《Darkness》


 Morning Star

    Most people who live or visit Achnahannet believe that the elegant Providence Boulevard ends at Providence Square, with its gardens, magnificent statues, and the breathtaking gothic Cathedral; not many know, however, that if you continue to walk past the Cathedral through a small alley, Providence Boulevard becomes Providence Street. Besides the name, Providence Boulevard and Providence Street share very little - while the boulevard is spacious, with elegant and well maintained buildings, and wide sidewalks with cafes and restaurants, and thriving with life, Providence Street is rather the opposite: narrow, dark, paved with cobblestones worn out by the centuries; although a close inspection of the buildings along the street reveals their sturdy construction and fine craftsmanship, they are nothing but a ghost of long forgotten days of prosperity. Today, cheap tenements are inhabited by poor people who cannot afford living in the newer, better parts of town.


    That¡¯s not to say that Providence Street lacks charm - if you know where to go, you can still find the hidden treasures that persist on living to remind us of better times: the bakery, the restaurant, the tailor, the shoemaker; all passed from father to son through many generations, keeping traditions of quality, pride, and attention to detail.


    One of those places is a bookstore, if we can call it such - most of its books are not actually for sale, but the owner happily lets people read them, only asking for a small contribution to help ¡°keep the lights on¡±. It is located right off Providence Street, a few steps down a narrow alley easily missed. The faded ¡°Bookstore - rare books¡± wooden sign is barely discernible, and you must know exactly what to look for to find it. Upon entering it, you will be faced with several tables and bookshelves full of ancient books; the owner will likely be on the back, reading one of the large volumes; tall, thin, always dressed in black, which makes an impressive contrast with his long, white hair, neatly tied in a ponytail or braided. His skin looks like old parchment, with many tiny wrinkles; perhaps years of coexistence with old books was somewhat contagious, and his skin started to look like the pages of a rare book. There are a few old, dusty armchairs, surprisingly comfortable, where you can sit and read at your leisure.


    ¡°A Brief History of Light¡± is one of the many interesting books you can find there; it tells the story of how the Life Bearer, once praised and loved for fighting along the good side and helping the high gods, fell into disgrace and then was doomed to eternal punishment because of a simple crime: helping lower life forms. And so the story goes:


    In its early days, the Universe was one; at one point, however, tiny perturbations in the fabric of the cosmos started to happen, and those evolved to become two separate forces, which we naively call ¡°good¡± and ¡°evil¡±. In those early times, those perturbations quickly annihilated each other, thus restoring the cosmos to its unity; however, and nobody quite remembers why this happened, at one point the perturbations started to become more permanent, until the universe was irreparably split.


    There is very little record of those early days; but some of the stories were preserved and passed down generation after generation, over a period of billions of years.


    Each of the universe had - and still has - conscious higher forces. For lack of a better name, we call them ¡°God¡± amongst other names. But the anthropomorphic account of God we have is far from true; in reality, there are many gods, some stronger, some weaker, none with human characteristics. One could say that the interconnected randomness that surrounds us, taken in a scale large enough, becomes self aware and turns into God; this wouldn¡¯t be too far from the truth, although the mechanism that makes the randomness develop self awareness are not known, and perhaps never will be.


    The Yin-Yang symbol also gives us an important insight of what the Gods and, by extension, our Universe is structured. Before the final split, there was a battle of unimaginable proportions, when Good and Evil tried to annihilate the other and achieve full supremacy. Major and minor gods fought long and hard, and legend says that in the end what could be described as an explosion ended the final battle, separating Good and Evil and setting them apart at a vertiginous speed. But we digress; just like the black and white sides of the Yin-Yang symbol have some of the other color in them, Good and Evil are not pure: Good has traces of Evil, and Evil has traces of Good. And this leads us to the story of Morning Star.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    During that epic battle, major and minor gods from Good and Evil fought each other, and Morning Star was one of the minor Gods that shined on the Good side; his skill was in his intelligence (if such human trait can be attributed to a God, even a minor one), and he knew how to put it to use to balance the battle after the initial upper hand the Evil side had on the Good side. One can conjecture that without Morning Star¡¯s cunningness, the Good side wouldn¡¯t have lasted until the explosion, and the Universe as we inhabit today wouldn¡¯t exist.


    It¡¯s hard to describe the Gods of our universe without resorting to human characteristics such as love, fear or anger; this is a necessary device to help us have a faint understanding of who they are and how they operate. At any rate, the Gods let life appear in the Universe, and they also let life evolve. In fact, their small evil side had a secret pleasure in torturing life forms with cataclysms, but life turned out to be more resilient than they expected: unlike ordinary matter, it changed, evolved, and became stronger. Life and evolution, however, had no use for self awareness: it evolved up to a certain point, where it became conscious and aware of the environment around it, and it was able to respond to external stimuli, and that was enough to ensure survival. It lacked, however, that internal voice, the internal thoughts, the ability to generate responses not from external, but from internal stimuli. This was a trait only owned by the Gods, major or minor. And although life was pervasive, it never evolved past this tipping point.


    Some describe this initial state of life as ¡°paradise¡± - without internal thought, there is no criticism; without criticism, you take what has been offered without questioning, and simply accept it. The idyllic notion of perfection is in the eye of the beholder; if you don¡¯t understand what death is, you believe you can live forever.


    Many worlds came into existence and disappeared as the Universe took its course, and every one of them were paradise. The Gods liked this arrangement, and had no intention to help ordinary life forms evolve further, as they were afraid that those lower life forms could eventually become so advanced that they could challenge and overthrow the Gods. The scars and memories of the battle with the Evil side never faded, and they were not ready to risk annihilation. Besides, it was pleasant to take corporeal form from time to time and appear on planets bearing a diverse life form to hunt and feast - without fear of being ever challenged.


    For aeons this was the norm, unchallenged. But it really bothered Morning Star, who eventually brought the issue of helping life evolve and take consciousness before the Great Assembly. Morning Star¡¯s arguments were reasonable - the Universe was immense, it had room for all; since they were all Good, why not help life? If not for the sake of helping, at least to have additional people fighting for Good, lest another battle with Evil should happen. Needless to say, the Gods were not pleased, and Morning Star not been of such help during the primordial battle, his consciousness would have been thrown in the eternal void.


    Legend says that Morning Star, despite being a minor God, was the only one who had no trace of Evil in him, so he did what he thought was the right thing to do. Surely and surreptitiously he started to mold life forms in different parts of the Universe, until after millions of years they became self-aware; very subtly in the beginning, but that initial push was enough for them to rapidly evolve that trait.


    The Gods were displeased, and Morning Star was severely reprimanded. They took form and appeared to the evolving life forms and threatened them, equaling self awareness and knowledge with death, and that seemed to contain further evolution for a while. But Morning Star was not done; he escaped the vigilant eyes of the Gods and went back to the different places, giving them the fire of desire for knowledge.


    Poor Morning Star. The Gods sent one of their most powerful warriors, who tied Morning Star in chains, condemning him to spend eternity in the great void. But it was too late - the fire of knowledge could no longer be extinguished, so the Gods did all they could to slow it down. Some took form and inhabited with the different life forms, giving them strict rules to be followed, rules that seem good but were nothing but disguised devices to slow down the acquisition of knowledge and further evolution. And they twisted Morning Star¡¯s good intentions, transforming his history in a tale of caution, promising death to the ones who wanted to follow his steps.


    And this is how Morning Star, perhaps the only God with no trace of Evil in him, became the representation of Evil itself. His legend took many forms, and he is known by many names, a few of each will probably ring familiar: Forethought or Prometheus; the Shining One, the Light Bearer for others. For most, however, he is known as Evil Incarnate, although the meaning of his Latin name still reflects his actual work: Lucifer.

