Upon Waking

I had a dream.

This wasn’t the Martin Luther King type of dream. There was no humanity, no hope. I sat at this computer for the longest time before beginning to write, uncertain whether the words would appear on the screen if I began to type. That was the kind of dream I had.

The trainers I wore in the dream, threadbare and comfortable atrocities I use for my infrequent runs, are at my feet. I had to check that there was none of the slate-coloured ash on their soles when I woke this morning. That was the kind of dream I had.

I’m skipping ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning, or at least at the beginning of the dream.

I strode through a landscape hideously alien to everything I’ve ever known, and yet was wracked with the deep pangs that come only from returning home after a long absence. Vast spires of black silicone scratched or pierced low-hanging thunderclouds that folded in upon themselves in a silent maelstrom. They held the only colour I was to see in this place; a malevolent scarlet that tinged their rolling edges.

The ground was a charred desert. The faithful trainers I mentioned before kicked up clouds of heavy silt or ash that settled too fast for it to be either.

Unsure of the nature of this place, unsure of everything other than an innate sense of returning, I was reminded of a nocturnal sculpture park. Structures that may have been buildings cast unnerving silhouettes in my path. They could have been glass pillars of enormous girth, melted to amorphous masses by an unfathomable heat. Or maybe they were grown this way. That was the word that occurred to me; not built but grown. And something flickered inside. Not light, there was no natural light in this place, just a hanging luminescence that only highlighted the shadows. What moved inside these grotesque masses appeared fluid, like the grinding of an eel’s coils in dark water.

I moved on, aware that my heart didn’t pound or thrum in my ears. There was, however, a sensation of comfort, of belonging, that in itself chilled my core.

Through the melted monstrosities I strode with the confidence of familiarity and out into a plaza. Here the ashen floor was parted by a raised dais composed of gothic tortoiseshell. Atop this a monolith stood as sentinel, a twisted spiral that shifted as if fleeting shadows passed its surface. It turned without moving to watch me pass.

At the base of one of the black spires, an aperture presented itself. My feet faltered for the first time. Not out of hesitation, but of reverence. I stood on the threshold, staring into the abyss, listening to the dark invitation that sounded silently in my mind.

I saw clearly, even in the spire’s pitch interior. I expected nothing so uniform as stairs, but a slope led upwards around the non-circular spire’s inner wall. The worn soles of my old trainers sought for purchase and failed, sliding on the pock-marked surface and I had to lay my hands on the slick ground several times to keep my footing. I refused to let my hand stray to the wall for fear of what I would find there. So, it seemed there was still a heart of human emotion in me after all. Somehow, the revelation only made me feel more vulnerable.

On I climbed.

I passed archways, toppled or blocked, but didn’t care for what they contained. No curiosity made me halt my upward progress. I knew they weren’t the places for me.

The fifth floor was the worst.

Here the slope ended at the entrance to a narrow corridor that spanned the abyss below. Despite the total darkness I could see that the slope continued at the furthest end. I would need to cross.

The walls pressed against me and at several points I had to squeeze between the walls sideways. This was when I felt the first warmth in this otherwise bleak place. There was no comfort in it as the walls emitted only a tepid temperature that drew further attention to the cold. Stopping dead in one of these tight spots, the damp lukewarmth licking at my crawling skin, I heard a faint sound. Like the slow click of a broken football rattle or the turning of an ancient portcullis far beneath the earth. The temperature increased slightly where my face nearly touched the uneven marble surface. I knew then that the warmth came not from the walls but from something beyond. Something that could hear me, as I had heard it, and that moved closer to examine me.

I admit that I ran, crabwise, shuffling in my haste to leave the claustrophobic space.

Don’t look back, I thought. For the love of God don’t look back.

I recited this like a mantra taught to me in my crib, and every time I uttered the name of God, I felt a knot of nausea inside.

Upwards, upwards. I found that I was becoming almost goatish in my sure footedness. The higher I climbed, the more my feet knew the way.

It was a long while before another archway approached. The distance between floors was becoming greater. The opening hung with curtains of glistening mould that swayed heavily in a putrid breeze. An air of ancient decay assaulted me; eau de crypt, the scent of choice. My stomach lurching, I didn’t wait to see what might present itself from that archway. My imagination assaulted me with images I hoped were worse than anything that could realistically appear. And I knew I was wrong.

