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“Lars?” I call out, my voice sounding small and fragile amidst the vastness of the forest. He turns towards me, his eyes meeting mine, and I can see that he’s as bewildered as I am.
“It’s... it’s like a dream,” he murmurs, his words filled with wonder. “But it can’t be real, can it?”
I approach him cautiously, my fingers brushing the leaves of a nearby tree as if to confirm its reality. The touch is real, and the sensations are real, but the inexplicable nature of our surroundings leaves me questioning everything.
The moment we emerge on the other side, a searing pain courses through my skin as if it’s been scraped raw with sandpaper. An agonized cry escapes my lips, and Lars can only hold me gently as he starts to guide us back in the direction of the waterfall. He explains that my excruciating discomfort is likely due to the fact that I didn’t have any protective shielding. In this hostile realm, I hadn’t needed one while fighting the monsters, and strangely, I could withstand the presence of the Rift without it. However, this also meant that my bare skin had been exposed to the Rift’s harsh elements, which seemed equivalent to having my entire body dragged across a merciless cheese grater.
As I take those first, painful steps forward in the surreal forest, the relentless throbbing in my head intensifies. Each heartbeat echoes like a drum, reverberating through my skull, and the world around me seems to sway and blur in and out of focus.
Lars, too, appears to be grappling with the disorienting effects of our surroundings. He stumbles occasionally, his steps faltering, but determination drives him onward.
I can’t help but wonder if this place, with its enchanting beauty and haunting familiarity, is causing our bodies to react in such a way. Or perhaps it’s a side effect of our escape from the Rift itself. Whatever the cause, the pain is becoming unbearable, a relentless assault on my senses.
Somewhere along our uncertain journey, the world around me begins to lose coherence. The colors of the forest bleed together, forming a swirling canvas of greens and golds that dances before my eyes. The soft rustling of leaves and the distant chirping of birds blend into a cacophony of sound, echoing in my ears like a haunting symphony.
I grasp at Lars for support, my fingers finding purchase on his arm, but it’s as if I’m trying to anchor myself in a whirlwind. My steps become increasingly unsteady, and I can feel consciousness slipping away like grains of sand through my fingers.
“Mahalia,” Lars calls out, his voice distant and filled with urgency. He tries to steady me, but his efforts are in vain as the world around us spirals into darkness.
With a final, desperate attempt to cling to awareness, I reach out for Lars’s hand, fingers trembling as they brush against his. But it’s a losing battle, and I succumb to the overwhelming void, surrendering to the blackness that engulfs me.
As my consciousness fades, I’m left with a single, haunting thought. What if I’m still stuck in the Rift and this is my brain’s way of dealing with it? What if I will never escape and this is the life I have to live now?
In the depths of unconsciousness, my mind drifts into a turbulent dream, a vivid and unsettling vision of what life in the Rift might entail. It’s a place of perpetual uncertainty, where the rules of reality are warped and twisted beyond recognition.
In this dream, I find myself wandering through the eerie landscape of the Rift, surrounded by its ever-shifting, surreal beauty. The trees, gnarled and twisted, seem to whisper secrets to each other in a language I can’t comprehend. The ground beneath my feet feels both solid and insubstantial as if I’m treading on shifting sands.
Monsters, grotesque and otherworldly, lurk in the shadows, their eyes glowing with an unnatural hunger. They move silently, stalking me from the corners of my vision, their presence an ever-present threat. I can sense their desire to escape this nightmarish realm, to break free from their endless cycle of torment. As I continue to explore this strange and unsettling world, I come across pockets of desolation and decay. Dark, swirling vortexes of energy twist and writhe in the distance, threatening to consume everything in their path. These are the Rift’s dark heartbeats, the sources of the monsters’ torment.
In this dream, I’m acutely aware of my isolation, the crushing loneliness that permeates every corner of the Rift. There are no signs of civilization, no traces of human existence, only an unending expanse of strange and shifting landscapes. Time itself is distorted here, a concept that eludes me. Days and nights blend together into an eternal twilight, and I wonder if I’ll ever escape this timeless prison.
The dream is suffused with a sense of foreboding, as if the Rift itself is a living entity, a malevolent force that watches and waits. I feel its presence pressing down on me, a weight that threatens to crush my spirit.
As I navigate this dream world, a single thought lingers in my mind: How will I survive here among these monsters for an eternity? It’s a question that fills me with dread, and I can’t help but fear the answers that this enigmatic realm holds. In the depths of this unsettling dream, I long for the familiarity of the world I once knew, for the comfort of the life I left behind. But here, in the heart of the Rift, those memories are distant echoes, fading away as I grapple with the unknown.
THIRTEEN
VAUGHN
In the recesses of my mind, I’m trapped in a never-ending loop of memories, each one more painful than the last. It’s as if the past is a cruel tormentor, determined to remind me of my failures and mistakes. Among those memories, one particular day stands out, a day when my world came crashing down around me.
It was the day I was told that I couldn’t marry Mahalia, the woman I loved with all my heart. I still remember the way the sunlight filtered through the curtains, casting soft, golden rays across the room. Everything seemed so ordinary that morning, but little did I know that my life was about to be shattered.
The words had come like a sledgehammer to the chest, knocking the breath out of me. I had been married to Laura, my estranged wife, all along. The marriage that I had thought was long over, a chapter of my past, had never been legally dissolved. It was a devastating revelation that left me feeling powerless and broken.
Guilt and self-loathing wash over me, a relentless tide that threatens to drown me in its depths. How could I have been so blind, so careless, to allow this to happen? I had let down the woman I loved, the woman who deserved so much better. My life was over forever, and now I’m back in that moment all over again. It’s killer.
“Mahalia, I need you,” I murmur as if I can find her, like I can just reach out to her and hold her. She was there, wasn’t she? Only moments before. But then something happened. What happened? It was Lars, wasn’t it? Something happened to him…
Shit, the Rift. It took him. It sucked him up and vanished. What the hell is going on?
I try to lift up my head, but I’m met with resistance, as if an invisible force is pushing me down, keeping me in this state of helplessness. Panic courses through my veins as I struggle to make sense of the chaos unfolding around me. The memories of Lars being taken by the Rift are still fresh in my mind, haunting me like a recurring nightmare.
Frantically, I attempt to piece together the fragments of my thoughts, but they’re scattered, like shards of glass from a shattered mirror. The sense of urgency gnaws at me as I try to connect the dots. The monsters, the Rift, Lars... It’s all a jumbled mess, and I need to find clarity amidst the chaos. My heart races, and I make another futile attempt to lift my head, straining against the unseen force that keeps me down. I’m desperate to move, to do something, but it’s as if the very fabric of reality is working against me, holding me in this strange limbo.
In the midst of my struggle, I can hear distant voices, faint and indistinct, like whispers carried on the wind. They taunt me with their elusiveness, making it impossible to discern whether they belong to my lost companions or if they’re mere echoes of my own thoughts.
The frustration and fear threaten to overwhelm me, and I close my eyes, trying to center myself. I need to find a way out of this disorienting nightmare, to break free from whatever binds me. My thoughts return to Mahalia and Lars, and an unshakable determination settles over me.
