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Prologue
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"Stop lying to me.
I know you're lying...
What?
No, I won't!
I don't believe you.
It's not true...
Stop it.
Stop it.
STOP!!"
The waking mind is beautiful. Lightning blue streams of concept connecting conscious thought to conscious thought. The ever-winding passages of reason seem to lose themselves amongst others. Just where do they go? Why do we think the way we do?
There is another. A sleeper in the darkness, never wanting, never wishing to be found. Without warning, its motives surface, ever so briefly, disturbing its parasitized host. As quickly as it appears, the conscious mind forces it back into the abyss from whence it came.
So what, may I be so bold as to challenge, might occur if we were unable to put it away? What if the sub-consious mind took its place in the foremost centers of the brain, obliterating our streams of thought? What if it took hold of our very reality?
Uncontrollable visions.
Our emotions imprinted on the world around us.
Our deepest, most resented desires haunting us on the physical plane.
The definition of a dream is as follows:
"The unconscious commentary on our conscious lives. Objects, people, and/or settings in dreams (esp. "nightmares") may directly or indirectly symbolize the conflict within our sub-conscious minds as it pertains to the issues of our waking lives. A dream, essentially, is a means of conveyance for the problems of our sub-consciousness to surface in day-to-day life."
Sheer ignorance of this simple fact can yield dire consequences.
Our fears may have yet to surface, but they have always existed.
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The Man Who Danced On Wires
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Jacob Mason walked home underneath a moonless, starlit sky. He had stayed at the school far past regular hours merely staring off into space, wondering just how much his life was really worth. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. With his grades quickly declining, his parents just had no idea what to do about him. He had visited countless therapists and doctors but they all said the same thing: "Something is missing from his life, it is not a matter of his mental capabilities." Those words resounded in his head day by day, not changing a thing.
He had just started to contemplate his escape from this wretched, meaningless existence when the tall figure of a man appeared in front of him on the sidewalk. Just how long had he been standing there? Jacob was sure he hadn't seen anybody walking past him and he was sure there had been no sound prior to sighting the man. The silhouette of the man was 50 yards from Jake when he stopped. He stared at the outline of the man's visage in silence. He appeared to be about 8 feet tall with long arms that extended to his knees. Through the dim lighting, Jake could discern a top-hat that extended the man's height to roughly 10 feet. He seemed to be wearing attire likely to be found on a butler, from the long tailcoat to the shiny shoes which reflected the distant glow of the stars.
The man didn't seem to have noticed Jake's approach as he did a half-turn and hunched over as he sauntered down an alleyway directly behind him. Jake watched the man's peculiar walk in relative awe when he noticed an item fall out of the man's pocket. With a clatter of metal on pavement, it clearly resounded through the silence of the night. However, the man did not seem to notice this had happened and continued down the alleyway. Jake ran up to the spot where the man had been standing and looked down to see what he had dropped. A bronze key lay in the middle of the sidewalk, its tip pointing down towards the alley. Jacob picked up the key and examined it. There were intricate engravings on its surface that spun up the neck of the key from the brackets on the tip to the loop at the other end. The loop was in the shape of a heart with words lining the outside of it reading, "There is only one, there will only ever be one. It transcends time itself."
Quickly pocketing the key, Jake looked down the alley to see where the man had gone.
Whatever the key unlocked, it seemed of penultimate importance and would be missed
greatly. Jacob ran towards the alley and stopped at its entrance. The putrid smell of rotting meat reached his nostrils as he stopped abruptly. Searching for the source of the terrible odor, Jake could not find a trace of it. Pushing the thoughts of it aside, he rushed down the alley to find the man. He ran straight ahead and turned a sharp left only to run headlong into a metal fence that bore unintelligible words. All he could make out was "___king _or _ _ay _ut?" The other letters were, apparently, scratched out of the wooden surface rather hurriedly it seemed. Jake hesitated before kicking the gate open and continuing down the alley. Taking another sharp right, the alleyway seemed to darken almost instantly. Jake looked above him to see the sky was blacked out, not even the occasional shimmer of a star breached the blanket of darkness. He gazed at what should have been the sky in disbelief as the sound of an air raid siren broke the silence. As the sound of the siren died out, Jacob pulled out his lighter and illuminated the immediate area around him. Immediately, the wretched smell of death returned to his nostrils causing him to vomit in his throat. With the alleyway brightened, Jake now saw the source of the horrible smell.
