratches dug through the to the bone. The situation is far too uneasy for me to bear, so I run about this house unbeknownst to me looking for an exit. To my horror, I find that each window I encounter has metal planks bolted over them. Desperately now I explore the house again for a doorway that will lead out of here. When I finally come to one though, but once I open it, I face a doorway completely bricked over. There is one brick missing though and I kneel down to look through the open space. Doing so, I can see outside only to gaze upon a tombstone set upright with my name engraved on it. The word “MURDERER” is scrawled over it in red. I know that I have awoken from my dream, but this seems too terrifying to be real.

          In the top corner of the front hall, a voice rings out from a loudspeaker hastily installed there. It is the voice of the leading scientist that had been a savior to me in the sea of madness I floated helplessly in. He says, “How are we today? Have the results of our experiment worked well enough for you? Have we done well enough to fuel the psycho inside of you?” I hopelessly listen and await a horrible truth that awaits me. “We had only desired to create the perfect weapon, a killer who is completely oblivious to his own actions. Only dismissing the events as mere nightmares.” Confused, I cry out demanding what was happening to me. The man of science speaks again, “Let me explain this to you. The chemical we administered made you think you had fallen asleep and strayed into a dream; but in reality the chemical made you fall asleep, then awoke you after a certain time interval. To prevent you from realizing you were awake, the chemical would stimulate your mind in a way that made it seem as though you were merely dreaming, that explains the fantasy landscapes and strange happenings of the dreams as they were really creations of the mind and chemical working together. But the events of the dreams were in fact occurring in reality. The people you murdered in your dreams, you murdered them in reality. The chemical made it seem like the people were strange beasts of another dimension, that to would explain the glow from their eyes and demonic tones of their voices. The trance sessions though, they simply subliminally made you crave murder by creating a yearning by showing you beauty. Then made you feel sadness when you had to leave that beauty, creating hidden senses of desperation as well. Afterwards making you feel fear by presenting symbols of reverence”

          A term to describe the utter terror I felt at the remorseless and merciless reputation of reality will never exist. Still, the lead scientist continues. “All those orderlies you slain at the asylum, dead. The friend of yours and the priest you bludgeoned in the church, dead. The beast in the swamp, actually a politician we set up in that swamp that was seeking to expose us, dead. And now, choose to believe or not to, your own wife and your two daughters, dead by own your hand!”

          I scream in sadness and hate at the loudspeaker. Cursing, threatening, promising, demanding, pleading, begging, and repenting endlessly. Now, this torturer they call a scientist goes on. “Look and see everything we have left to remind you of your true nature.” Now, I more closely observe the newspaper clippings hanging from the ceiling. I see that they are stories about me, about me escaping the asylum and being later apprehended in a nearby forest. As well as stories about my second escape after having murdered 16 people, afterwards disappearing completely.

         I look down to the envelopes scattered on the floor, picking them up. They are all addressed to “the psycho that you tried to forget” It’s all disgusting to me. A wall across the room falls open and three corpses fall out. From where I stand, I see that they are the bodies of my beautiful wife and wonderful daughters. A sickness falls over me as I rush over to them and hold their corpses to my chest, sobbing profusely. I plead to the corpses for forgiveness repeatedly, hoping that my pleads don’t fall onto deaf ears.

         The scientist’s voice rings out again in a taunting manner, “Hope you are satisfied. But you are useless to us now, we need to make room for more interesting subjects for more high profile targets. I have one last task for you though, go into the room on the far end of the house and close the door behind you.” I refuse aloud, and I curse the scientist, telling him to prey on someone else. But he utters one word, “Deceive!” This shuts all rationality down and kills my conscience completely. Blindly, I down the hallway to the room as described by the scientist. I slowly enter and the door snaps shut behind me. This brings my mind back immediately and I realize where I am again. There is no light in the room, and I stumble about, feeling my way around the room. I feel smooth, polished surfaces on the wall and on the floor. The scientist chimes in yet another time with, “You will see now and be forced to face your even greatest fear. Eisoptrophobia!” The lights suddenly come up and reveal something awful. The floor, the walls, and even the ceiling are covered by giant glass panes that reflect grotesquely into a continuum never fully understood by the human mind. The damned things are everywhere around me, I cannot escape them! Everywhere I look, there is an infinite reflection that shows an army of bloodthirsty psychopaths.

          I cannot find the door, as it too is hidden by a reflective glass pane. No mercy is shown as I beat the infernal objects with my fists, trying desperately to shatter them so that I may have a safe place to fix my gaze. But it is pointless, they can’t break.

         In the center of the room, rests a pistol. The scientist almost seems to know the exact moment I notice it. “There is your one salvation. One bullet. One way out. Go ahead, take the chance with what lies beyond as long as it means escaping the agony of your existence. You’ve nothing to live for anyway. But unfortunately, I have no time left for you. Goodbye.”

         The gun now rests in my hand, it seems to take hours deciding on what to do with it. I once wished for death to collect me, but now this may be the chance. For a moment, I stare intently at the gun, my hand wrapped around the grip and my finger on the trigger. I’ve taken many lives, but I will not take my own. I will die as horrible a death as I can imagine, but not by my own hand. With one more motion, I spit on the gun and toss it across the room. To the floor I fall, and I lie there, crying softly into my hands. Tears running onto off my palms onto the pane, create a combination of reflections with the glass, whilst my misery endures...