 Imagination

    Joseph had what you would call an interesting childhood. Since he could remember, falling asleep was always a disturbing proposition: while for most people that stage between consciousness and sleep, when the mind slowly drifts between the two states, is a quite pleasant experience, that was not much so for Joseph. For him, drifting into sleep was plagued by an inability to move or speak while still somewhat conscious of his surroundings, and a vague perception of shadows, whispers and very light touches on his face that would send shivers down his spine, until he would finally fall asleep for a night of dreams where those shadows became faceless silhouettes inviting him to follow them to a place where he would spend eternity playing with children who he knew had already passed away. Joseph was always grateful that he could not see any faces in his dreams, as he knew they would surely be frightening.


    Those dreams developed in very strange places; sometimes in what seemed to be an abandoned hospital, with stained white tiles falling off the walls on a dirty floor covered with rusty medical instruments, with the hole set bathed in a sick light coming from a dusty window from where he could barely see what was left of daylight quickly disappearing. There were people hiding in corners and under old furniture scattered all over the place; scary people, with extremely pale skin, and dark, thin hair. Joseph knew that as soon as the last of the daylight was gone, a sick, green darkness would engulf the room, and the people would leave their hiding places, and Joseph was terrified of what their eyes would look like. As darkness and Joseph¡¯s despair increased, the invitation from the silhouettes would feel like the lesser of two evils, and Joseph almost gave into temptation to accept their proposition right before waking up. Joseph had the same dream over and over again, with very little variation, and every time he was closer to accepting the invitation from the silhouettes.


    As Joseph grew older, he started to add other recurring dreams to his repertoire, different versions of the same theme of something rather scary that could be avoided by accepting an invitation. One of the new dreams took place in what Joseph knew was an abandoned mental institution, with the walls covered in drawings and words like ¡°kill¡±, ¡°help¡±, ¡°despair¡±, ¡°death¡±. The whole place was bathed in a yellowish, dark and nauseating light, and entities not quite human were hiding in the shadows. Other was in a forest, cold and sad, with macabre trees extending their fragile and twisted limbs to the dark and gray sky, trying to reach out to whatever was left of sunlight; the ruins of a house could be seen in the distance, and Joseph was desperately trying to get to it before dusk to avoid the horrors of the forest, although even worse horrors were waiting for him at that house. One that was particularly disturbing was simply a long hallway filled with dust and decrepit furniture; a thin, pale figure in a wedding dress slowly approached Joseph, who expected a sudden transformation into something terrifying that would certainly drive all sanity out of his mind. In all those dreams, however, Joseph had the option to follow the invitation of the silhouettes instead of facing the terror, but he knew that even worse things would happen to him if he accepted the invitation. Thank God he always woke up before having to face the fate of his dreams.


    Needless to say, Joseph had trouble adjusting to normal company. He was always a quiet, scrawny child, always a bit sleep deprived, and always waiting for something to happen while he was awake. Unfortunately when he reached his teenage years, things did start to happen while he was awake: he started to catch fleeting glimpses out of the corner of his eyes of something he couldn¡¯t quite explain, and every time he turned to look it was gone. Noises and whispers also started to happen while he was wide awake. While trying to sleep he would hear objects fall from the shelves in his bedroom, just to find out the next day that everything was in place. One night he woke up with the distinct sensation that someone was in his room, approached his bed and started to slowly pull the covers from him; he turned to see who it was just to see the emptiness of his room staring at him. Another night he woke up and saw a pale figure walk across the foot of his bed towards the window, look outside, and go back. Joseph was relieved that the figure turned around not facing him, because he was really frightened with what her face would look like.


    Joseph tried to go to college, but there was some sort of a curse following him. All his roommates invariably asked to be reassigned, as they murmured something about the room being cursed, nightmares, constant headaches, strange noises at night coming out of nowhere, but above all how Joseph¡¯s presence made everything worse. After some time, people simply stopped assigning roommates to Joseph, who was then all alone. By then, he could barely get a decent night of sleep at night, which translated to him dozing off during classes. That wouldn¡¯t have been so bad if the process had not been accompanied to his classmates morphing into creepy figures that would cause him to jump in his seat, thus attracting undesired attention from professors and the students. His horrified face following those events, however, eliminated all desire of people to laugh at him; eventually he became the creep to be avoided at all costs and after a troublesome semester, he left college.


    Joseph settled for a low paying, repetitive job that didn¡¯t require much attention. Joseph was not dumb; quite the contrary, he was very smart. However, the monotony associated with repetitive tasks somehow alleviated his problems, and that was more than he could ask. His job and his small apartment were in a decadent part of town, old, musty, with high rises that, except at high noon, involved the streets in a constant penumbra. Joseph¡¯s apartment was very small, a room with an attached kitchen and a small bathroom; he kept it nice, clean and ordered so he wouldn¡¯t wake up from his strange dreams to a messy place. Being orderly helped him remain as calm as possible.


    His apartment was on a lower floor, with an external hallway that faced a small courtyard full of weeds and dwarf trees struggling to survive the absence of sun. The hallway had only a handful of lights that were burned most of the time, since nobody bothered to replace them. Most people kept it to themselves, there was very little interaction amongst the neighbors except for the occasional short salutation when people crossed each other in the hallway, and Joseph liked it this way. His window faced the street below, with a purple neon sign creating long, strange shadows on the wall. Joseph worked the second shift, and he always walked back home hoping to get there tired enough to fall asleep faster, but that seldom happened.


    Unfortunately the hallway was becoming a difficult walk for Joseph lately - for whatever reason, as he approached his apartment, he started to get the feeling that something incredibly malevolent was waiting for him at the end of the hallway. In the beginning, he was able to control these feelings and get into his apartment; however, this feeling was becoming increasingly worse. Images would flash into his mind for a fraction of a second - children holding hands, but with holes instead of eyes; a dog with a human face; an incredibly thin woman, with her bones almost cutting through her skin crawling towards him; a baby with legs in the shape of animal¡¯s legs crying, trying to stand up; a man holding his bloody eyes in the palm of his hand. Those images would come and go with every step of the way, and an increasing sense of malevolence started to emanate from the walls, oppressing him.


    One day these images were particularly bad, and only with an incredible effort Joseph managed to reach his apartment door. Having gotten there, however, he couldn¡¯t open it. There was an unbearable sense of evil coming from his apartment, and every time he touched the doorknob, some bizarre image would appear in his mind. Joseph spent quite some time trying to rationalize his feelings and unlock the door, but he couldn¡¯t. He started to sweat and tremble; tears of rage flowed down his cheeks as he couldn¡¯t summon the will to get into his apartment and finally rest after a long and tiresome day. And then suddenly that sense of evil completely overpowered him; he could barely breathe or move, his hair standing up and chivers going down his spine, and only by exercising an enormous amount of willpower he finally managed to step back, walking backwards to the elevator. There was a bar downstairs that never closed, so Joseph spent the night there cuddling his drink waiting for daylight to come.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    It was a crisp, cold autumn morning, and Joseph decided to take a walk before going back to his apartment. A narrow alley, to which he had never paid attention before, drew his attention; he saw an old bookstore sign and decided to check it out.


    The place was rather peculiar - mostly old books collecting dust, with an even older shopkeeper behind the counter, glasses on the tip of his nose, completely absorbed in reading a book. Without taking his eyes off the book, he muttered a muffled ¡°good morning, make yourself at home¡±, pointing to a chair nearby. Joseph grabbed a random book from a pile, a rather large book with leather cover, so worn out that the elegant golden lettering of the title had all but completely disappeared. He took a seat and opened a random page, starting to read.


    The book was as peculiar as the bookstore - it talked about ancient gods, Ammon in ancient Egypt, the Damkina priestesses in Babylon, Hermes and Mercury in ancient Greece and Rome, Turms in Etruria, the templars and Benedictine monks during the middle ages. It explained how the Universe was once one for a long time, with gods laboring to keep it uniform. There was no concept of good or evil, everything was mingled together, and it had been like that since eons. However, at some point, perturbations started to appear in the primordial fabric of cosmos, and the gods, as well as the matter and energy, started to coalesce under two major forces that we call good and evil. In the beginning, the process was barely noticeable, with good and evil being almost identical, but over time, the difference increased.