He had reached a dead-end and, looking up at the brick wall in front of him, Jake saw a man strung up on a cross by barbed wire. The sharp wire was clogged with rotting flesh and dripped with blood. The man looked down at Jacob, his face covered by a gas mask with clear lenses, his eyes unable to express his complete and utter agony. Jake fell backward out of sheer shock and banged his head on the asphalt. He quickly shot up from the ground and wheeled around, running back towards the street. He turned the corner only to find that what was once an alleyway was not just a tall brick wall. Jake spun around out of alarm and saw that wall that was holding the man was now directly behind him. The man's feet were so close to his face that he would have hit them with one stray move. Jake tried to climb up the wall only to realize that there was no way to get footing. He looked back up at the man as he heard a muffled scream come from underneath the rubber mask. The man's eyes were
yellow and nearly jutting out of their sockets. Jake looked away and saw something he did not expect to see.
On the opposite wall that had been blocking his escape was a sign, the same one from before but the letters were not scratched out. The sign now read, "Looking for a way out?" with an arrow pointing directly downwards to a large, roughly-hewn hole in the wall. Without deliberation, Jake rushed down towards the hole, his lighter out in front of him, and began to crawl with haste. He hadn't been crawling in the tunnel for more than a few seconds when a dreadful sound reached his ears. The screech and moan of wires on brick flowed up the tunnel behind him as he heard chunks of brick hitting the ground. The man was trying to follow him! More screeches reached his ears as Jake sped up his crawling down the winding tunnel. A sign hung from the ceiling above him that read, "Almost there..." With a little more crawling, Jake came across another sign reading, "A little bit further..." Jacob was getting more and more frantic as the sounds of barbed wire and moaning increased behind him. He looked up to find another sign saying, "SO CLOSE". Jake turned another tunnel, wishing for it all to end when he bumped his head on something hard. He looked up to find that he had came to a dead end with another sign that read, "You made it!" An arrow pointing downward from the sign to the ground. Jake looked down to see a small wooden box with a note on it saying, "Your way out." He violently opened the box causing a hard, metal object to fall out of it onto the ground. Jake picked it up, the man's screams just around the corner, to find that he held in his hands a revolver containing a single bullet. The man turned the corner and crawled toward him with unreal speed, his screams filling the tunnel with despair. The last thoughts Jacob had before he pulled the trigger were of the life he would never have.
~
Jacob woke with a start. Pain rushed through his head, each pulse bringing it closer to an explosion. He grit his teeth as he paused to look around. It was hard to see, where was he? Jacob's heart nearly stopped. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness around him, the realization of his surroundings dawned on him with the likeness of a semi truck; his headache surged. Letting out a small yelp and gripping his forehead, Jake stood up, groping blindly for the wall. Squinting about, the alleyway came into view. Where was the hanged man? What happened to the butler?
Was it all a dream?
The silence rejected by his own heavy breathing, Jake stumbled out of the alleyway and back to the street. Gathering his things, he set off upon the sidewalk for home. Jacob sighed and looked to his arm. The Indiglo light of his digital watched stared back at him disapprovingly, "11:34" on its face. He looked to the sky, the stars visible once more. His mind was alive with questions. Was he sick? Did he hallucinate? He felt his pounding head, feeling for a temperature. Nothing seemed abnormal. Then what the hell was that? It had seemed so real.
Jacob's headache receded dramatically as he walked through his front door at...11:34? Deeming his watch a broken piece of junk, he threw it aside on his kitchen counter. Nobody was home, as usual. It wasn't like they'd care he was late anyway.
Upon arriving to his room, he immediately layed down on his bed and began to rest. Something was still bugging him however. It felt like a thorn in his side. Or maybe...the key! The mysterious object he had found was digging into his hip. Jake pulled it out and looked at it in curiosity. Where on earth had it come from? The luster on it's surface, which had once reflected the stars themselves, was now rusted and worn. No sooner could he think of how this had happened, then the key began to float out of his hands.
There must be something wrong with him. The key slowly began rose into the air, until it was level with his eyes. It hovered for a moment, then began to burst into flames. It burned, it burned til there was naught but embers hanging in the air. Upon further inspection, Jacob realized that the embers had formed words in front of his very eyes.
"Why must you run? The demons within your soul will never stop clawing their way out...you will be consumed lest you face them."
No sooner had they appeared than they were gone. Jake paused for a moment, deep in thought. Perhaps he should stop running. Perhaps his life wasn't a pit of unsolvable problems. Maybe this wasn't a black hole after all...
With those last thoughts, Jacob Mason found himself drifting to sleep, oddly, not the least bit concerned that his most recent life lesson was taught to him by a burning key.
