Welcome Back?

___/\/\/\_repetition creates a sense of déjà vu. You have been here before, yet you can’t quite place when. It’s a strange feeling of familiarity deep in your gut. Perhaps this is simply a dream. Or perhaps you have lived past lives, and your soul is remembering details of your previous journeys. Here’s another theory . . . you’re overthinking it.

After all, you are going about your daily business at the grocery store just as everyone else does. Up and down the aisles you move, under the beaming fluorescent light. You are passing the produce department with a basket in hand, for you don’t need many items today. Deep down, that gut feeling won’t shrug off. Nonsense. This is new! You’re here and now.

An old man is picking through the pile of apples down the same aisle you pass. Your presence catches his attention, and he gives a crooked smile that raises his wrinkles. His hand is shaky, but he manages to grab the perfect shiny, unbruised, crimson apple.

“Always pick the right one,” he says in a high-pitched, croaky voice.

You’re unsure if you smile or not, hurrying on with your shopping.

“If you just pick the easiest one pulling you in or at random, you’ll end up with a bad apple. You want the good one, the unlikely choice. Boy, they should keep these signs organized. It’s all out of order. Meaning you have to keep track of the letters of each sign yourself and move them around to know what order they go in . . .” His voice fades as you pass him, making you realize he is talking to himself more than you. Plus, in your life, you can’t stop and chit-chat with every old man you see. What about you? You certainly have enough going on already, right?

Onwards, you pass the produce department, going past an end cap full of sour candy boxes with big bubbly white letters stating “Chewz.” Below the title is the flavour, “NUT GRAPE.” You’re unsure why this catches your eye, but it does, and you focus on the overly optimistic wide-eyed blue ghost on the box.

The ghost’s black tentacle-like hair and white eyes are rather horrifying for a candy mascot, but it keeps you transfixed. You focus on every curve of the linework and the dark to light blue shading that make up the form. While you’re being pulled into this mascot’s hypnotic power, you fail to realize that your basket is now missing.

A high frequency rings in your ear, damping out the top ‘retro 90’s’ playlist on the radio. In fact, the whole grocery store begins to liquify as if it were wet paint. You don’t care if the whole room is missing or not because this cartoon character keeps you entranced.

There’s only the NUT GRAPE Chewz box and you in this dripping space. The gaze you have on this box is so mind-sucking that you’d think you’re about to enter a deep slumber. The whole grocery store melts together, mixing its colours with each other, creating a mucky grey as they fall endlessly below you.

This is abnormal from a daily experience. Is it familiar? Only you can answer that.

Your whole view of the grocery store and the NUT GRAPE Chewz box is gone, and your eyes close, leaving you in black. It isn’t possible to tell if you’re standing or sleeping. You take deep breaths, slowly letting the oxygen in and out of your system, feeding the brain.

As you drift off into the depths of your mind, you get a complete understanding of your system before your consciousness is freed. Your body is stiff and your eyes are dry with the lids applying heavy pressure. You’d think you had run ten thousand kilometres for how exhausted your body is.

It’s okay to let your mind drift away, leaving the rock-of-a-body behind and slipping from your reality, free from the daily worries. There’s no strange old men or NUT GRAPE Chewz boxes. Any thoughts you’ve had, the concerns, the joys, none of it matters. It’s a fair wonder if you’re having a stroke on the grocery store floor. These could be your final moments.

Or perhaps this is a dream after all. You certainly feel asleep now. There’s a weightlessness to your form as the spacial awareness around you dissolves entirely. The body shifts from your normal state, transforming into something more robust, almost godlike.

Now you’re unsure if your body even exists. Is that damn NUT GRAPE Chewz box responsible for this? Maybe it’s a simulation and the box was a glitch breaking the false world, and you’re awaking in the real one.

That stroke theory is also quite probable.

Whether you’re dying or experiencing astral projection, one thing is for sure: you no longer have a body. Your soul is flying beyond the physical limitations of your flesh.

A deep reverberated voice echoes around with no natural origin for the sound. It speaks in two voices simultaneously with a lower-pitched tone as if two beings are talking together. It says, “Nameless One, snap out of it. Come on, get up.”

One might use the word demonic to describe the sound. Still, you cannot pinpoint the origin, just like you cannot figure out where you are or if you have a body. You still have some form of control of something and try to speak.

