Falling

By Corvidae Luz Dulcey

You know that feeling you get sometimes when you’re asleep? That feeling of freefall? That sudden rush of adrenaline flowing through your veins like liquid shock? The involuntary jolt of your limbs as your perfect slumber is disturbed and you wake up in terror, only to realize that you were perfectly safe the whole time?

I get that feeling a lot.

Every night, when I go to sleep, I have the same dream. A forest stands before me, the shifting branches like hands beckoning me. Behind me is desolation, a barren and frozen wasteland full of a bitter, cold, and silent emptiness. The forest calls to me, the sweet chirping of the insects worming its way through my ears into my bones. There is a whisper under it, barely audible yet clear as day. It grows stronger than everything else, a powerful pull begging me in a language that doesn’t exist. My brain twists and contorts around the foreign noise, the sickening pain of its stretching in my skull almost enough to wake me, but before it does, I understand. It wants me to find it.

I walk into the woods, though I soon find myself sprinting. I do not remember when I started moving, but I do not care. I need to find the source of the voice. I do not know why, I do not understand, but it doesn’t matter. I will understand everything once I find the voice. I must find it.

I’m getting closer. My legs sting from the scratches of discarded branches. There are dull pains from the bruises made by the rocks I nearly stumble on. The chirping of the bugs and the rustling of leaves in the wind has long since faded. It’s almost completely silent now. Silent, save for one thing. My ears are bleeding from the intensifying yet steady sound. The warm fluid drips down to my neck, but I do not mind. I’m almost there. I can nearly touch the voice. I reach out.

The ground splits open beneath my feet.

I wake up, adrenaline surging through every vein and artery. My last memory is of the voice. It cries out as I fall, in what sounds like despair. I have failed it. The sadness is a weight, nearly crushing me. Will I ever reach it? Will I ever behold its beauty?

Night after night, dream after dream, I try to finally reach the source of that gorgeous calling, seemingly in vain. I do not know what stops me. Is it God? The Devil? My own fear?

I spend most of my waking moments researching methods I can use to improve my sleep. Things like friends and careers no longer matter to me, so I cast them aside. I try lucid dreaming, rituals, and all sorts of teas and concoctions. I am getting closer, I even brush up against it, but it still isn’t enough. I still cannot see it.

I wake up in a cold sweat. How many attempts have I made now? I almost begin to despair, but something is different this time. I look around, and I realize that I am truly seeing. I get up and walk to my mirror in wonder. My eyes look so much older than me—ancient, even—and more lively than they have ever been. They are radiant, my irises a color I have never seen before.

A veil has been lifted. I see the true nature of everything around me, the horrifying reality of it all challenging my comprehension like nothing ever has before. As terrifying as it all is, I want to see it all. I want to know all. I have to.

I go for a walk, the first I have taken in a long time. My new eyes greedily drink every sight into my very soul. The trees are barren, the sun cold. I look at the branches, and they have a sharpness to them I hadn’t previously noticed. Their very cells and the processes they run to stay alive are exposed to me. There is no language in existence that can fully explain the sheer truth I see.

And yet, there is still something behind it all, something I am beginning to see the shape of but is still far too large and hidden for me to even begin to comprehend. It isn’t until I finally see other people that I truly understand why I am being shown this.

Their eyes are cold and dead. They lack the gift of beautiful and true vision I alone have been bestowed. In this moment I know what I must do. I have to share it with them. I have to make them see. I have to reach the voice, for only it can make them understand. I will never be able to convince them, for they are the cave dwellers and I am the only free person. I have seen the real world, but they will cling to the familiar shadows on their wall.

I go back to my apartment. Whatever it is that keeps me from reaching the end of my dream, it will not stop me tonight. Tonight I will find it. Tonight I will find the voice. I will find its source.

I am determined. Resolution fortifies me, my muscles tightening in anticipation. I take enough tranquilizers to down a horse and I lay down to sleep.

I go through the dream again. I follow the voice, and the ground splits for the last time.

I’m falling. Every fiber of my being is yelling at me, begging me to stop, to wake up, but it is futile.

I land on top of where the chasm opened, its mouth now sealed. A new hope is burning within me.

I dash forward. This is it. I’ve finally reached it.

I look at the source.

It’s disgustingly beautiful. My eyes burn in searing pain as I look at it, but I refuse to turn my gaze. It reeks of filthy carrion and flowers on a spring morning, of coffee and arson. Looking at it sounds like a lifelong dream finally realized. Touching it, I taste knowledge. My very bones ache and every single hair on my body stands on end as a pure and roiling euphoric terror attacks every one of my cells. It is the light and it is the shadow. It is order and it is chaos. It reaches out to me with an arm that doesn’t exist.

It embraces me.

Once again a veil is lifted, and I finally behold everything. Its plan, its desires are revealed to me, the information seemingly implanted into my own mind, sliding into place in the mass of slimy flesh that humans call a brain. It’s so noble, so beautiful. My smile stretches from ear to ear, the muscles in my cheeks contracting more tightly than I thought possible. Hot tears flow freely down my face, the salt sweet on my tongue.

It’s calling out now, calling out to whoever can hear. A terrifyingly pleasant cacophony of screeching and harmony and nails on chalkboards. It seeks others that will heed the call. Others that will help it fulfill its purpose. My own destiny is almost fulfilled.

I wake up for the final time, for once without the familiar despondence. I sit down at my computer. The whirring of fans and the steady clacking of keys begins to fill my otherwise silent apartment:

You know that feeling you get sometimes when you’re asleep?

Can you hear it yet?

Please, heed its call. Follow the voice. Open your eyes.

Oh, and be careful when you fall.