Prologue
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"Stop lying to me.
I know you're lying...
What?
No, I won't!
I don't believe you.
It's not true...
Stop it.
Stop it.
STOP!!"
The waking mind is beautiful. Lightning blue streams of concept connecting conscious thought to conscious thought. The ever-winding passages of reason seem to lose themselves amongst others. Just where do they go? Why do we think the way we do?
There is another. A sleeper in the darkness, never wanting, never wishing to be found. Without warning, its motives surface, ever so briefly, disturbing its parasitized host. As quickly as it appears, the conscious mind forces it back into the abyss from whence it came.
So what, may I be so bold as to challenge, might occur if we were unable to put it away? What if the sub-consious mind took its place in the foremost centers of the brain, obliterating our streams of thought? What if it took hold of our very reality?
Uncontrollable visions.
Our emotions imprinted on the world around us.
Our deepest, most resented desires haunting us on the physical plane.
The definition of a dream is as follows:
"The unconscious commentary on our conscious lives. Objects, people, and/or settings in dreams (esp. "nightmares") may directly or indirectly symbolize the conflict within our sub-conscious minds as it pertains to the issues of our waking lives. A dream, essentially, is a means of conveyance for the problems of our sub-consciousness to surface in day-to-day life."
Sheer ignorance of this simple fact can yield dire consequences.
Our fears may have yet to surface, but they have always existed.
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The Man Who Danced On Wires
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Jacob Mason walked home underneath a moonless, starlit sky. He had stayed at the school far past regular hours merely staring off into space, wondering just how much his life was really worth. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. With his grades quickly declining, his parents just had no idea what to do about him. He had visited countless therapists and doctors but they all said the same thing: "Something is missing from his life, it is not a matter of his mental capabilities." Those words resounded in his head day by day, not changing a thing.
He had just started to contemplate his escape from this wretched, meaningless existence when the tall figure of a man appeared in front of him on the sidewalk. Just how long had he been standing there? Jacob was sure he hadn't seen anybody walking past him and he was sure there had been no sound prior to sighting the man. The silhouette of the man was 50 yards from Jake when he stopped. He stared at the outline of the man's visage in silence. He appeared to be about 8 feet tall with long arms that extended to his knees. Through the dim lighting, Jake could discern a top-hat that extended the man's height to roughly 10 feet. He seemed to be wearing attire likely to be found on a butler, from the long tailcoat to the shiny shoes which reflected the distant glow of the stars.
The man didn't seem to have noticed Jake's approach as he did a half-turn and hunched over as he sauntered down an alleyway directly behind him. Jake watched the man's peculiar walk in relative awe when he noticed an item fall out of the man's pocket. With a clatter of metal on pavement, it clearly resounded through the silence of the night. However, the man did not seem to notice this had happened and continued down the alleyway. Jake ran up to the spot where the man had been standing and looked down to see what he had dropped. A bronze key lay in the middle of the sidewalk, its tip pointing down towards the alley. Jacob picked up the key and examined it. There were intricate engravings on its surface that spun up the neck of the key from the brackets on the tip to the loop at the other end. The loop was in the shape of a heart with words lining the outside of it reading, "There is only one, there will only ever be one. It transcends time itself."
Quickly pocketing the key, Jake looked down the alley to see where the man had gone.
Whatever the key unlocked, it seemed of penultimate importance and would be missed
greatly. Jacob ran towards the alley and stopped at its entrance. The putrid smell of rotting meat reached his nostrils as he stopped abruptly. Searching for the source of the terrible odor, Jake could not find a trace of it. Pushing the thoughts of it aside, he rushed down the alley to find the man. He ran straight ahead and turned a sharp left only to run headlong into a metal fence that bore unintelligible words. All he could make out was "___king _or _ _ay _ut?" The other letters were, apparently, scratched out of the wooden surface rather hurriedly it seemed. Jake hesitated before kicking the gate open and continuing down the alley. Taking another sharp right, the alleyway seemed to darken almost instantly. Jake looked above him to see the sky was blacked out, not even the occasional shimmer of a star breached the blanket of darkness. He gazed at what should have been the sky in disbelief as the sound of an air raid siren broke the silence. As the sound of the siren died out, Jacob pulled out his lighter and illuminated the immediate area around him. Immediately, the wretched smell of death returned to his nostrils causing him to vomit in his throat. With the alleyway brightened, Jake now saw the source of the horrible smell.
