My vision is split into a thousand fractured images. They are all the same, or so similar that I can't tell the difference. None of them seem small either. They are all full sized views, and all of them feel real. As if this isn't mind-splitting enough, I have to pick which one I think is the real one. Choosing the wrong one has terrible consequences.

Of course, I don't even know if any of them are real. It could be rigged so I always pick the wrong one. I would not be at all surprised. I've played the 'game' so many times I've lost count. Somewhere in the high seven thousands, I think, and I've never gotten it right. I don't know what is real anymore. I don't know if anything is real. They're playing with my head.

I was promised that if I got it right, I could leave. I obviously don't believe that. Unfortunately, it gives me just enough impossible hope to keep me going, because guessing wrong means pain. If I just never chose, nothing would happen. I'd be stuck in the same image for all eternity, sure, but I wouldn't get physically tortured either.

So, let me spell this out for you. I have to choose, against insurmountable odds, one version of reality. Guessing wrong gets me basically ripped apart. Guessing right probably also means getting ripped apart, but there is the tiniest, tiniest chance that it could also get me out of here. And not guessing at all means I won't be torn to bits, but also that I have no chance of escape, ever.

I'm split up into so many different minds, I can't tell what pain is real and what is imagined. But the promise of release is greater than the pain of failure.

And, the million dollar question: which image should I choose? I have given up trying to discern anything that rings false in any of the visions. Funny, I used to be so good at creating and living in false realities. That was my game. And now it's playing against me. So I choose.

And then there is the awful moments between when the visions disappear and when they tell me I'm wrong. That might be the worst: even more disorienting than the rest, and then there's the suspense and the anticipation. I'm waiting for when they tell me I'm correct, even though I know it won't happen.

"So sorry, Gabriel, that's wrong." Of course it is.

And then I can't stop myself from screaming as my skin (which may or may not be real) is ripped apart by invisible knives and I fall onto the floor (which also may or may not be real). And I can't help continuing the screaming long after I have no throat, because hey, I am the Trickster, and if there is one thing I can do, it's the impossible.

So the chapters alternate between the style of the first chapter and this chapter. There are eight chapters, I'm publishing them in pairs. Thank you for reading! I love you, SPN family.