“Hello?” you say, with your own voice echoing into the void.

“There you go,” the being says. “I was wondering when you’d finally stop ignoring me. Ambling about your daily activities. Do you only pay attention when you dream?”

“Who is this?” you ask.

Your voice echoes again, and there’s no reply from the mysterious voice.

You wait . . .

Waiting.

Still waiting, and nothing.

A crackling boom explodes from above. Flashes of lightning cast dark swirling purple and blue clouds. In the brief moment of light, you see an ocean of black with a white horizon all around and no land in sight. Darkness returns, preventing you from checking to see if you have a body.

Another thundering snap erupts, giving you a clear view of an alien world. Directly below you is a rocky, charcoal plateau. The blackness returns, and you see nothing. The impending force of gravity grips your system, pulling you down to the formation. Your stomach tenses, feeling acid rush up your esophagus. You’re falling.

Some vomit reaches your mouth as your heart skips the odd beat while the wind breezes past your skin and hair. Another tremendous boom comes from the sky, and the light permanently stays as you fall past a swirling vortex of clouds. Grey-and-green rotten faces and hands reach out for you through the violent winds. Their jaws open, exposing mouthfuls of brown teeth. Their eyes are gone, with only black sockets, exposing their souls as the bony hands attempt to grab you.

A hand rockets towards your face, moving right through as you fall past a violent vortex and the flying undead. You keep falling, further down, heading straight for the ground. You look up, trying to think if you can do anything to save yourself from the impending doom.

The faces and hands swirl endlessly into the black vortex, surrounded by colourful clouds. Lightning frequently strikes, highlighting the depth of the storm. Far above the vortex, behind some of the sky, is a jagged tear spreading across the gloomy atmosphere for thousands of miles. The edges of the rip burn with bright white smokeless fire. Inside the shape is a mirror reflection of the black ocean and plateau.

The sky-copy isn’t a perfect likeness. Each time you look elsewhere, the visuals in the mirror distort. The ocean below and the plateau morph disproportionately like a funhouse mirror. What’s that? Some of the black ocean in the rip shifts tones and shapes so drastically that you see people in them. The shapes change too swiftly; you can’t pinpoint what or who they are, but you saw eyes and faces.

Another morph elsewhere catches your eye. The ocean shape turns into a hard, metallic cylinder with beaming blue propulsion beams coming from it. It shifts into black scales and extends into a large muscular body with wings until a tidal wave washes it away before completing its transformation.

Another transformation occurs, closer to the plateau in the rip. It forms a strange pale humanoid creature with sharp fangs. It’s completely hairless and tries to roar but is warped into flowers, then an office chair, and back to the black ocean.

You look down, realizing how close you are to the rocky surface. Gravity is accelerating, and you’re going to collide directly into the ground with devastating force. You try to blink but are unable to. You have minimal control over this body as you reach the ground and move straight through the stone with no resistance.

Every layer of the ground is visible while descending further into the earth. You fall into a cavern, moving past the stalactites and colliding with an unconscious body on the ground, deeming your journey an end. This body you recognize because it’s you. No way.

You scurry backwards on the sand in an erratic motion, exhaling rapidly. A jolt of energy zaps throughout your entire system, and you gasp for air, springing upright, covered in sweat, limbs shaking. Drool and stomach goo drizzle down your chin. Your fingers and toes are ice cold to the touch.

“Again?” comes the reverberated voice. This time, it has an origin right behind you. “You chose this, again?”

You spin around, realizing you have complete control of your body. It’s energetic. Amazingly, you leap up with ease and wonder if this body is even you. It feels like you, but foreign. It’s as if you were you on the very best day of your life tenfold.

“If only we could both recall . . . Look, let’s stay focused,” the voice says.

You turn to face the voice. Little did you expect to see a genie-like creature hovering right in front of you. Black and blue smoke disintegrates into open space below its torso. Further up the body, the form compresses into lean muscles and folded arms ending with three sharp claws. Each wrist contains scars of a cross. The black and blue smoke forms two distinct layers within this creature. An outer translucent blue layer and a blacker inner core, almost like an egg yolk.

The creature’s white eyes are locked on you. Its extended muzzle stretches its lips from cheek to cheek, exposing the razor-sharp teeth. There is no hair, only black tentacle-like extensions on the scalp that defy gravity, floating in space, just as its whole form does.