    ¡°Over time¡± is a relative concept, as in this primordial fabric time flowed in a completely different manner. What was an eternity during those early times today would be measured as a tiny fraction of a second, but for the gods living in that uniform ocean, that flowed like a very long period of time.


    Nobody knew exactly why those perturbations started; the reasons are completely lost at this point. What we know is that once they appeared, the separation between good and evil started to increase very rapidly. A war between the two forces then took place; a long and painful war, where immortal gods battled each other and yet none could ever hope to achieve dominance or victory. Again, this battle lasted for what seemed like a long time but, in reality, we would call an ephemeral moment.


    When it seemed that this battle would never end, something unusual happened with the universe for the first time - a great explosion like it may never happen again took place, and good and evil separated. This created two separate universes, one mostly good, the other mostly evil. The Chinese, for example, call them yin and yang, and just like in the symbol, there is a little black on white and little white on black, so there is a little good in the evil universe, and a little evil in the good universe. Besides that, there are still connections between the two, within which good and evil may flow - sometimes small tears appear in the fabric of the universe, opening a pathway for something small to come to our side. This journey, however, was a strange one - the physical body disappeared from the ¡°source¡± universe, but it never quite fully appeared on the other side. People conjecture that the body went to a place between the two universes, and projections of the body was all that appeared in the two universes. For lack of a better name, those projections were called spirits.


    In the past, we also knew how to make our way to the evil side; however, the few who risked the journey either never came back, or if they did, they had such a terrifying expression of extreme fear, their faces completely twisted in an expression of sheer horror terrorizing all who had seen them, just to die after a painful agony, endlessly screaming a scream of pure fright. Those few attempts were made in the remote past before the instructions on how to make the journey were carefully hidden, lest a more adventurous and light hearted soul tried the fatal jump again.


    Most people are insensitive to these tears and the visitors, but anyone at least at some point in their lives experimented some irrational fear, heard things, felt something - those are visitors from the evil side taking advantage of small tears. Having said that, some people are more sensitive to the projections or spirits (whatever you want to call them), and that explains why certain people could see things, and were plagued by visions right before falling asleep - tiny, temporary tears connecting the two universes are a common phenomenon, and sensitive people, particularly when it¡¯s dark and quiet around them, can get glimpses of the other side, sometimes confusing them with dreams.


    Sometimes larger tears form, and evil spirits appear on our side. There are places that, for whatever reason, are more subject to opening to the other universe. One example is what the Jews called Gehenna - this place of evil was, in fact, one of those places more subject to connections, and that¡¯s why it was, well, a place of evil. Bad things happened there. Also, for reasons nobody can quite explain, after sometime the connections ceased completely.


    At times the tears in the fabric of the universe happen inside a person or an animal. When that happens, evil flows freely inside that body, completely pushing away the original soul and taking its place. These are, in fact, what demonic possessions are.


    Joseph stopped reading at this point, it was already dark again and he hadn¡¯t noticed it; he was shivering, his face covered in cold sweat. What kind of sick imagination could produce such an account of spirits and demons, one that at the same time seemed to make no sense, while still presenting an explanation that almost sounded scientific and sometimes way ahead of time one would expect from those old, yellow and stained pages? He hastily closed the book, put it back on the pile where it came from and ran to his apartment, decided to set aside all his overworked imagination, conquer his irrational fear and have a good few hours of peaceful sleep. And so he did, fighting against the panic that overtook him as he approached his apartment and touched the doorknob. He summoned all his courage and determination, and managed to open the door, get in, and close the door behind him.


    Joseph was never seen alive again. His boss, a rude and uneducated man, never bothered to call the police when Joseph didn¡¯t show up for work, simply assuming that he had quit his job without notice. Several days later, the neighbors called the police to report a bad smell coming from Joseph¡¯s apartment. When the police arrived and entered, they found Joseph¡¯s body on the floor, the stink of death filling the small room. But that was not the worst of it.


    The police, the detectives and the coroner all agreed what they would write in their reports, and they all agreed that somehow they would ¡°lose¡± the pictures they pretended to take; some things are better off left alone. Unfortunately for them, what they saw remained permanently imprinted in their memories, and they all requested to be transferred to other places so they wouldn¡¯t have to see each other every day and be reminded of what they had witnessed.


    Joseph¡¯s body was placed in a bodybag and sealed; he had no family left, so they quickly buried him - and they paid the gravediggers to dig an extra deep hole. Because nobody could stand what they saw in Joseph¡¯s face - if a pure expression of fright ever existed, that would have been it, his eyes and mouth wide open, crooked, a silent scream shattered before it could materialize. But it was his eyes that were the most horrifying - wide open, gazing at something that could not be described, but if you paid close attention, you could still see a repulsive, maddening image imprinted in the dead irises...

 The Prodigal Daughter

    The Sunday service in the beautiful gothic cathedral at the end of Providence Street is extremely popular - not because of the service, which is actually quite unremarkable, but because of the music. To be more precise, because of the organist: he is not a professional musician, but rather the owner of a quaint used book store on Providence Street, which is a continuation of Providence Boulevard accessible to those who venture past the alley behind the cathedral.


    The organist is an interesting character - tall, thin, with a long and well kept white hair, always dressed in black. He plays the organ beautifully and passionately, but what really draws large crowds is not the music played during the service, which follows your standard prayer book, but rather the pieces the organist composed himself - and, of course, the majestic organ that has been around for centuries. He plays his pieces for quite some time after the service, and cynical people say that the only reason he plays during the service is for the opportunity to play his compositions on that beautiful organ.


    If you ventured to follow him to his bookstore, you would find yourself surrounded by old and rare books, one of which is particularly interesting. It is said that it¡¯s the only copy of its kind, and if the old man likes you for whatever reason, he will let you read a chapter he will select for you, with ¡°The Prodigal Daughter¡± being one of them.


    Before you start reading, the old man will explain to you that the stories from that book are ¡°the real, original ones¡±, and books like the Bible, the Koran or the Vedas are simply misconstrued versions of what actually happened, bent and distorted to server the purpose of priests that have but a small fraction of the power the elder ones could wield.


    He will also tell you that the story of the prodigal son is a bastardization of the real story, which was about the prodigal daughter instead, and that patriarchal societies changed the original story beyond recognition. You will then be one of the few people fortunate enough to read that chapter from the book.


    There was once a priest of Marduk, who was very powerful. He was married to a priestess of the house of Ishtar. She died giving birth to twins, but not identical twins - a son and a daughter instead. Long the priest lamented the passing of his wife, whom he loved dearly; after years of mourning, he finally started to turn his attention to his son and daughter, and did something that no father should ever do: conjured Enki to learn about the future of his children.


    Enki showed him two paths; one that ended with his children faithfully standing next to him, after having lived a long and prosperous life, as his spirit was ready to start its final journey to the underworld sea of fresh water. The other, however, was terrifying: his own daughter killing him with a display of magic so powerful that, even though Enki was a powerful god,  greatly disturbed him. Enki also told the priest that the path that was going to materialize was entirely under the priest¡¯s control - his decisions would ultimately define the final outcome, but Enki was not allowed to give him any advice on the matter.


    The priest was much agitated by what he had seen, and retreated to meditate about what he should do. His children were old enough to start their training and ready to be introduced to minor forms of magic, as they were already able to move small objects with their minds, conjure fire and mist, and somewhat bend light to their desire. Like little children, they used their newfound powers to play with each other - after all, children will be children, and they play with whatever they have at hand. Of great concern to the priest, however, was the fact that his daughter seemed to be much more powerful than his son: while observing their plays, it was clear that she was putting boundaries to her powers, and his son was to a great extent less talented than her. Not that his son was weak - quite the contrary; he was also powerful in his magic for a boy of his age, just not remotely as powerful as his daughter.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    After much pondering, the priest made his decision: he would not teach his daughter how to control and increase her power, only his son. Not only that, he would do everything in his power to stop her from growing her power.


