(Joel)

1. Prologue to a Dream

The following words that are contained in this manuscript may seem
like figments that only exist in the mind of a mad man.  I only wish
that such a claim were true.  In these last few days, I have experienced
much beyond what the oblivious inexperienced human race calls terror.
Oh, what a pleasure it would be to erase these last few days from the
mighty tablets of time and once again be oblivious to the Truth!  Now
I find that the only way to deal with these dark secrets is to write 
them down.  Either that, or die of fright.  I only wish that I can 
tell the entire saga before I expire.

Every culture in the world has one.  The American Indians called it 
the Wendigo.  As an innocent child, I heard of it as the Bogeyman.  
The Slavs call it a vampire.  In Hungary, children are conned into 
being good little boys and girls with the mention of the abominable
Baba Yaga.  The Chinese with their never-ending supply of spirits have
one that fulfills the role.  All of these so-called fictitious monsters
are all the same entity; a black putrid hellish creature that stalks
by the thick blanket of the darkest night, the victims usually children.
How do people on different sides of our world and coming from all kinds
of scattered cultures imagine the same horrid idea?  How is it that we
all fear the same monster?  The only answer is that there must be a 
truth behind the fiction.

For there is another world beyond the scope of human consciousness.  
Every once in a while we get a minute glimpse of it.  When we dream we
take a small step towards it.  Sometimes, when we quickly look at
something we saw in our peripheral vision only to find that there is
nothing there, we get a taste of it.  Some men, though no fault of
their own, have seen too much of it and are now in padded cells where
everything is white.  And it comforts them because it is the complete
antithesis of the blackness of the other.  So these men banter and 
scream at the vile things that we cannot see, in order to save their
minds from being completely enveloped.  Others who get too much of a
glimpse become recluse and slowly die of the fright that has engulfed
them, as in my despair.  But, as we can look into it and take a step
beyond this mortal coil to the black death of beyond, so can it, and
the foul abominations that inhabit it, take a glimpse into our world.
For now I think it is sedated and no longer trying to invade.  Pray
that it, as we, remain ignorant to our respective paralell worlds.  For
if it awakens with an interest towards us, and tries to escape again,
then may whatever God you choose to believe in be with you.

For now the danger is asleep, dreaming of us as we do of it.  However,
I have seen it and it grows upon me, engulfing my soul and my mind.  
I'm afraid that suddenly I'll turn around, and there, again will my 
fear be, and I will not be ready this time.  At this point the memory
is too horrid.  I must sleep now.  My nightmares have prevented any
such miracle from ocurring.  For now, sweet rest.

**

No nightmares manifested themselves upon me last night.  I dreamt of
my old life.  The way things were just a month ago, yet it seems a
lifetime away.  Of my son, my darling Jonas who was taken and tortured
by them.  Of my dear wife, the only woman I've ever loved and wanted
to share the blessed experiences of this earth with.  And I woke in the
position of a growing fetus in the womb of its nourishing mother, with
my arms crossed, nails digging into the flesh of my upper arms, drawing
blood.  And my pillow wet from the tears.  Tears of pain.  Tears of joy.
Tears of the past.  Their saltiness still in my mouth, the bitter taste
reminding me of the way I was.  The tears, my own personal Raven
quoting, "Never more".  And ringing in my ears there are memories of
screaming, my screaming that caused my jarring wake.  Screaming words
that have no right to exist on earth and in my mind.  And to even 
begin to ponder that it all started with the scream of a frightened
child and a parent in disbelief.  I could have stopped it, but I didn't.

2.
"DADDY!!!!!!!"

"Sshhh.  Jonas.  Quiet there, kiddo.  What's wrong, hon?"  He eagerly 
leapt into my embrace, tears streaming down the shoulder of my bathrobe.
I patted his hair, trying to push down the cowlick that always refused
to stay down, while I kissed his forehead.  For a while no words came,
only an endless stream of tears and whimpers.  Then at last,

"In the closet, Daddy.  It said it was going to eat me.  It was huge.
It was as big as the closet.  Red eyes, sharp teeth.  I'm scared, 
Daddy!  Tell it to go away!"  In the corner of my eye I thought I saw
something move.  Instinctively, I looked to the closet and saw nothing
but a mess of clothes and blankets.  I looked up at the light and 
grabbed the chain that was swinging back and forth like the hypnotic
pendulum of an old grandfather clock, and pulled.  Light flooded into
the room.  As soon as our pupils had shifted enough to incorporate
their new enviroment both Jonas and I looked at the closet.

"Nothing there, boyo.  Where do you think it went?"  No answer.  "Where
did this red eyed thing go, son?  If what you say is true, then we 
need to find it and get rid of it, don't we?"  A quick hopeful glance
and a nod escaped Jonas.  "But where did it go?  The window is closed
so it didn't go there, did it?"  Jonas nodded.  "Where else could it
go then, son?"

