Blackness and nothing and noise.
The three swirled around in an invisible maelstrom, sightless to the eyes but inescapable to the heart. It battered and howled, physically and mentally alike, tearing like a knife struck through bed sheets as the ground fell away. Upward and onward the twister twisted, dragging along itself and its victim like a wounded beast seeking salvation over the horizon. But such a thing as this Nightmare could never find solace until the sun had risen and the shadow had been banished in the face of its mistress. Until then, it could only scream in agony and thrash its anger against the one thing that joined it in the great Empty: Him.
He was dragged along like a rag doll in the midst of the hurricane, whipped about and tossed and gnashed as the spinnings around him bit and snarled. Loose the hounds, someone had declared, and they frenzied themselves in their desperate attacks, ready to do anything to end the fear, confusion, discontinuity, the endless torment and NOISE. He was helpless to their teeth, their claws, their fangs, and their eyes, their endless eyes ogling him and shunning Him all at once. He couldn't bear it; how He limped on through the storm, He could not say, torn and lost as he was. But still He went on, stubbornly resisting the roar about him and keeping Himself whole.
He looked up, around, down and out – there was nothing there but nothing itself, perforated with horror and misery and an endless black. Eyes were useless, it was the heart that told you what Was. Look in, not beyond, and there lied Truth. He found his strength Within and He endured, clutching to what He had that the tempest did not. He limped on, and soon his limping became walking, and his walking became running, running to the End where the storm could not touch him.
Howling and raging the squall continued after Him for a time – but its winds blew themselves breathless – its rags ran themselves ragged – it teeth grew dull and faded into the mystery. Breathless Himself, He finally looked back, squinting through the distorted lens of his Self. The Nightmare hadn't disappeared, not how you would think it would. It hadn't ceased to exist, dispersed to the Four Winds and the great Oblivion; it had been assimilated, joining the Whole and finding its place among the All. The All was all there was, now. Everything, illuminated by Him and the Fire He carried. He looked Within once more, feeling that this journey was suddenly at an end, and another was about to begin.
Brightness and everything and music.