Eidolon Atomic
Chapter one: Never Die Alone

There is no space here, no time, no place, only what is known and what is perceived. I am I, who else would I be but, who is I? Does I have a name, I don’t know. I is a purpose of being that states only awareness and nothing else. Only a self but not what a knowledge of true self, is. Do I know who I am? It doesn’t seem so, only that there is something missing, something to describe this state as what.

No, place no, time, they all intercede ad in the moment the are unrealized, placed with the effortless state of something lost within their definition of being removed. I am everywhere, and nowhere, am something but nothing, am old but young and timeless, but yet their still I, the perception. Where is that, this, me, everything, what is the verdict of my scattered mind.

“Open your eyes and see your fate.”

“No. No,let me sleep.” I say to the other that is now a part of everything, a something else that is not I.

“Open your eyes, and see the truth.”

“ I am so tired, I am too tired to wake up. Let me sleep. Please ” Tired, a state that I somehow described as I am scattered, disconnected from applicable energetic movement. movement, another quality of what is I. Tired, sleeping, scattered.

“You need not be afraid of the truth.”

“What truth, what truth is their to see?” I am closed to something? What, I have eyes to open?

“The only truth. The last one you will ever know.”

“No, leave me alone. I was sleeping so well, don’t make me wake up.” If I am sleeping, can I wake up? Can I become a something that is everything that is one thing. Something else?

“Open your eyes, child. The fate of so many depends it.”

“The fate of who?” The concept of other, more than me, so own I know, someone I belong to, something other than the self, I is only a part of a something, something that can exist.

“Open your eyes and know.”

“This is a strange dream, who are you?” Am I dreaming, if I am asleep? Asleep and awake, what is the difference, does I know, do I have a name, a place?

“The only way to know is to open your eyes.”

My head is shrouded in fog as I do what the voice asked of me opening my eyes as I am guided by the need to, know. But only so to make sense of this fly like annoyance that’s persists in it torment of my piece and rest. I feel so tired opening my eyes, two worlds the self and the other merge together in the existence of sight. I can see, I have perspective, a will, but what is will? It so very tired as I try orient myself in my vision. Nothing seems to be my only standpoint, a cloud of ignorance and bliss in blackness, a presence close bye, unseen.

(Whispers) “What do you see, in those beautiful eyes of yours, do you see dreams of what your heart searches out through the choke of this realms grip, a perfect world of grass and trees and sunlight. That is the lie my dear, that is your nightmare. The false intent of a closed mind blinded to its own fate. Your eyes my dear are special, sleep no more for there is no real rest here, only decay.

My eyelids move like stone slabs being lifted from the cut of a quarry’s deep bed. But when I finally look upon what it is that chews away at my state of complacency, I am introduced instantly into a dark nightmare. And I becomes separate from tell everything else.

The blackness is all around me, stifling with its thick fog of billowing horrors as it shrouds and consumes all light like smoke from a thick fire. Only an ambiance in subtle glow of a candle seem to give shape to, it, this world outside the self. The thing I’ve seen for what seems like a century, a fear that has me so terrified as to not want to look any further for the sake of my own sanity. A deep blackness only known as death.

“No, don’t make me look, not at this, not again.” I say trying to close my eyes, but can’t, they are too heavy.

“But you must, your fate, and the fate of the one you love depends on perseverance. Your fear is only a chain, and your heart is the key that unlocks your freedom.”

“No, no! This can’t be, it’s not, it can’t. I don’t want to see this just let me sleep. Let me rest in my comfort.”

“I’m afraid I cannot, you are, to vital to let sleep. To let rot in your own head, just try with all of your heart, and look upon the truth that is your fate.”

A cold grip tightens around my shoulder as the persistence of this thing beside me becomes almost too much to bear. I do not know what it is that now try’s so hard to convince me to look upon visions I do not wish to see. It seems human, or talks like one at least in words I understand, but if such a form could be considered the one it takes is one long since marred and deformed to a grotesque resemblance. It knows me, that truth has already been established. But, it presence is bitter and cold. It frightens me that I do not know what it is, only that I’m sure, that I have seen it crawling through the darkness in a recurring nightmare, choking on a never ending river of blood that falls from its open mouth as it crawls through a lake of death.

What does it want? I do not know for sure, but so many things are uncertain as I do not know how I got here, or what this place is. Or for that matter, who I am. Is it real, am I real? Or am I simply a figment.

“Why? Why do you want me to see this, why do you torment me so?” I say as I try to defend myself from a discomfort I wish to gain distance from. “You frighten me so much, please let me wake up, let me end this nightmare?”

“It is not I, who torments you, it is you, we are put into prisons of our own construction, and yours is one of unknowing. Do not confine yourself to witless ignorance, my child, for it will be the undoing of everything you have fought so hard to hold close to.” Its voice is choked like it is in a distant dream. Raspy, like the noise someone would make as their lungs, fill with coagulation and maggots as they where barrier still alive.

“This is a nightmare, isn’t it? I am asleep, aren’t I. Soon I will wake up and all of this will be over. Just leave me alone and let me wake up from this nightmare.” I say trying to close myself inside the only thing that will keep me safe and sane, the hope that when day breaks, so too will this reality. But, to my dismay, this is not to be, as this thing that resembles a decomposed corpse now says something to me that crushes my hopes to dust, and scatters them to a cruel wind like the rose pedals set on a tombstone.

It bends over to look me directly in the face, its gaze is as petrifying, a shocking stair deeper than the blackness itself.“The sorrow I feel for you at his moment, is unfathomable, for only those to wake in this place are often the first to go mad. I pity you, poor thing, but pity is not a reason to let you waste away, for you are not aware, and that is simply a challenge to overcome.”