    And so he did, and so he sealed his fate.


    Despite not teaching her anything, her power continued to increase over the years, and she seemed to be always ahead of his son. Consumed with fear, he isolated her, and started to treat her as an enemy, not as his own blood and flesh. Increasingly terrified and paranoid, he finally decided to lock her up. Dark thoughts started to cross his mind, thoughts of even killing his own daughter. Unbeknownst to him, his daughter had already developed the ability to read other people¡¯s minds, and she then decided that it was time for her to leave. Doors could no longer contain her, not even doors locked with her father¡¯s spells. On a quiet and balmy summer night she left and made her way into the desert.


    At this point the old man will interrupt your reading and explain to you that this is what a patriarchal society does to a story - depict the father as a good man, willing to give his son half of his inheritance, and letting him go out in the world to seek his own fortune. The distorted story also tells how the prodigal son squandered his fortune and ended up living as a servant before deciding to go back home and ask for his father¡¯s forgiveness. Also, as many people think, the son who stayed with the father got the short stick of the deal, not only faithfully working and serving his father, but also apparently never having received any sign of gratitude in exchange. No matter how much you try to explain it, in the end the whole thing makes no sense, and the reason is because there is so much you can bend a story.


    As the real story goes, the daughter left with her part of her inheritance, not because of her father¡¯s generosity, but because her powers continue to grow despite her father¡¯s attempts to curb them. She went into the desert, and legend says that she eventually came across the worshipers of Ki, the primordial female principle. This was a secretive group, composed only of females, who occasionally stole other female babies or kidnapped a few men to copulate and ensure the group¡¯s continuity. Female babies were raised to learn the elemental principles and grow in power; male babies did not have such luck, as they were sacrificed to Ki. If you think this has some sort of sembrance with the Greek legend of the Amazon warriors, you are not far off. Each culture shapes their stories based on history, changing them to conform to their way of life.


    At any rate, unlike the prodigal son story, the daughter did not squander her inheritance, but rather increased it many times. She was introduced to the mysteries of Ki, and learned how to bend her power to her will. She was taken under the oldest sorceress protection, who personally trained her. After the sorceress death, despite her young age, the daughter was elevated to the category of eldest, thus becoming the leader of the group.


    Right before her passing, the oldest sorceress told the daughter that she had to complete one important task: face her father. By refusing to teach her, the father had broken the balance established by the gods, and it was her duty to confront him to reestablish that balance.


    And so the daughter did.


    There are no good accounts of what exactly happened, since anyone who was close enough perished and couldn¡¯t tell the story. Sorcerers can summon shields to protect them from other sorcerers, and just like a regular warrior can see another warrior¡¯s shield, so can a sorcerer see another¡¯s. It is said that the daughter powers were great, and that she could summon a shield that was invisible to other sorcerers, and she was wearing one when she approached her father. It is also said that he pretended to ask for forgiveness and make amends to put her off guard, and she almost believed him, but at some point he used all his powers to kill her, an attempt that failed miserably because she never let her invisible shield down.


    All that''s left of her rage that followed are ruins of what once used to be a beautiful palace.

 The Cathedral

    Do you remember? You were excited about the prospect of visiting that delightful gothic cathedral, with its towers and windows ascending to that vibrant blue sky¡­


    Why were you attracted to that small door leading to a stairwell? The sky was becoming cloudy, the light was diminishing rapidly;  but you wanted to go upstairs, try to find a window to appreciate the piazza from up high. Why did you go upstairs?


    The darkness was dense, with an almost palpable quality, remember? Finally, after much effort, you finally found your window. Alas! It was worthless - the piazza was dark and completely taken by the torrential rain that started to fall. You started your descent until you reached a bifurcation in the stairwell; you couldn¡¯t remember it, you couldn¡¯t decide which way to go. It was then that you noticed another window. How surprising it was the sight it offered when you opened it! You were at a higher point than before! No, it can¡¯t be! It had to be a simple illusion.


    You took one of the paths (which one?) and kept going downstairs when suddenly lightning revealed yet another window¡­


    Impossible!The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    When you looked out, you noticed you were at an even higher point.


    How long did you stay there, contemplating the rain, in the company of the grotesque gargoyles that decorated the external wall of the tower? Despite going against all logic, you then decided to go up - the stairs were working the wrong way. Madness! The next window revealed an even higher ascension! God, how far would the tip of the tower be? The low and oppressive clouds confused you, and you got soaking wet trying to see the tip of the tower. Worse, the increasing darkness started to interfere with your ability to see the ground¡­


    You called, screamed, implored¡­ Nobody or anything answered your anguish, your voice dying in the darkness as soon as it left your mouth.


    For how long did you run, desperate, up and down those stairs, seeming to get more and more distant from the piazza down below every time you looked out a window?


    How long did it take for you to reach the utmost despair, deciding to commit suicide by throwing yourself out of a window?


    Closed eyes, the vertigo of the fall, reaching the final peace. However, in the final instant of consciousness that precedes death, instead of feeling the hard stone floor, something radically different happened.


    Remember how tall and sharp the needle-like tower of the cathedral was? There you are now, impaled in the highest point of the cathedral¡­


    And in the final despair before death, suddenly the clouds open and let you see a tiny slice of a vibrant blue sky.

 The Dream

    Were the dreams that caused the exhaustion or was the exhaustion that caused the dreams? Joseph couldn¡¯t tell. The alarm clock had gone off, and only with a superhuman effort he could leave bed. He dragged himself around his apartment going through his morning ritual to get ready for work. ¡°Late again!¡± he thought while getting on the bus. His exhaustion for quite some time was interfering with his ability to concentrate, precisely when he needed all energy for his new project.


    The dreams had a peculiar characteristic - they were extremely realistic while at the same time ephemeral. They were realistic while Joseph was dreaming; as soon as he woke up, the details vanished almost immediately. The dreams were a bit repetitive; Joseph recalled being in a place with many rooms, several people going round and about, conversations, faces whose details had simply disappeared. It was always the same dream, never changing.


    The day dragged on slowly, almost through a mist, with Joseph dozing off several times and always dreaming the same dream. He went back home late, upset for not being able to finish what he was supposed to. Up until not long ago, he would have brought home some work, but he stopped doing this since it was useless to carry his things back and forth only to end up sleeping over them.


    That night the dream was longer, more intense, and more persistent. When Joseph woke up the next day - a Saturday - he managed to remember much detail - a large room with a fireplace, another room with tables, people eating, a few in silence, a few carrying conversations, a long hallway with several doors, through one of which Joseph entered before waking up. Despite being a Saturday, Joseph went to the office to try to make up for some of his delays and lack of productivity, but with nothing to show except for several naps during the time he spent there, always dreaming the same dream. On one of the occasions, Joseph was sitting at one of the tables, eating, along with other people who seemed familiar. In the dream he was also tired, unable to follow the conversation or notice what was going on around him.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Joseph went back home and went straight to bed without eating anything.


    What could have happened?


    Joseph found himself talking to a woman, in a very nice room, warmed by a lively fire in the fireplace, while baroque music played in the distance. The conversation was rather interesting, and the woman had a beautiful and mysterious face. However, after some time, sleepiness started to take over Joseph, and he excused himself and went to a bedroom - ¡°his¡± bedroom - a hotel room. He laid in bed and started to doze off and dream - a dream of his apartment bedroom, his bed, and the fact that it was Sunday and it was fairly late, but it didn¡¯t really matter as he would finally be able to get some rest. He woke up, a bit disoriented, dressed up, ate some breakfast and went for a walk on that cold, crisp and sunny autumn day.