He had reached a dead-end and, looking up at the brick wall in front of him, Jake saw a man strung up on a cross by barbed wire. The sharp wire was clogged with rotting flesh and dripped with blood. The man looked down at Jacob, his face covered by a gas mask with clear lenses, his eyes unable to express his complete and utter agony. Jake fell backward out of sheer shock and banged his head on the asphalt. He quickly shot up from the ground and wheeled around, running back towards the street. He turned the corner only to find that what was once an alleyway was not just a tall brick wall. Jake spun around out of alarm and saw that wall that was holding the man was now directly behind him. The man's feet were so close to his face that he would have hit them with one stray move. Jake tried to climb up the wall only to realize that there was no way to get footing. He looked back up at the man as he heard a muffled scream come from underneath the rubber mask. The man's eyes were
yellow and nearly jutting out of their sockets. Jake looked away and saw something he did not expect to see.
On the opposite wall that had been blocking his escape was a sign, the same one from before but the letters were not scratched out. The sign now read, "Looking for a way out?" with an arrow pointing directly downwards to a large, roughly-hewn hole in the wall. Without deliberation, Jake rushed down towards the hole, his lighter out in front of him, and began to crawl with haste. He hadn't been crawling in the tunnel for more than a few seconds when a dreadful sound reached his ears. The screech and moan of wires on brick flowed up the tunnel behind him as he heard chunks of brick hitting the ground. The man was trying to follow him! More screeches reached his ears as Jake sped up his crawling down the winding tunnel. A sign hung from the ceiling above him that read, "Almost there..." With a little more crawling, Jake came across another sign reading, "A little bit further..." Jacob was getting more and more frantic as the sounds of barbed wire and moaning increased behind him. He looked up to find another sign saying, "SO CLOSE". Jake turned another tunnel, wishing for it all to end when he bumped his head on something hard. He looked up to find that he had came to a dead end with another sign that read, "You made it!" An arrow pointing downward from the sign to the ground. Jake looked down to see a small wooden box with a note on it saying, "Your way out." He violently opened the box causing a hard, metal object to fall out of it onto the ground. Jake picked it up, the man's screams just around the corner, to find that he held in his hands a revolver containing a single bullet. The man turned the corner and crawled toward him with unreal speed, his screams filling the tunnel with despair. The last thoughts Jacob had before he pulled the trigger were of the life he would never have.
~
Jacob woke with a start. Pain rushed through his head, each pulse bringing it closer to an explosion. He grit his teeth as he paused to look around. It was hard to see, where was he? Jacob's heart nearly stopped. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness around him, the realization of his surroundings dawned on him with the likeness of a semi truck; his headache surged. Letting out a small yelp and gripping his forehead, Jake stood up, groping blindly for the wall. Squinting about, the alleyway came into view. Where was the hanged man? What happened to the butler?
Was it all a dream?
The silence rejected by his own heavy breathing, Jake stumbled out of the alleyway and back to the street. Gathering his things, he set off upon the sidewalk for home. Jacob sighed and looked to his arm. The Indiglo light of his digital watched stared back at him disapprovingly, "11:34" on its face. He looked to the sky, the stars visible once more. His mind was alive with questions. Was he sick? Did he hallucinate? He felt his pounding head, feeling for a temperature. Nothing seemed abnormal. Then what the hell was that? It had seemed so real.
Jacob's headache receded dramatically as he walked through his front door at...11:34? Deeming his watch a broken piece of junk, he threw it aside on his kitchen counter. Nobody was home, as usual. It wasn't like they'd care he was late anyway.
Upon arriving to his room, he immediately layed down on his bed and began to rest. Something was still bugging him however. It felt like a thorn in his side. Or maybe...the key! The mysterious object he had found was digging into his hip. Jake pulled it out and looked at it in curiosity. Where on earth had it come from? The luster on it's surface, which had once reflected the stars themselves, was now rusted and worn. No sooner could he think of how this had happened, then the key began to float out of his hands.
There must be something wrong with him. The key slowly began rose into the air, until it was level with his eyes. It hovered for a moment, then began to burst into flames. It burned, it burned til there was naught but embers hanging in the air. Upon further inspection, Jacob realized that the embers had formed words in front of his very eyes.
"Why must you run? The demons within your soul will never stop clawing their way out...you will be consumed lest you face them."
No sooner had they appeared than they were gone. Jake paused for a moment, deep in thought. Perhaps he should stop running. Perhaps his life wasn't a pit of unsolvable problems. Maybe this wasn't a black hole after all...
With those last thoughts, Jacob Mason found himself drifting to sleep, oddly, not the least bit concerned that his most recent life lesson was taught to him by a burning key.
