January 10th, 2107
Darkness. An incessant jet-black darkness that chilled you to the very depths of your mental core. Darkness that eagerly waited to encapsulate every part of you, later leaving behind no trace of what you once might have been. That was how it began.
I was at the hospital, suffering from heart failure. Immediately, I felt myself being pushed under a relatively instantaneous trapdoor into a completely dark atmosphere - as if my body had fallen down, down, inside my own body - only just about able to glimpse the final remnants of my old reality from the shrinking light high above. They repeated in the same hushed tones; ‘You’ll be fine, you’ll be fine’, before closing the trapdoor, setting my alert mind under the impression that there was some sort of test I would have to endure. Then the perpetual nightmare began...
Instinctively bringing my hands downwards in a feeble attempt to stop the fall, they froze to meet the abrupt surprise of a solid, hard and frigid surface that I appeared to be lying against, face up. It was metal. Although unaccompanied, I was being wheeled slowly forwards, as if I were about to undergo surgery. The minute I realised this, it promptly began moving at a more agile pace. And faster. The acceleration advanced until it reached a train-like speed in the eerie and unending darkness, leaving me no time for bewilderness or to gather the cluttered, disassembled mess that was my thoughts - but one: something was coming, and I had no alternative but to accept it and be ready. The only view amidst the nothingness was an array of glass windows I zoomed past, in which I briefly glimpsed what appeared to be an undergoing operation; numerous people were dressed in masks and royal blue scrubs in a dimly lit room, surrounding a person under anaesthesia whose face I was unable to discern. Something in me, perhaps my intuition, was telling me that was me. If that was my body, what was happening?
The speed progressed further; I flew like an arrow from a bow, and gradually forgot about the provisional metal bed as my pitch-black surroundings simultaneously developed into a slightly brighter, more crimson tint (a bit like closing your eyes). Like trying to contain water with your bare hands, I began to forget my name. I began to forget my appearance. My age. Loved ones. My passions and aspirations; the cardinal fears to counter them. I forgot about my lifelong occupation, the unswerving religious beliefs and political views I had accumulated, __the education system/the ladder of education__ and the economy altogether. The concept of time. Being human. Earth. Everything; existence as it was. I was unconsciously stripped bare; every aspect of my life had been denuded. All that was left was my fear of the unknown, wondering what my purpose was in this strange place. It circled me, flooding my mind with anticipation.
In the midst of my uncertainty that overwhelmed me like a crushing weight, my body was no longer: a metamorphosis of sorts, my entire soul and being had inclined into a zooming fragment. Was I a particle? Like a bullet from a gun, I felt myself hurtling forwards, upwards, sideways, even in a spiralling motion like that of a DNA molecule. But I didn’t feel free. And I certainly didn’t feel invincible. Something in the back of my mind told me these directions weren’t necessarily arbitrary; it was more like a dictated process – dictated, but not straightforward in the slightest. The main thing I felt? Physical pressure. It was as if I was indefatigably having to encounter and overcome amorphous obstacles.
Everything was so vivid. Neither painful nor pleasant, I continued moving at this mystifying speed, rushing past an atmosphere of blurring skin-like tones amidst the red. But I never once faltered, felt exhausted or nauseous. I slowed down occasionally, going languidly upwards at one point in the steady motion of being on an elevator (where I had caught a glimpse of multitudinous empty rooms in a fleeting architectural setting), but the outcome was always the same in this unbreaking rhythm - I never stopped, my whole bodiless existence continuing on surging and whirling, twisting and turning to adapt myself through the introspective hindrances in this flurry of colours.
I believed it was my reality.
I kept wondering what my purpose was for existence, fearing that I would never have one, and my thoughts always eventually lingered onto whether it would ever end. Was my entirety doomed to this? Could I never move forward?
The level of hopelessness and angst my mind edged towards was such that... I would otherwise have been astounded by the capacity of it. I continued questioning this actuality and its permanence, whether I would ever see someone, and if this was all there would ever be. It grew overt: it was purely my soul and me, trapped in this endless world of solitude and no answers, existing for the sake of existing. No purpose. Nothing.
It seemed to go on infinitely.
Eventually, I felt myself beginning to slow down, laying down involuntarily once again. Only at this point was I able to retrieve my initial memory (of previously having been on the metal bed) back from the depths of where I had lost everything else. But that was all I could remember. I was physically paralysed, unable to move, but my principal emotion was gratitude as I felt myself back in the walls of a solid sanctuary - I wasn’t a lost particle anymore; I was human. A person. I had a purpose. But this was simply a fleeting relief... I began to feel a wave of heat that permeated and almost consumed me, holding me down with no means of escape. As sudden as it began, it died down into only my lungs, before gradually dissipating into nothingness.
In finally managing to raise my head despite the vast change in my weight, I distinguished my plainly patterned ivory gown (imprinted with its rather piteous, trifling man-made qualities), reminding me I was at a hospital - though my mind was unable to recollect how or why, I vaguely recalled its concept through my diminished memories. As I glanced upwards, the endless reddish skin-like tint of my surroundings illuminated into a fluorescent almost white.
I looked directly ahead, trying to grasp my new surroundings. There were dozens, hundreds of other patients dressed and situated in the same nature (sleeping or lifeless, I wasn’t sure). It was a myriad of bodies, moving one after the other in one uniform directionless direction, virtually in the manner of products being created in factories that move upwards, sideways, diagonally. I equally feared and questioned my surroundings, why I was the only one awake, and what would be waiting for us. But mostly, after catching a momentary flashback through the dregs of my mind, I wondered if I overcame that ‘test’ the nurses were talking about, or if it was yet to come.
As time passed, I was unable to preclude being released once more from the dependable solidity of my body in the final stage of what might have been hours. Even days. This time, I knew there would be a purpose. I also saw that I was hurtling towards a growing, amplified light.
***
That is about the furthest I can remember. I had woken up.
I don’t dream often. On the rare occasion I do, I am unable to remember most of it. But each time this one occurs, I can recall every detail, every facet of this graphic crystal with the utmost clarity; I had to record this returning enigmatical experience. Why now? Do others dream this way?