    Joseph tried to understand what had just happened, that transition from what seemed to be a dream within a dream and turned out to be a transition to consciousness; his exhaustion and sleepiness, however, prevented him from thinking clearly. People passed by as if they were involved in a mist, their features hard to distinguish as if they were part of a dream; he decided to go back to his apartment and sleep some more before lunch. His bed was definitely inviting, and Joseph slowly slipped into a dream, a strange dream, as if he was in a hotel room, small but cozy, a refreshing feeling, a gradual awakening¡­ Joseph got up and got dressed, and joined Anna in the restaurant for a light breakfast and a lively conversation.


    Joseph certainly enjoyed living in a hotel; his decision to move there after having inherited a small fortune was sound. It was good to live a life without having to care for the little mundane things, particularly when living in a large city where there was always something different and interesting to do. The only thing that worried Joseph was a dream - a recurring dream where he was always sleepy and tired, trying to focus on his work. Every time Joseph had that dream (and it was becoming more frequent), he woke up tired, unable to focus, and unwilling to do anything other than sleep - it was almost like the weariness of the dream was contagious and affected his otherwise almost perfect and happy life¡­

 Amun

    For his entire life Damien had been what people called a misfit - that is, polite people; most people used a less kind choice of words to describe him.


    Damien had a fragile and extremely pale complexion, made worse by his abundant and long pitch black hair, and metallic blue eyes surrounded by deep dark circles. He was extremely intelligent and well spoken, and he truly loved learning about different subjects, which, in conjunction with his repulsion towards any physical activity, didn¡¯t help him make many friends during his childhood and adolescence years. He would much rather spend time at the central Achnahannet library browsing and reading about different subjects, ranging from folklore to advanced physics. And it was the library that helped him discover his real passion: ancient Egypt, particularly the gods and goddesses.


    Damien was admitted to the Achnahannet University when he turned sixteen, and by eighteen he had completed his undergraduate studies in the History department and started his PhD in Egyptology. He was especially fascinated by Amun - in his opinion (and this was the topic of his thesis) the priests of Amun had secret powers, and the high priests could bend the physical world to their will, move objects, cure sickness, influence other people¡¯s thoughts to make them do their bid. This idea came after several months of studying very old papyri that were donated to the University by a rich amateur archaeologist who bought them for what amounted to a few cents from a street vendor who claimed to have received them from ghosts. Upon returning home, the archaeologist was struck by a mysterious sickness that consumed him quicker than the doctors could figure out what its source was. In his will he left the papyri to the University along with a letter highlighting the importance of that discovery and asking that the brightest minds from the Egyptology department studied them.


    And so they did. For many years the best and brightest spent countless days and nights trying to decipher the papyri, but although it was written in the same hieroglyphs familiar to all of them, it made no sense at all - it was encrypted. The Computer Science department''s efforts to decrypt them were all in vain, and after a few years of fruitless efforts, everyone gave up and the papyri were shelved as a precious but never to be understood glimpse of ancient times. Until Damien heard about them.


    Damien poured his heart and soul to the task of deciphering them; if anyone had a chance to do so it was Damien. He was fluent in ancient Egyptian - he could read hieroglyphs like he was reading the Sunday newspaper; he could also write fluently, translating from english as people dictated to him.


    The task turned out to be more complex than Damien expected,  but after several months he managed to translate the first page of the first papyrus - and what he discovered made him tremble with excitement. The introduction talked about Amun, his powers, and it provided a reference to what was in the other papyri - a book of enchantments, showing how certain sequences of sounds opened passages to other realms, and how those passages could be used to control our physical world. This breakthrough turned the somewhat forgotten History department the center of attention in the Achnahannet University, and put Damien in the spotlight more than he actually cared for, but had given him the material he needed for his PhD thesis, so in the end, it all worked out for him.


    Unfortunately translating the first papyrus didn¡¯t make the task of translating the others easier; whoever wrote them was not only very careful, but also very ingenious and certainly way ahead of his time in the subject of cryptography - each section was encrypted using a completely different technique, so what worked for one section didn¡¯t work for the next. Damien, however, believed that there was some sort of meta-encryption regulating the encryption of the different sections of the papyri. In fact, given the number of sections to be decrypted, finding the meta-encryption was the only alternative to decades of work.


    Damien decrypted one more section by sheer force and will, falling sick of exhaustion after completing the work. His advisor ordered him to take a few weeks off to recover, but Damien instead gathered every book in cryptography he could put his hands on, reading them without rest. He was finally ready to tackle the rest of the papyri.


    And tackle them he did - anyone who visited his apartment would be baffled to say the least: copies spread all over the walls, with annotations, highlights, piles of paper everywhere. As many people pointed out, this was not a healthy environment for one to live.


    The dreams started soon after Damien dove into the work; ephemeral in the beginning, but then becoming more realistic. They always followed the same theme - Damien had been transported to Egypt; not modern Egypt, but the apogee of the Egyptian civilization. He walked down the streets in awe, surrounded by the magnificent statues and temples, the Nile like a giant mirror reflecting a vibrant blue sky. He then walked down a street sided by sphinxes to a large temple - the temple of Amun; as he stepped into the temple, the images became fainter and he would finally wake up before being able to see what was inside.


    Damien doubled his efforts to find the key to translating the papyri; the dreams were a source of inspiration to him, they kept him excited about the prospects of deciphering such an important piece of Egyptian history.


    The more he worked, the clearer the dreams became - he gradually started to see people walking down the street with him, with their faces becoming sharper and their demeanor more detailed. He could see their dark faces, with noble features, green and yellow eyes, like a falcon¡¯s, enhanced by eye liners, long, thin and elegant noses over plump lips. They were all dressed in white linen, men with a simple skirt, women with dresses baring one of their breasts; gold jewelry covered their flexible and well cared bodies, and golden sandals protected their small and beautiful feet, showing that they were not peasants, but noble people walking down one of the main streets of Thebes.


    And thus summer and fall went by, with Damien making increasing progress towards finding the key; the days became shorter and colder, and as winter approached, in a cold, wet, windy and oppressive night, the dreams finally took Damien to the inner part of the temple.


    There, in the depths of the temple, was Amun himself, a giant with piercing black eyes, powerful and majestic. Damien prostrated himself before the god, and he could feel the warmth of acceptance coming from the divinity, which gave him courage to slowly look up at Amun¡¯s face, who started to open his mouth to speak. At that precise moment he woke up, refreshed but frustrated at the same time.


    Damien doubled his efforts, as it seemed obvious that he was getting closer. After working around the clock for two days with no sleep and no food, sheer exhaustion took over him, and he dragged himself to bed to catch some sleep. And dreamed he did.


    Everything in the dream was incredibly clear; the streets, the people, the sounds, the smells, the gentle touch of the winter sun on his skin. He was dressed like everyone else, and like the others, his skin was dark, all of his body and head hair removed. He walked with confidence towards the temple, prostrating before Amun like before, and then finally the god spoke to him while his priests sang a slow and deep hymn behind him.


    As the god spoke, he constantly changed shape - turning to a giant snake, then to a man with the head of a ram, a crocodile, and then back to human form. His thundering voice raised above all others, and he finished by producing a deep and long musical note.


    Damien awoke at that point, without knowing where he was. The sun had finally come out, dispersing the clouds and the humidity; a promise of a nice and cold autumn day. He took a shower, changed, and went to the University¡¯s cafeteria for breakfast, as he hadn¡¯t eaten any food for quite a while. There, while he ate, he tried to remember what Amun had told him - our unconscious work in mysterious ways, and Damien thought that God had given him the key during his dream. He decided to take a break, clear his mind, hoping that would help bring the dream back, but the noise and distractions of the outside world were not helping; that¡¯s when he had a brilliant idea - the department of psychology had sensory deprivation pods! What could be more conducive to recalling the dream in detail than being completely deprived of his senses, so he could relive the dream while fully awake?


