text: I wake up to find myself in a strange alley. The walls seem to be made of brick, but their blue, and seem to illuminate themselves. The graffiti on the walls depict strange symbols that seem like they change shape and color every second. I realize what’s happening and quickly check all my sense. I can hear a soft ringing, my vision seems fine, there's a metallic taste in my mouth, there’s a sweet smell in the air, I can’t feel my sense of touch. I quickly get up and look behind me. There’s a bed inside a orange dumpster. The dumpster seems to be darker, as if it was absorbing light. I quickly check my pockets as the ringing in my ears gets louder. The only thing I pull out is a key that I don’t recognize. I turn around and I see it. It stares at me with his non-existent eyes. My heart starts pounding, it starts dragging his feet on the ground as he rounds the corner. “Follow it.” or that’s what she said to do. I slowly step towards the opening where it was standing and stare into the dark abyss of what was outside the alley. As I take a step into the abyss my sense of touch returns and immediately starts to register pain. I try not to yell out in pain, doing so would alert it that I didn’t find this place naturally. Suddenly it felt like something was watching me. Something was watching me, waiting for me to scream out. After five seconds the pain softened, now only feeling slightly sore in a few places. I suddenly felt myself being lowered into the abyss, when I was engulfed in darkness I felt my eyes close and then I blacked out. I awake in a forest. The trees seem to grow higher than any I have ever seen. The sky is a dark green and the ground around me seems normal. I once again quickly check all my senses. However this time it feels normal. I get up and see it sitting on a rock, watching me. It raises his arm and as it does so a tree starts to sprout out of his fingers. The tree quickly falls apart and it becomes sad. It starts to cry though he sheds no tears. I can hear it cry out for his parents but he isn’t making any noise. Suddenly the trees start to rot away, leaving nothing but a barren field. It looks up at me and gets off the rock. The rock breaks revealing two trapped skeletons within. It suddenly breathes life into them, and the skeletons get up, they start dancing and yelling at each other. They never want to see each other again but also cannot be separated, they both loved and hated each other at the same time. I sit down and it comes to sit down next to me. We watch as the two skeletons act out scenarios for hours. At the end of the final scenario the skeletons sit down next to each other and hold one another before the life it gave them leaves their hollow bones. It turns to me. I black out My hearing returned, despite still being dragged through the winds of the dream world. I hear the sounds of my subconscious as the being carrying me doesn’t make a sound. I can hear thoughts that I buried deep within the back of my mind attempting to talk to me, trying to break free from the prison that I locked them in. Then I hear her voice “.. the Greek philosopher had discovered a entire realm though he did not realize it... the Roman philosopher took his great grandfathers teachings and re discovered the dream realm, quickly learning it’s secrets... When he presented his findings the Emperor dismissed him as nothing more than a madman and sent him off... He continued to explore this dream realm until Ego-death got to him and his physical body died...”. The last part would’ve made me shiver if I had my sense of touch. Ego-death, I’ve seen what happens to people who undergo it. It’s just one of the risks of entering the dream world. The possibility to lose a sense is also there, or your ego getting hurt but not outright destroyed. Suddenly I hear something in a language I don’t understand and my hearing is once again taken. I awake in a bed. I check my senses. They all seem fine, but at the same time they feel a little off. I get up out of the bed and look around. I’m filled with nostalgia as I find I’m in my room from my childhood. Lego scattered in the floor, a messy dresser containing old clothes, old wind up toys lined up on a shelf, but something’s off. Just something about everything feels wrong, but I can’t determine what is wrong. I’m not given much time to think about it as the closet door opens. It comes limping out of it and motions for me to follow him. I take a step forward and it turns around, walking into the closet. I follow him into the closet and as I enter it the door closes behind me. It’s dark inside the closet until I see a faint glow from a place where the wall has been falling apart. I get on all fours and manage to fit through the small opening. The floor and walls start to feel like flesh the more I move through the small opening. It starts to smell of blood and eventually I start to see the light getting brighter. At the end I exit the small hole and find myself in a small alcove overlooking a giant chamber made of flesh. In the center a heart is covered in a black goop. Underneath the mass are being like him, bags of flesh around a base of bone with a mass of flesh that uses electrons and chemicals to control these bags of flesh covered in skin. They seem to gather black goop that falls off and use it to paint various things on the wall. I stare at the black goop on the heart and notice that the reflections on it are changing. Its telling the story of a boy who was very caring and showed compassion to everyone. He would often play in the forest behind is home, but would always come back. One day he wandered too far into the woods and got lost. He eventually saw a group of rabbits in the distance and went up to pet them before realizing there was something else nearby. Suddenly a pack of wolves jumped out and attacked the rabbits. All the boy could do was watch as the rabbits where eaten. He curled up into a ball and started crying. Eventually his dad found him and brought him home. After a few months he was once again lost in the woods and saw animals killing each other again. After he got older he started to see it and look at it as normal. He realized that this was nature and it needed to happen, animals killing each other for the greater good.. Eventually he grew into a man and became a man of science. He started to not see everything in black and white but also lost his sense of morality while doing so. He started seeing life not as something to be protected, but rather a means to meet the end of bettering mankind. He started to break down everything with science. When he was old he started to question whether he had made the right decisions. Ultimately he couldn’t say due to morality being so subjective that even he couldn’t say whether he was right or wrong. He was wrong and right. I turned and saw it crying before blacking out.