The Void Beckons

I awoke covered in sweat. I didn’t bother turning my head to check the time; I knew what the time would be. Twenty-three minutes past four in the morning. The same dream waking me at the same time every single night since… since when? It felt like forever, but the real trigger point would have been… what? Did something happen?

The lack of sleep is ruining my memory. I have holes. Great gaping vast chasms where memory should be, where knowledge of my life should be, but there is nothing. A void. I see a face, laughing incessantly, as it switches between his and my own.

Vague snippets of the dream keep floating just behind my eyes in my waking life. I go about my day, working at my computer, and suddenly I’m standing on top of a cliff in freezing weather. I feel the wind buffeting me, trying to make me stumble and fall, possibly off the edge of the cliff, then I’m back in my office.

I can no longer drive my car, as whenever I enter the thing, I have flashbacks to a crash that has never happened. Not to me. But I feel the blood flowing out from the wound in my chest, where I was impaled by a tree branch.

Walking the street has become difficult, as well. I keep turning, knowing that someone, more accurately something, is there right now. Right behind me. Close enough that I feel it breathing in my ear. And so, I turn, often startlingly fast. I worry the person walking behind me, though they are normally several metres away and minding their own business. Yesterday they turned and walked in the other direction. I think I might have done the same, were I not haunted, hunted by whatever stalks my dreams.

I get up, go to the bathroom. After finishing up, I look at myself in the mirror. Bleary eyes, bloodshot from lack of proper sleep. A week-old beard. Odd, I thought I’d shaved yesterday at least. Then I saw something in the darkness behind me. I blinked my eyes shut. Opened them again. The mirror sat on the wall before me, showing my disturbed countenance. Looking past myself, into the darkness I saw nothing.

Then the nothing moved. I turned around and a great lumbering indistinct shape made of shadow loomed out of the enshrouding darkness and a voice uttered words that scarred my soul.

“The time has come, little human,” It began. Whatever it was. The voice was gravelly, harsh, deep. Ominous. Unforgiving. “To take you from this pitiful existence of terror into something greater.”

“Greater than what?” I found the courage to ask.

The Nothing laughed, mocking my confusion. I had to still be dreaming. I punched the wall beside me, figuring that the pain might wake me. It hurt, a lot; I might have fractured my hand. The Nothing’s mocking laugh continued, deepening as the void behind it expanded, overshadowing the Shadow of Nothing that moved toward me.

I screamed with the pain, shouting words at the presence, or absence of presence, that seemed on the precipice of devouring my entire being. The words drifted off into the void. This was real. This was happening. To me, now. I shouted more words, words that would be considered impolite if used in company, though if any were there to hear nobody could have done so. The Void, the Nothing, the Absence devoured all sound. Then it devoured me.

I awoke covered in sweat. I didn’t bother turning my head to check the time; I knew what the time would be. Twenty-three minutes past four in the morning. The same dream waking me at the same time every single night.