    Damien was well known in the psychology department, so he had no trouble convincing people to let him try the pod. He showered, changed, and stepped inside; the door was closed and he found himself in complete darkness, not a sound except for his breath, not a smell, feeling only the gentle warmth of the salty water. After a few minutes he started to relax; the sound of him breathing and the floating sensation disappeared - he was surrounded by nothingness, and he couldn¡¯t feel anything.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    He focused on the dream, retracing his steps from outside the temple over and over again, until he could finally capture all the details. He was in absolute awe, it was just like he was there, in ancient Egypt, but not in a dream but in reality. He entered the temple, and Amun spoke to him; he could hear every word he said, clearly, unmistakably, and he was not disappointed: the god had given him instructions on how to crack the meta-key, the key to all keys to decipher the papyri.


    Damien jumped out of the pod, barely washed and dried himself, and ran all the way back to his apartment. For the next few days, he worked feverishly, barely eating or sleeping, until he finally translated all the papyri. You would think that he would be happy to have completed this seemingly impossible task, but you would be wrong - and the dreams were to blame.


    While working on the decryption, Damien kept having the recurring dream, but every time it was different, in an increasingly unpleasant way. First, it seemed like time had passed, and he was no longer in the apogee of Thebes, but in the future, with an obvious progressive decadence: people¡¯s appearance was not as flattering, the gold jewelry becoming smaller and gradually being replaced with silver, the street and statues uncared for. But more disappointing was what was happening with Amun himself. As the nights passed, the god suffered a visible transformation; Thebes¡¯s decadence was nothing compared to the increasing decrepitity of Amun, shrinking in size and power. But that was not the worse - although it made no sense, the god was becoming evermore frightened of something. Towards the end, Damien started to sense another presence behind the god; faintly, but then increasingly more prevalent. Damien couldn¡¯t see who or what it was, but evil in its purest form emanated from it. There are evil people, but whatever was behind Amun was not ¡°something¡± or ¡°someone¡± evil, but almost like evil itself. And the god was extremely afraid of it, and so was Damien - he never felt sheer fear in its purest form like he did in those dreams; it completely overwhelmed him, making his mind shrink in profound despair.


    The night before translating the last papyrus proved to be a challenge for Damien. The evil presence was there, stronger than ever, and both him and Amun were completely terrified. Then the unexpected happened: a deep melody filled the inside chamber of the temple, a disgusting, repulsive melody that could not be described with words. And the evil took form, if we could call it form - it was more an absence, but an absence that had shape and substance if that was ever possible. And that absence exulted in its evilness, marching towards Amun who was petrified; it engulfed the god tearing it into pieces while laughing - if laugh we could call that maddening sound. And then it turned to Damien.


    Damien awoke drenched in a cold sweat, the winter sun coming through the windows, creating a startling contrast between the mundaneness of his bedroom and the terrifying dream he just had. He could barely breathe, and only after some effort he managed to move. But the world outside his window reminded him that it was only a bad dream, most likely caused by the intense work of the past few weeks, and that was finally coming to an end.


    Damien finally translated the last papyrus, and basked in the glory of his accomplishment for the next few weeks - and the dreams stopped completely. The departments of History and Computer Science of the Achnahannet University reached a level of excitement never seen before, and Damien was the center of it. He received his PhD with honors, and was quite busy for the next few weeks going around the world to deliver lectures about the contents of the papyri, how they were encrypted, and how he managed to break the code. The papyri talked about the dichotomy of our universe, how it started as one but separated in two, good and evil, isolated, but not completely. They discussed how certain sequences of sounds and words, known by the priests of Amun, could temporarily open a passage between the two universes, and how the flow of energy could be controlled and directed by the trained mind to move heavy objects or bend other people¡¯s minds. It also warned about the need for the fine equilibrium required to keep the passage open only enough to carry on the deeds but not more, lest the evil from the other universe enter into ours. It also gave stern warnings about the consequences of letting that happen - demons running loose, or, worst of all for the person performing the enchantment, being sucked into the evil universe, where torture and pain were the only things to be expected for eternity.


    When all the craziness subsided, Damien became increasingly curious about the enchantments. How much of the descriptions were true? He studied them, but although there were precise instructions on the sequence of sounds, he had no reference to start with. It would be the equivalent of giving the score of a symphony to an ancient culture and expect them to play it flawlessly without telling them what the score notation was supposed to mean, or how each instrument was supposed to sound. Damien researched other ancient texts, looking for a Rosetta stone that could give him some hints about how to interpret the music notation, but it was useless - the centuries buried the secret, and this was a key that could not be broken by any mathematical means - the papyri were very insistent on the precision necessary to make things work. They also warned the reader to never try it without the supervision of a senior priest because of the dire consequences of letting evil spirits come to this world, or the eternal suffering expecting people who made the journey to the other universe.


    Damien was obsessed with the musical notation, to the point of neglecting the classes he was supposed to teach. He carried copies of them with him everywhere until he learned everything by heart; it was sad to see him mumbling around the University hallways, or sitting on a bench going through pages and pages of scribbled paper, but people were happy to overlook his eccentric behavior in the hopes he would eventually snap out of it, or even make another outstanding discovery.


    Then one day he had an idea - the sensory deprivation pods. Of course! They worked once, why not try them again? In his dreams there were always priests singing, perhaps if he could remember the sounds with detail he would be able to find some logical association between them and the ancient musical notation.


    And so he did. Although the technician mumbled something about being sensory deprived for extended times not being healthy, Damien¡¯s piercing blue eyes convinced him to let Damien stay in the pod for a few hours before disturbing him. Damien got in, the pod was closed, and once again he was in complete darkness, hearing only the sound of his own breathing. He forced himself into remembering the dream, and after a long time, it started to come back to him - the sounds as he was stepping into the temple of Amun. After several attempts, he managed to manipulate the dream, standing at the temple¡¯s portico, listening to the chanting of the priests and mentally passing the manuscripts in front of his eyes. And then like pieces of a puzzle falling into place, one of the papyri seemed to logically match the sounds he was hearing; all of a sudden it all made sense. He had discovered the key to understanding the musical notation.


    Overly excited, he started singing along with the priests; after some time, he felt like he was floating in the air, above the salty water in the pod. Initially he thought he was imagining things because of the sensory deprivation, but when he stopped singing he distinctly felt the warm water touch his back again. He was actually floating!


    The different papyri flew in front of his eyes, and he decided to try another one to see what would happen; he started singing a different melody, deep and sad. After some time, the darkness around him started to dissipate - a faint red light was shining in front of him. Because of his excitement, he stopped paying attention to what he was singing, and he made a few mistakes. The red light then disappeared, and it was replaced with darkness again, but darkness a different quality: it was not an absence of light, but the presence of that absence, material, touchable. He stopped singing, but the darkness did not go away - on the contrary, it took shape around him, like a passageway that gradually opened to reveal a starry sky, but one that lacked poetry and beauty, and utterly terrified Damien. He tried to move, open the pod, call for help, but the pod was gone; in sheer horror Damien screamed, but only unnatural creatures heard his scream, and they turned to Damien with a smile of pleasure - if you could call that ripping of flesh a smile.


    After several hours, the technician finally decided that enough was enough. Damien had been in the pod for way too long, so he decided to put an end to that experiment. He knocked on the pod and told Damien he would finish the session, and opened the hatch.


    To his astonishment, Damien was not there, not a trace that he had ever been there. He looked at the floor, it was dry. He went back to the lockers, and Damien¡¯s clothes were there, neatly folded. He looked around, and couldn¡¯t find Damien, so he called security. They arrived, and were baffled just like him - it was winter, very cold, and the sun was shining, with not a single cloud in the sky. A naked man walking around would definitely draw attention, plus he couldn¡¯t have gone too far naked in all that cold.


