Part Eight – Reality Doesn't Exist

Flash.

I was standing next to my wife's hospital bed as she was taking her final breaths. She had taken hold of my hand, her nails digging painfully into my skin as her body twitched in convulsions. She was crying and pleading to someone invisible to me, looking right past my shoulder. As she exhaled her last, dying breath, I could see into the depths of her soul and I saw nothing but agony and shadows.

Her hand fell down on the bed. I could hear the door behind my closing, but I didn't really registrate the sound and I never thought about it again. Nor did I remember the sudden flash of my wife's body slowly dessolving and falling into pieces, revealing that she had no bone structure.

The smoke from the ruins was rising high up in the sky, a black cloud that stood out against the bright blue sky. Sirens howled everywhere around me as I stood in front of the remains of the building I used to work at, the bag containing my lunch still tightly clutched in my hands. Everyone had died. Everyone.

Except for me.

"This is not happening," I whispered, facing the horrendous view of reality. "This is not happening. This can't be real. Can't be."

Everything made more sense than ever. I knew that these things couldn't just be coincidences. It seemed absolutely obvious to me that some malicious and powerful force was out to get me. To kill me in the worst possible way. To take away my life.

I ignored the voice of reason, threw my lunch in the nearest trashcan and walked away. I didn't step out of my appartment for days. I didn't let anyone in, not even the police that wanted to talk to me, or the press, or the distant relatives that had suddenly grown a new-found attachment to me. I slept a lot. I seemed to lose myself in my sleep, dreaming about the strangest things that I cannot recall even at this point. I ate occasionally. And I thought I wrote a journal, although later I discovered that the pages were all blank and the journal had never been used.

I waited for it to end. For all of it to go away.

Surprisingly enough, eventually it did. I woke up one morning and I knew that things were going to get better from no one. I took a shower, shaved, made some breakfast and walked outside, prepared to meet a batallion of disgusting, screaming creatures.

The hallway was empty. The cleaning lady, who was walking by, greeted me with a cheerful smile and wondered when I was going to let her into my appartment and allow her to clean up the mess she could see from where she was standing. I stared at her and she continued chattering about my untidy clothes and remarking on the razor scar I had accidently given myself this morning during shaving. I ran outside, feeling her gaze burning in my back, and I found the world in perfect order. There was the usual morning traffic, the people passing by on their way to work, the delivery boys greeting each other, the caféterias filled with the bohemians, the businessmen manipulating each other in their mighty glass buildings and the couples strolling through the parks, making the world a bit more beautiful, a bit more brighter with their glow.

I walked over to the place where the building I worked at was already being replaced with a new, even mightier one. It wasn't difficult to contact my superiors and have them transfer me to another location. On my way home, I bought new clothes and strolled through the supermarket, observing everything and everyone. They all looked so normal. And I looked just like them, which meant that I was normal too. I had to be.

I never returned to my appartment. I sold it and lived in a hotel while I searched for a new place to live in. I was going to change everything to something new. The appartment I chose was smaller, but in a better location with a very high-tech security system. It made me feel good, although I'm not sure why. It didn't take long to get rid of what was left of my new life and replace it with a new, better one. The images almost seemed to have been erased from my head, for I never remembered them again.

Until now. Until a mysterious woman came along and took me for the ride of my life. Until my flash began dissolving into pieces, revealing that I had no bone structure.

Something was calling me back from the dark depths of my subconscious, preventing me from wandering further into the tangled paths of my past. The light compelled me to open my eyes and shield myself from it by closing them again. I saw nothing but it. It burned through my eyelids, only increasing in strength. I tried to raise my hands in front of my face and found them bound. I tried to move my legs and realised that they were tied as well. I screamed in the face of my nightmares.

"Now that's not the way you want it, do you?"

The voice sounded so familiar, but I had no time to think about that. I felt as if I was on fire.

"No!" I screamed. At least I could scream. That I was thankful for, considering that I couldn't do anything else. "No that's not the bloody way I want it." The light was brighter than a thousand suns.

"What do you want then, Mr. Clemens?" The voice spoke. "Freedom? Truth? Escape? What will it be, Jacob?"

"I don't know!" I screamed in agony until my throat hurt. "I just want my life back! You hear me? I don't care about your freedom, about your truth! I don't want it! I just want-"

The light disappeared abruptly, leaving me in the dark with its warmth still upon me, the smell of burnt flesh filling my nostrils. I opened my eyes and I saw nothing. I closed my eyes and I saw nothing.

I knew someone was standing right beside me. I could hear the subtle sound of their calm and controlled breathing, yet when I opened my eyes, the figure still eluded me. Always just out of my grasp, hidden in the shadows of my mind. My subconscious was now a crawling beast, eating me alive with its black void.

"Who are you?" I whispered. "What do you want from me?"

"All I want," the voice said, "is to give you what you want and need."

I contemplated this for a moment in the darkness. "Oh," I finally said. "Well that sounds good enough to me."

A flash of color. A pair of grey, glowing eyes, hidden in the darkness.

"You," I said.

"Go to sleep, Jacob," the voice whispered and I felt the cool touch of her palm on my forehead. "Go to sleep. And when you will wake up, everything will be… perfect."

The End