"I don't know, daddy," Jonas said through some sniffles.

"Could it be that maybe it was a really bad dream, hon?  If it was 
there, then it would have to go somewhere, right?"  Pause.  Eventual
nod of agreement.  "Do you want to come to bed with Mommy and I, or do
you think you'll be all right?"

"I'll be brave, Daddy," he said and smiled a smile of pure admiration.
I kissed him goodnight and hugged him tightly for a few moments, not
wanting to let him go.  I tucked him in and said goodnight.  I stood
there watching for a moment and then turned out the light.  I left the
door open and the light on in the hall.  

Poor kid, I thought to myself.  I started back to my room, then 
remembered something and went back to Jonas's room.

"I love you, Jonas," I whispered into the darkness.  No answer.  He 
had already been engulfed by the flames of sleep.

Back in my room, my wife inquired into the problem.  After relaying to
her what had transpired she said that she'd go check on him.

"Hold on," I said, pulling her towards me.  We kissed as if we were
just dating again.  "I love you, babe," I said, meaning every word.

"Right back at you, partner," she said, smiling, "I'm going to check 
on our little man."

When she returned, she sat next to me.  "Fast asleep," she said.  She
bent down and kissed my chest.  This time, she pulled me towards her.
And we were as one.

Later, as we lay there drifting off into the land of pleasant sleep, 
she casually murmured, "I think we left the window open.  His room was
freezing."  I was already too deep into slumber to acknowledge her 
statement.  It was the last time I ever saw my beautiful Jonas.

3.
And though I sit here contemplating the events that followed the 
disappearance, or the death, as I eventually found out, of my dear
Jonas, my mind cannot help but wander back to the place that is the
other.  For its beauty is as infinite as its evil, and the stone 
columns and blackened mausoleums pierce the skyas they now do to my
mind.  But I tell you right now, that even in the heightened dark
beauty of this architecture, these buildings are the most frightening
of all the blackened maddening hells that occupy this place.

The creatures that inhabit these stone edifices are ungodly and are
atrocities, but monsters and genetic monstrosities have been in our
world and imaginations, in our collective psyche since antiquity.  And
the purple hills mixed with swirls of golden spirals are very alien, 
yet the colors are the same as in our plane of existence, just in
disjunction and it creates a cacophony for the eyes.  And the trees, 
whose root systems curve undernearth their nourishment, are still 
trees.  

But these horrible stone monuments defy any comprehension by human
perception.  Especially given the fact that the geometry is all wrong.
The angles were both straight and curved at once, twisting upon 
themselves in a haphazard way as to mock my ignorant sense of spatial
existence.  The monstrous cyclopean masonry gives the impression of
something more ancient than time itself.  And even more frightening to
the primitive perceptive abilities of "modern" man, is the immense
size of these.  As I have stated, it is beyond human perception, and 
cannot therefore be meaningfully expressed in our language, so I will
cease this explanation.

Is this what madness feels like?  The complete inability to focus 
one's thoughts on reality and the concrete order of things?  I try and
I try to comprehend what is happening to me and all that comes whis-
pering from those shadows that I now abhor is the word "madness".  I
detest these shadows because darkness is completely analogous to where
I've been an to what I've experienced.  Light is only an illusion, for
without it there is only darkness.  So is our world an illusion that
means absolutely nothing because the true form, without our world, is
the darkness of where I have been?  And I now take comfort in the 
illusion because absolute darkness is too close to the truth.  How do
I dare tell the world of what I have seen?  How can they possibly 
understand that their reality is nothing but a dream world that is 
only waiting to be returned to its former and true state?

*  *  *

With the disappearance came a melancholy like none other experienced
upon this earth, or at least it was so within my wretched mind.  
Though I did not think my suffering was comparable to any other, I 
still chose a much-traveled path to cope with my loss.  When even 
being in a drunken stupor did not cause the ache inside of my heart
and mind to cease, I turned to other options of self-medication.  I 
began to obsessively search for other vistas apart from myself in 
order to leave everything behind.  

The money that I had saved for Jonas's college education began to 
quickly diminish as I tapped street crawlers for their resources of
drugs.  The hallucinatory experiences that these drugs gave me were
very calming at first.  However, this was not a completely new vista
as I was searching for, but was only a misrepresentation of what I had
already known.  

So as my trips continued gaining intensity, recollections of Jonas
would invade in twisted and unrighteous parodies, intensifying my hurt
tenfold.  

When I became convinced that the current mode of escape was no longer 
working, I began to explore other alternatives.  I formed a delusion
contained by my brain that catharsis was possible by finding out what
had become of my son.  I began to frequent alleyways and occultist
stores in search of those who had claim to extrasensory powers.  I
delved into such forbidden texts of occult and witchcraft philosophy.
But wherever I went, it seemed that I was destined to be cursed by
dissapointment.  Instead of reaching and form of the supernatural, I
encountered nothing but charlatans and phonies operating under a 
pretense.  They talked of channeling the spirit of my son and one even
claimed to have achieved it.  Yet quizzing the "spirit" of the nature
of his life, I received completely equivocal answers.  And so, hope
dissipated, I ran back to the hallucinogens, but this time a stronger
dose to deal with the pain.  And so I delved even further into the pit
of self-pity and guilt.

