010

21.06.25

You stand before a house.

It’s almost nighttime. The sky is nothing but a swirl of dark clouds. You can barely see. The air is cold. There are no winds that blow nor windows that creak. It’s quiet. So still. The silence is so profound, you can feel it pushing against your eardrums.

This town is abandoned.

All houses are down.

Only this house stands.

Decrepit. Decaying. Ancient.

Omnipresent. Eternal.

You stand before the door. It’s made of wood, raw and dark. There is no handle. Nothing decorates the door but a single ◡.

You push the door. The door opens. It does not creak.

You step into the house.

The door closes behind you.

You are in the dark. It is colder inside.

You can hear a distant buzz, deep within the house. You can feel it inside your chest. Inside your head, right between your ears.

You take step after step. The floor bows under your weight. It cracks and creaks. You cannot see. It takes you a few seconds, but your right hand brushes against a wall.

The wall is soft to the touch and pleasantly warm. A welcome change from the ever growing chilliness. You plant your palm onto the wall, cherishing the heat. You can feel the slightest movement under your palm. The gentlest pulse under your fingers.

You notice you can now see your hand. A faint light seems to be pulsing under your fingers. It flows slowly, filling the bulging cords running from under your hand and through the wall.

You look around. The cords snake across the walls and the ceiling. They glow softly. They all seem to run towards the only other door in this room.

Your hand feels weird.

You take your hand off the wall. You look at your palm. The skin has melted off. You can see the muscles, inflamed and drenched in crimson blood. You can see the tendons, running across, connecting your phalanges. You can see the nerves. The ones that are not covered in blood shine like they’re made of silver.

Elegant.

Pristine.

You touch one of those lovely threads.

Pain shoots through your hand. It feels like someone bit directly into your brain. Your whole arm feels numb. It takes you a few seconds to realize you’re lying down on the ground.

You’re up. You’re still numb from the pain. You walk through the door, into a long hall. The hall is full of twisting cords, that seem to get finer and finer as you go deeper. At some point, they’re gone, absorbed into the walls of the house. There is no light left for you to see. You’re back in the dark. You’re still nowhere close to the end of the hallway.

You walk for what seems like minutes. The hall doesn’t end. You find nothing.

You walk for what seems to be hours, to no avail. You want to turn back, retrace your steps. But you can’t. You put one foot in front of the other, and continue walking deeper into the hallway.

It feels like it’s been days, weeks, months, years.

Decades. Centuries. Eons.

You’re still walking down the hallway.

You’ll keep walking down the hallway.

You found the only truth. You found the ultimate calling. You found the meaning of life.

You have been ENLIGHTENED.

Sacred. Scared. Sublime.

For a moment, you are all three.

You’re sacred, divine, blessed. You are held high, sat on a throne of twisting thorns, het by showers of velvet blood and tears of forlorn souls.

You are scared, frightened, horrified. Terror grips your body like fits of seizures. You’re shaking, trembling, quaking. You are out of control.

You’re sublime in your trance, entrancing in your screams and screaming in a void of love.

You’re a victim of tradition.

You’re a body with no soul.

You’re a mannequin for their lore.

You’re dead.