1.
In my dreams, I forever more see the great cities of the Earth. Millions of aligned lights congealing into enormous expanses of a maze, as you gaze upon the dark side of the Earth. Completely deluminated by the lack of moon, as she did no longer circle the Earth.
I cannot remember clearly how or when it started. The memories come to me in a blur, as if jotted by inadequate paint strokes. It is the recent ones I clearly remember, from much later when we left The Earth. Standing and watching its giant cities shrink into specks of light as we flee the dying planet. All I know is that in the months before the social atmosphere was tensed, our politics and media spoke off a 4th World War. Governments rose and fell, as the terrible, disturbed feeling in the air became ever more tangible.
I can recall one night, when I was returning home from the local pub. There wasn't yet panic in the public state of mind, yet the streets were almost empty, people were walking fast, clinging on long rain coats as they can protect them from the repulsing oily feeling of the air itself.
I'm almost sure it was the beers I drank but I remember how suddenly it felt as if the street itself, as if the great cities of the earth, aren't there anymore, I imagined to see great red sky over never ending black plains, the other people on the street seemed to be very huge and very far, and they didn't seem like people at all anymore, I could see green humanoid figures walking around me, and shadowing over all was a great figure with its tentacles closing on the big full yellow moon.
And then it all became worse. We thought the world had turned against us. We didn't know it was something deeper. Darker. Worse than our deepest, most primal nightmares. The oceans began to boil. The beasts emerged from the forests and invaded our cities, fleeing from an unseen foe. The sun burnt in red. The sky turned pale. Wherever I went, people told me they thought they saw faded figures, at the border of their field of sight, at the very edge of their vision. Emitting unheard screams and yaps. Yet when you turned your head, it slipped away into the void, crawling out of sight.
Abominable beings came from the oceans, answering the call of their master, filling the land with atrocities that made us go mad beyond our ken. They destroyed our moon. Caused us frightening nightmares of insanity and ancient fear. Despicable horrors crawled into our minds, corrupting and desecrating the soul.
2.
We had to do something against those terrors I am still afraid to speak about. Mankind had to flee the cursed planet, our once beloved Earth, now a beacon to old gods and other unspeakable horrors. Raging sea gods and invisible beings, dwelling in the planes beyond our reach and sight. We reined our great technology, conducted plans that kept us awake through seemingly endless nights. Those of us who remained sane could only attempt to conceive how to save us. Maybe none of us were sane any longer.
Some of us thought we needed to fight back, but you cannot fight something as gigantic and ancient as the ocean itself. You cannot fight something that is dwelling in your own mind. Some of us thought we needed to hide, but you cannot hide from the terrors that awake from beneath the ground itself. So our best plan was to flee.
Out of the approximately 15 billion people on earth we managed to gather no more than 3 million survivors. The rest were dead or unaware or simply could not be found. Our great starships carried us away from the cursed planet, the dying planet. Into the emptiness of the bleak stars we were flying, watching the empty, dead cities we once lived in, as we frantically reached out for a safe heaven.
We assumed that they would chase us, one day catch us, too. Yet we were wrong. Maybe we were doomed all along. They need not chase us; we were fleeing right into their arms. We made for the infinite stars. Yet the stars were theirs. They dwelled there, not dead but slumbering, dreaming. Waiting for us.