    They searched the building, Damien¡¯s apartment, and then the University, and he was nowhere to be found. They called the police, who searched the area around the university, but nobody had seen Damien after he went into the sensory deprivation pod. The technician was there most of the time, having taken only a quick restroom break. Security tapes showed Damien going in, but never coming out. After a few days of investigation, the police gave up - there was no explanation for the disappearance of Damien. Students talked about how weird Damien had become, and how obsessed he was with the papyri, but nobody paid attention to a couple of people who raised the hypothesis that he may have found a key to a place where people were not meant to be.

 No Hostages

    Jon was having an excellent day - until he decided to stop at the bank coming back from an after-lunch walk to take care of some business he had been neglecting for quite some time.


    He should have turned around and left after seeing the long lines, but since he was already there, he decided to stay. The lack of air conditioning should have hinted him to choose another one; the kid in front of him in line was particularly irritating, but he decided to stay.


    The kid wouldn¡¯t stand still, and his mother was doing her best to keep him under control, but nothing worked. He fidgeted non-stop, talked non-stop, danced non-stop. Then he decided to sing - nothing in particular, only a sequence of noises that he unsuccessfully attempted to string together to resemble a melody; after some time, however, he finally reached a sequence of sounds that were actually melodic and¡­ different. The kid noticed that, so he kept singing it, over and over again. His mother told him to stop, but it was like the kid was in some sort of trance, singing and moving his body along with the tune, oblivious to everything around him.


    Jon¡¯s head began to bother him at that point. It started as a muted, but persistent pain like nothing he had experienced before - headaches usually happen in the periphery of the head, particularly in the forefront. This one was different, though - it seemed to come directly from inside his head. Initially Jon tried to ignore it, but the repeated singing made it progressively worse, sharp, like cutting inside his brain. Jon held his head in his hands, pressed his temples, but the pain kept getting worse and worse. When he finally decided to ask the kid to stop singing, he realized he couldn¡¯t speak or move anymore. It seemed like something was taking shape inside his head, controlling it; the pain was becoming unbearable, Jon wanted to scream, but he couldn¡¯t - but then his body took a life of its own, it started to move, and it finally laughed; a terrifying laugh, in a deep and rough voice that had no resemblance to Jon¡¯s own voice.


    * * *


    The police arrived at the scene responding to several frantic emergency calls. People were terrified of the unearthly noises, voices and screams coming from the bank. Someone had shut the doors from the inside, with furniture piled up in front of it; horrific screams were coming from the building, and while they were trying to open the glass doors, what seemed to be a human brain smashed against the glass.


    Someone drove a police car through the doors to open them, out of pure despair, and the fairly large police force ran inside. The Achnahannet police force was proud of its training and ability to deal with all sorts of situations, but nothing had prepared them for what they were about to witness. In fact, nothing could have prepared anyone for what they expected inside that bank, not years of experience, not psychological resilience, not deeply held religious beliefs, nothing. It is only human to freeze when faced with danger and evil, even more so when the essence of nightmares are distilled and concentrated and dropped right into your eyes. Unfortunately for a couple of officers it took everyone a few seconds to react before killing that which once perhaps had been a human being. May they rest in peace along with all the others who met their fate that day.


    What they found inside that lobby will be forever implanted in the memories of those who had the misfortune to get in there. The more resilient ones quit the force and moved far away; the weaker ones become only shadows of what they were before, unable to sleep, always speaking with a hushed voice, looking over their shoulder, afraid of the dark.


    Blood was everywhere - the floor was flooded with it, viscous, repugnant, making it hard to walk without losing your balance. The human body holds over a gallon of blood, and there were many people in that lobby, all but two dead and completely drained by the time the police went in. The characteristic smell of blood was sickening, and the fact that it was all human blood made it worse to tolerate.Stolen story; please report.


    Then there were the conditions of those bodies: all torn apart; limbs ripped off their sockets, flesh sliced, organs spilled on the floor. Large predators go about eating their prey with some logic, but the condition of that which once had been human beings was an expression of madness in its purest form.


    Then there was Jon. When the police rushed in he was finishing with the last person, ripping off her throat with his teeth. Needless to say, after all that carnage he was covered in blood and other things that are better off left unspoken; he looked up, his eyes flaming in triumph, like a caged animal that finally had the opportunity to bite the arm of its captor. Then a completely inhuman scream came out of his mouth and he jumped like a cat on the two unfortunate officers that were closest to him, literally pulling their windpipes out of their necks with his bare hands - and then he laughed, if laughter we could call that.


    The other officers snapped out of their paralysis and drew their guns, shooting at Jon repeatedly while he continued to laugh like bullets couldn¡¯t harm him. Finally the laughter subsided, and he fell to the floor, dead.


    The police had the common sense to cover all windows and doors, lest someone could take a picture of the horror that had just taken place there; unfortunately the police had to take pictures for their reports and paperwork and some of those leaked and went completely viral. Most people, however, refused to believe them, preferring the explanation that they had been edited or that someone simply stole frames from a third class zombie movie to make a quick buck: yes, that was a better explanation, no human being, no matter how psychotic, could do those things - and they were right, no human being was capable of that.


    And then there was Jon¡¯s body itself - it was completely covered from the blood of the carnage, but nothing could have prepared the coroner for what he would find after cleaning it up and examining it.


    First, there were the broken bones - all major bones, to be more precise, were broken in several places. How he could have possibly moved around like this (let alone jump like a cat) is beyond explanation; the theory that he was drugged was quickly discarded once blood tests revealed nothing out of the ordinary in Jon¡¯s system. But this was far from being the most intriguing item in the coroner¡¯s report.


    Jon¡¯s body was completely covered in symbols, carved deep into his skin and flesh. The orientation of those symbols and subsequent examination of Jon¡¯s hands and fingers revealed that he was the likely author of all that horrific self mutilation. Some of those symbols were hieroglyphs; others, however, caused a mixture of sickness and panic to those looking at them, as if the most primitive parts of the human mind, the ones that deal with fear and the deepest survival instinct, screamed about the corruption emanating from those simple lines.


    The Department of Egyptology of the Achnahannet University was called to help make sense of those hieroglyphs; and although the translation was never made public, people close to the autopsy say that they contained so much evil that they were better left alone. Professor McCaig, the oldest professor in the History department, was never the same after looking at those symbols; after a few days wandering on campus and talking to himself he passed away.


    People who tried to talk to him say that he was not coherent at all; he kept talking about ¡°the other side¡±, ¡°chants that can tear the fabric of space¡±, how ¡°the demons¡¯ time had arrived¡± and that ¡°not even God can protect us¡±. He also started murmuring a tune, the same tune, repeatedly but with small variations as if he was trying to remember a long forgotten song.


    Perhaps in his last moments of lucidity, he pointed out the similarities between the hieroglyphs from Jon¡¯s body and the ones from the papyri translated by Demian; in fact, they were so similar that people wondered how Jon could have possibly learned an ancient Egyptian dialect, and carve symbols in his body which had the same minute details as the ones written by someone millennia ago.


    That must have been too much for the professor. A jogger found him sitting on a bench in the beautiful University¡¯s Central Gardens overlooking the lake. The gardens have always been a place of peace and serenity, but the expression on McCaig''s face was one of total fear and despair. His notebook, which he carried everywhere to take notes, was covered with hieroglyphs, and the last page had a single sentence - ¡°We are doomed.¡±

 Of Dreams

    Joseph very much enjoyed spending his weekends exploring Providence Street. Although he liked the Cathedral at the end of Providence Boulevard, having visited it many times, it was the dark, narrow and cold Providence Street, with its crumbling memories of a more glorious past that attracted him.


    Joseph was very tired that weekend. In fact, he hadn¡¯t been sleeping that well, with a strange, recurring dream haunting him, paired with terrifying sleep paralysis. He couldn¡¯t clearly remember the dreams, they were sort of immersed in a dark fog, with shapes that were almost anthropomorphic - with the ¡°almost¡± qualifier being the eerie part.