4.
For what happened next, no one is to blame but myself.  I had com-
mitted a grave and terrible sin.  In my own despair, I had turned my 
back upon the only person left in my life that I had truly loved.  
Blinded and distracted by torment, I drove away my dear wife.  I 
ignored her need for compassion and support.  I turned away from her 
in favor of tumultuous hallucinogenic substances that served only to
create distorted and false views of reality in which true escape was
impossible.  If only I had lost all egocentrism and seen beyond my
great wall of grief into the eyes of a kindred soul, I could have 
saved myself and not threatened the world by lingering in places that
men were never meant to experience.  But foolishness overcame me and
self-medication drained my ability to test the confines of reality.
And so she left, frustrated, hurt, and sorrowful, completely unable to
help herself and me in her own silent turmoil.

I will never forget the look on her face the day she left.  Those two
infinietly deep lakes of beauty that an outsider would call eyes were
open wide.  The choas that she was feeling was mirrored by the 
haphazard flow of the waters in her twin lakes.  And though I did not
notice it then, it seems glaringly obvious in retrospect that those
lakes were darker, older, almost seemed positioned, as if her inner
fire had dumped its ashy residue into her soul.  Her eyes alone should
have been enough to snap me out of the state of oblivion I had created,
but I subconsciously ignored them and looked at the rest of her face.

Her mouth, always pulled back in a smile, had no shape whatsoever.  To
me she looked like the victim of a stroke who had lost the ability to
use facial muscles.  Even when she spoke to tell me she was going 
shopping, her mouth and tounge moved, but the lips remained completely
motionles.  I do not recall if I even gave her a miniscule grunt to 
acknowledge her presence.

That night I dreamt of her.  I was walking along an alien landscape,
staring at the vegetation, wondering how it could sway without any 
wind.  As I looked on, the swaying became more deliberate and I slowly
began to realize that they were swaying in a rocking motion.  I became
transfixed and I felt myself begin to rock along with their hypnotic
motion.  Suddenly a vine reached out from under the purple and green
colored earth and grabbed my feet.  As it dragged me along, the ground
became gaseous.  The plants still stood upright, but for some reason I
was sinking into the ground.  

As my eyes adjusted to their new enviroment, I looked past the clouds
and saw my wife in a cage.  I screamed out to her but an unintelligible
language escaped my lips.  The sound of my own voice frightened me so
much that I put my hands to my face.  But my hands were not hands, 
they were red claws, like those of a lobster, but they were mutated.
I tried to reach out and open the cage but my hamds could not grasp 
the lock.  I tried to tell her to be still and calm down, but my 
strange voice frenzied her.  She had no clue who I was.  I pressed my
face against the cage and she opened her mouth to scream.  Her scream
was composed of nothing but silence.  Silence so loud that it drowned
out any other sound.  I suddenly realized that silence can only be
present in complete non-existencee.  The power of realization pounded
against my head and in that moment I felt my mind snap.  I began to 
scream.  But it was no match for the complete and terrible silence.  
Silence so loud that it penetrated into the waking world and jarred me
to consciousness.

When the world seems a desolate and horrible place, and there is 
nothing of beauty to wake up to, leaving the comfort of one's bed is 
the hardest journey of the day.  It is almost like a rebirth, leaving
the comfort of the womb that is my bed for a far more confusing and
unruly atmosphere.  The air against my face always feels cold and 
lifeless on these mornings.  I try to get back to sleep sometimes.  
But slumber does not come easily on these terrible mornings.  After
mustering enough willpower to leave the womb, I sometimes cry at my
complete alienation.

But this sobbing was never as harsh as the day that the letter arrived.
It was in a manila envelope with thick magic marker writing.  The 
writing looked vaguely familiar.  After staring at it for a good ten
minutes I finally saw that the writing was specifying my name.  It 
looked strange to me, as if it represented a symbol of who I once was
that was now lost.  A sense of foreboding entered my mind as I opened
the cursed envelope.  I removed a folded piece of paper and shivered.
It informed me that some people were trying to reach me, but I was not
answering my door and somehow the phone had been disconnected.  It is
amazing how we can voluntarily ignore certain stimuli to the point of
nonexistence.  

The shiver and desolate feelings that had entered my being prepared me
for the final paragraph of the letter.  It is fair to state that I was
not surprised to read that my wife had committed suicide.

I went to my medicine cabinet, removed all that was left of the horrific
substances and began to make a hallucinogenic cocktail that would
hopefully shock my brain into submission, either killing me or driving
me insane.  Both occured simultaneously.