Finally I risked a rest on the cold, slick surface of the slope. Finding a place where the rivets and craters would accommodate my aching body took several moments. I hung my head between my knees and let the tiredness wash over me. Had I ever felt tired in a dream before? Had I ever ached? Had I ever been aware that I was dreaming? If you fell asleep in a dream, surely you would wake in the real world. I knew that if you died in your dreams the real body could not survive the death of the mind. That was surely why you still felt fear in dreams.

Before I could test my theories and drift into a vulnerable sleep, my heavy eyelids snapped open like those of a cornered rabbit. I sat shuddering with the effort of remaining still and silent, my breath held to burning point. A sound. Another sound. A gentle shushing that tormented harsh syllables from soft sounds. This voice was one I knew. This was the same seduction that had drawn me into the tower.

Closer now. Much closer.

The remainder of my ascent was made in a slippery scramble. I couldn’t see, but could feel the grime that now covered my hands and Iwas sure that they bled. The darkness had become so thick that I could almost taste its tangy gloom on my tongue. I didn’t know what I climbed toward, only that I had no choice in the matter. No, that isn’t true. I had a choice, I just didn’t want to stop. Nothing would have stopped me topping the slope’s final rise to stand there panting and awestruck.

The space in which I now stood is hard to describe. I can see it in my mind’s eye but words of adequate description fail me. All I’ll say is that it was an amphitheatre of sorts, made of the same dark materials as the other structures I had seen. Hangings of grotesque gratuity hung on some walls, some of their designs gratefully obscured beyondcomprehension by their shredded nature, the rest by grime.

Upon an ivory pillar that would make the Parthenon feel inadequate stood a throne. It wasn’t made for human seating, that was certain. Its size alone told me that. It resembled a bowl; a high-backed bowl with its foremost edge turned down.

That sound. That dithering exhalation and its diabolical words so close that I could smell iron in the blood-tinged breath that uttered them.

Craning my neck upwards I saw its source hidden in the shadows. So magnificent was it that I couldn’t even manage a gasp or exhalation. Struck dumb, I couldn’t utter theshriek of dread that my mind wanted to. My knees locked, forbidding me from pressing myself to the ground in an effort to retreat as far from the hanging colossus as I could.

It seemed to taste my voiceless emotion, jittering with hunger or excitement. It moved, liquid in the dark. Not toward me, but toward the throne. Finally I closed my burning eyes so tight and simply stood listening to the sounds of its locomotion. Its bulk writhed along the amphitheatre’s walls, grinding against stone, dislodging some. It became almost silent for a moment and I wondered if it had ceased to move. Maybe it hadn’t noticed me before and now it had. Maybe it watched me with impossible eyes. Idon’t think I made a conscious decision to look, but my eyes opened when it uttered one of its whispers.

With words that I couldn’t comprehend it seemed to say, See me.

I caught sight of things that my eyes denied. My brain tried foolishly and in vain to apply the laws of biology to what I saw in silhouette. That appeared to be a shoulder, that the dip of a hip or a hand. Such was my perception subject to change in the dark.

One thing was certain: the throne was made for this creature, this Kraken or Dark God. It rested. One tendril flipped and twined lazily around the pillar’s girth, the only part of this abstract that I could clearly see.

Was this the beast that had called me from so far away? Was I drawn to this fiend by its will or my own?

We watched each other, mutually rapt.

Had the infernal creature struck at me, lunged forward with its gaping maw and swallowed me whole or ground my bones to paste I wouldn’t have been surprised. In fact, I was expecting nothing less.

But I woke.

Its final stammering whisper echoed in my ears as I searched my room in disbelief. Painful light stabbed at my crusted eyes from between the blinds. I felt like a prisoner who had clawed his way from an oubliette only to find that he could no longer stand the sun and must remain in the darkness. Realising that I wasn’t breathing, I coughed violently and choked on my own lack of saliva. Rolling onto my side as the spluttering died away, I’m not ashamed to say that I held myself tightly for a long time and stared at the wall. If I closed my eyes I was certain that there would be no return for me. I still feel the same way.

Dreams are unbelievable by their very nature. They don’t hold to laws of time or space and pay no heed to our human logic. That’s why I know that what I had was no dream. It was fantastical, petrifying, and impossible. But as I searched my hands for grime and blood in the cold light of this morning, as I hunted hungrily for the trainers that I was convinced would retain some mark of theslate-coloured ash, I knew that my dream wasn’t a dream.

It wasn’t a dream.