    Joseph knew that although those shapes resembled something human, they were absolutely not, but the details were lost in the mist. And then there was a voice, whispering very softly, almost like a child¡¯s voice:


    ¨C Wake up¡­ wake up¡­ wake¡­ up¡­


    Begging for Joseph to wake up. The mist would get thicker and thicker, until it felt dense like water, then denser, hard to breathe, like drowning in stone.


    ¨C Wake up¡­ wake up¡­ wake¡­ up¡­


    In these dreams, Joseph tried to remain quiet, so as to not draw attention to the eerie shapes, but eventually they noticed his presence, his smell, and started to move towards him.


    ¨C Wake up¡­ wake up¡­ wake¡­ up¡­


    At that point in the dream, Joseph was in a semi-awake state, aware that he was dreaming, but also conscious; the shapes started to take form - cursed forms, horrific forms, incredibly evil - and Joseph couldn¡¯t move, neither in dream, nor in reality.


    ¨C Wake up¡­ wake up¡­ wake¡­ up¡­


    The evil emanating from those shapes became unbearable, physically painful, oppressive. He somehow knew that he had to make his body move to break the dream, but only after much effort he finally could, exhausted, and too afraid to go back to sleep. And all the time, while struggling to move, he continued to hear the voice whispering ¡°wake up¡­ wake up¡­ wake¡­ up¡­¡±, becoming more and more desperate as Joseph remained frozen, dreaming, awake, and struggling to move.


    Joseph decided to stop at his favorite place - the quaint used book store, with its old and rare books, and the exotic shopkeeper, who seemed to know all of its books by heart. Joseph enjoyed spending his afternoons there, reading the old books with their fantastic and yet disturbingly realistic stories.


    As Joseph walked in the bookstore and greeted the shopkeeper, he mentioned that Joseph looked a bit paler than usual; Joseph mentioned his lack of sleep and strange dreams, and then asked the old man if he had any books about dreams.


    The shopkeeper looked at Joseph with his piercing black eyes for a long time, and then said he did, but, given the nature of Joseph¡¯s dreams, he said it was probably not a good idea for Joseph to read it. In fact, he strongly recommended that Joseph stayed away from that book, or any serious books about dreams, and politely but firmly recommended that Joseph took some time off work and traveled somewhere distant, the farther, the better.


    Joseph, of course, was intrigued by those words, and told the old man he would definitely be interested about reading more, as the fantasies from those dusty, old books could actually provide some relief to Joseph¡¯s predicament, just like fantasizing about something serious can lighten up the mood a bit.


    Joseph noticed a slight change in the otherwise polite expression of the old man when he said the word ¡°fantasies¡±, but didn¡¯t make much of it. The shopkeeper took another long look at Joseph, and finally grabbed an elegantly bound volume from one of the shelves, and gave it to Joseph while still advising him against it, but Joseph had already made up his mind. The book title was a single word, ¡°Morpheus¡±, written in elegant gothic penmanship. The ornaments of the letters extended through the entire cover in an intricate but worn out design that at some point represented something, but it was far too faded to be identified. Joseph, however, felt a shiver go down his spine, since they immediately reminded him of the shapes of his dreams.


    Joseph took a chair and made himself comfortable, and started going over the book. And later he wished he had not done so.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    The book started with a quick explanation of the dual nature of our world, and how certain frequencies could cut through the fabric of the universe, putting the evil side in touch with the good side. Joseph was familiar with the concept, having read ¡°A Brief History of Light¡± and other books that discussed in detail how those frequencies could send good or evil manifestations across.


    The book then equated consciousness, deep sleep, and dreams as the soul switching to different sound patterns, which reminded Joseph of the different brain waves that we experience when we are awake, dreaming, or in deep sleep. Joseph thought it was amazing to see such a modern concept discussed in such an old book.


    According to the book, the sound pattern that corresponds to dreaming is very close to the frequency required to tear the fabric of the universe, and that sometimes small variations cause a tear to actually happen, resulting in what we call nightmares. Those tears provide a glimpse of ¡°what¡¯s on the other side¡±, which is obviously an unpleasant experience, but not as unpleasant as actually visiting the other side. According to the book, the discomfort caused by that fleeting glimpse was usually enough to bring the person back to consciousness and therefore change the vibration pattern, thus closing the tear with no major repercussions. Unfortunately, there was a possibility that more serious consequences could arise from that experience.


    At this point, Joseph paused for a moment. This whole thing made too much sense - in a chilling way. He reconsidered the shopkeeper¡¯s  advice: leave immediately, ask for some time off from work, and go somewhere distant. However, his curiosity got the best of the situation, and he kept reading.


    The next chapter of the book discussed night terrors, presented as the next (and concerning) level of interaction with the other side. Night terrors, the explanation went on, were caused by larger, longer lasting tears. The fact that the person could not move was an indication that the other side was starting to take control of one¡¯s mind and body. Night terrors are not common; however, sometimes they recur because the tear never quite completely heals, leaving it prone to be open again, like a wound not completely healed that is subject to stress. The book warned that persistent night terrors were a cause of concern, but unfortunately the pages that described how to deal with them were so worn out that Joseph couldn¡¯t make anything of them, except for references to old Egyptian incantations.


    Joseph should have really stopped reading at that point, but he couldn¡¯t. The next chapter really brought chills down his spine, as it started to describe how glimpses of the other side started with shapes in a mist, and how good spirits sometimes saved people from completely passing to the other side by waking them up. What followed was terrifying; a complete and detailed description of the fate of those who failed to take proper action, and how their bodies were taken by evil spirits while their own was pushed to the other side to sustain insufferable pain from pure evil. The only remedy at that point was to perform an exorcism, but the people who could actually do it successfully were very few, as it involved incantations in precise frequencies and sequence. The next chapter discussed how different cultures performed them - shamans, priests, etc. - all following prescribed rituals, but the language and the words mattered less than the correct sounds and pitches.


    It was already night when Joseph reached that point - in fact, almost morning. The shopkeeper was still around; Joseph apologized for keeping him for so long, returned the book, and went for a walk in the crisp night air until it was time to go to the office. He wouldn¡¯t dare go to sleep after reading what he had read that night.


    The day at the office was uneventful, except for the fact that Joseph was extremely tired, but still too excited by what he had read. After Joseph went back home, he followed his usual night ritual, but once he was comfortably in bed, he couldn¡¯t stop thinking about the dreams and what he had read in the book. After hours of turning and tossing, he finally started to fall asleep, just to wake up scared as a mist started to make its way in his dream. He decided that perhaps sleeping was not a good idea, so he made some strong coffee and watched stupid action movies for the rest of the night to stay awake.


    This happened again for a few nights, with Joseph not having the courage to sleep. Of course, this was taking a toll on Joseph¡¯s ability to function and even think clearly.


    After a week, Joseph decided to see a doctor. He was hesitant - how could he explain the mist and the evil without sounding crazy? But an entire week without sleep was too much, Joseph needed help.


    Joseph concocted a story about anxiety, nightmares and night terrors, and how they were preventing him from sleeping, without going into too much detail. The doctor was really concerned, and asked Joseph to check into a hospital, so they could give him proper sleeping medication and monitor his sleep. Reluctantly, Joseph agreed.


    The nurses hooked up all sorts of wires to his head, and started a line to control the administration of sleeping drugs. Joseph felt more and more relaxed; during that period when you are starting to sleep but still somewhat conscious, Joseph started to dream - and it was a nice dream, he was walking on a sunny trail in the forest, a gentle and pleasant breeze touching his face¡­ But then dusk came, and with the night that followed, a mist¡­


    ¨C Wake up¡­ wake up¡­ wake¡­ up¡­


    But Joseph didn¡¯t wake up this time.


    He is now in a psychiatric ward, wearing a straitjacket, in a padded cell, screaming words in a coarse, raspy voice, words that seem to follow a structure, but don¡¯t belong to any language¡­