You gasp, realizing it’s the NUT GRAPE Chewz mascot! You back away, stumbling onto the sand and skidding down the hill.

“Really?” the being sighs, hovering towards you.

“What are you?” you ask, gaining control of your breath.

You’re still shaking, disoriented, and spit out the remaining acid in your mouth. But you didn’t have a body when vomiting; it doesn’t make sense. The only rational conclusion is that it isn’t real.

“This is a dream, an overly realistic dream.” You say out loud, unsure why you do. Maybe it is to reassure yourself that this is indeed made-up.

“Pull yourself together, understand?” the being says. “We don’t have time for your ridiculousness.”

“Understand? This isn’t real.” You slap your face, trying to wake yourself up somehow. The wild thought of trying to piss yourself comes to mind. Urinating in dreams can wake people up sometimes. Unfortunately, there’s no pressure to give. Hitting yourself isn’t providing any help either. So, you stand up, brushing the sand off your legs, seeing you’re wearing the exact same clothes that you had on in the store.

“It’s me, Malpherities,” the being says.

It is a dream, you think. Yes, this is all some completely ridiculous figment from the depths of your imagination about the NUT GRAPE Chewz box. Unfortunately, you sure feel a lot in this dream. Things like this happen to people all the time in their sleep. They can even recall pain. Thankfully, you have not felt that, other than the slight sting of slapping yourself.

“Great.” Malpherities rubs his forehead. “We’re going through this once more.”

The being hovers past you, soaring down the hill towards a pathway leading deeper into the cavern. The more you look at this Malpherities character, the more the sense of déjà vu rises. That same deep gut feeling returns. You have no memory of him other than that damn box. In fact, your whole memory is foggy now. You were at the store, but before that? Nothing.

A rumbling thunder comes from outside and you say, “Wait up!” You hurry to catch up with the being, skidding down the sand.

“Of course, you follow, as always,” Malpherities says while moving into the dark tunnel that descends deeper into the caverns.

“Sorry?” you ask.

“It doesn’t matter. Because we go through this again, and again!” Malpherities chuckles in self-pity. “We’ve really made a big mistake, haven’t we?”

“What mistake?”

“I’m wondering if this can even be undone.”

Another crackling boom comes from the sky with a deep trickling rumble, shaking the entire cavern. Rocks and dust tumble from the ceiling. A deep, ear-ripping tear erupts all around, forcing you to cover your ears. A foot-long stalactite falls just behind you as you try to keep up with Malpherities.

“The rip is expanding, hurry!” Malpherities says, turning a corner.

“Wait!” You make the turn and freeze.

Malpherities keeps moving, past another being who looks strikingly familiar to Malpherities. This one is finer; the upper torso and arms are lean. The face has larger white eyes. It tries to scream. The voice is more feminine than Malpherities’s, but the sound is identical to a damaged tape recording. The body of the being pulsates violently, reshaping and blending into and out of the cavern wall. It’s disturbingly similar it is to the mirrored world you witnessed inside the sky rip.

Malpherities is a good twenty paces ahead of you, moving down the descending hall into a wide-open space. You pick up your speed, running right past the tortured creature. You spot another one; this one is much larger, with a broad torso and thick jawline. It, too, is crying in agony as the body mixes in with its surroundings. You can’t stop and overanalyze it. Whatever is going on here isn’t good, and this Malpherities might have some answers.

“You dropped the damn orb again,” Malpherities says.

Another eruption shakes the entire cavern, and you try to remain upright.

“What orb?”

Malpherities halts in the centre of the dome, beside a black ball on the ground. Further ahead is a large opening to the cavern at sea level. The black ocean waves are violent, splashing against the rocks and splattering onto the ground.

“Here,” Malpherities says, picking up the polished sphere. The motion makes the golden glitters swirl around inside it. The object vibrates rapidly in his claws. His arms shake, trying to control the energy as it glows orange.

“Nameless One, quit messing around and take it!”

You reach Malpherities, looking up to see that the ceiling goes all the way up, possibly to where you first woke up in this strange space.

“The Midway is collapsing,” Malpherities says. “Quickly, activate the portal!”

Make one of two choices:

This is just a bad dream. Try and wake yourself up again.

Say, “What do I need to do?”