“Aware of what?” I say as it turns away and cover my eyes. Unable to face the ghastly sight that twitches and shakes before me, blood still falling from her words.

“You are not sleeping my child, this is not dream you lay under, you, like I; are dead.”

“I.... I’m dead?” The news comes as a shock. “No, I don’t believe you, you’re lying, leave me be. Let me sleep.”

“I cannot lie to you young one, letting you bask in your own unawareness will get us nowhere, you have passed into the afterlife, and now join in the theater of, unwanted, lost souls.”

“But, how, when. Wh.... Ah.” I all most lose myself to an overflow of thoughts and images begin rushing through my mind, becoming aware of what I lost and what was missing. I try to make sense of all of it but the sense is blanked by tragedy, it is almost too much to bare, like a bullet slowly tearing through my brain. The pain of trying to remember entraps me, and I cannot help but let out a scream into the endless blackness, a scream that doesn’t echo, but only shatters like glass.

My cry is long, gut-wrenching, painful, it seems to replace resonance in cracking the world around me. It is so emotionally powerful, it seems filled with feelings that I know by sense but can’t name, hot like fire that get bigger in waves. The darkness parts around me, in slivers that split and shift like heavy ice, ready crash into the sea. I lay witness to more unimaginable horrors as the pieces fall away, a depth of rage that pulls me towards it’s embrace.

Sights, sounds, and colors, that I can barely make sense of filling a small hole in the void, more nightmares drenched in blood and soaked in the stink of the same. I look about to replace the only other who might be able to witness what I see, to make sure my mind has not completely lost itself. But as I replace them, the talking corpse, I see they are doubled over in a state of pain, and discomfort. So with all my efforts refocused, I stop.

Did I do this? Did I open this door to such horrors as these, so many sights, so many colors, so many screams and things that go beyond the description of even my knowledge of torment? How? Why? What is the purpose? So many questions, too little answers to be given. The gate begins to close, but as it does, the things from the other side of the gate take notice of the small opening extending into their realm. They all rush the small hole, only to have it close right before any of them are able to enter what is the place I sit inside of. Closed by the corpse who now stands beside me. I flinch as they almost reach me, but settle down as I replace that nothing has made it past the void. And I sit in the relative safety of the dark.

I turn my attention to the other monster still holding herself together from the force that had caused her so much pain and discomfort, it slowly regains its composure, then turn to me, in silence. We sit in the nothingness for what seems like days, but who knows in what manner time passes in a place like this. The blackness is so disorienting, and it is only now that I realize the only other thing here, now sits sideways to my orientation. Shifted as if the ground where moving where it stands.

“I was right”, it finally says. The things voice is as monotoned as ever. Not a single hint of anger or sadness or joy, only a voice that speaks, like she is constantly dying. “The shock is, often too much for most to handle.” It moves in closely now, no steps are taken and in the phase of the moment she is directly next to me, her bones crack with every twitch that she makes in sickening fashion, as if stiffness had long since set in.

“Keep away from me, or I will scream again,” I say, knowing it did something that added to this ghoul’s discomfort.

“Scream all you like, but the only thing more terrifying than I, are what wait on the other side of that hole you wish to make. Who knows if something terrible might slip through, and consume both or souls. We may have, very little time here my dear Vits, it would be wise not to waste it, screaming.”

She is right, great and terrible things wait on the other end of the spectrum of black walls. I don’t know if her threat holds any truth to it, her nature makes it incredibly easy for a lie or bluff to slip past the fine screen of my catching such hints. But something it said doesn’t slip past my notice.

“Vits, that is; my name. How is it that you know my name?”

It suddenly appears now standing upside down, clinging to an invisible wall that is still unseen, “I know, many things about you, who you are, where you come from, how you got here, your favorite subject in school, your favorite color. You have seen me in your nightmares, but only because I wished to warn you.”

“Then tell me, and who are you?” I say as most of my childhood fears flaunt a bone-chilling knowledge of who I am.

“All things will be revealed, in time. This place has its rules, and the breaking of them has their consequences.”

Her answers are vague, but what is an answer without a question if the question is not known, it is only now that I am even aware of the questions in hand, a state that came at the expense of a small part of my sanity.

I feel so powerless, so helpless, but one hope that I hold to is that fact that my nightmare, was hurt by my act of spiritual strain. It seems it doesn’t wish to feel such pain, but why do the dead do not feel pain, and if so, what kind? This inkling dots the story of inquiry of enlightenment, but must now be set aside as some of my greater fears come to concern, in that; whatever it is, dead or alive, it knows me more than I know myself.

“You must tell me something,” I say, more scared than I have ever been. “Something I can use, anything.”

It looks at me for a moment, it knows it can do very little in terms of persuasion, and knows I lack a position to do so. Can it hurt me, does it know if it can? I sense that it is hiding something, a sense that I cannot shake.

“You’re not in the right mind to ask questions, its probably better if you concentrate on what you know. You must be ready, or else, you will suffer.”

“You’re lying,” I say, unconvinced. Something of a strange reflex.

It looks at me for a moment longer, then begins to speak, her words come out jumbled in a mix of whispers, too low to be understood. This causes me great discomfort that increases with every passing second that the whispering goes on for. She is talking about me I know it, but the sound is driving me mad, I try to cover my ears, but it seeps into every part of my being, and soon a type of madness begins to take me. Images flash in my mind, memories of nothing but pain and torment, carnage in blood and violence, and I curl up.

I pull my hands away from ears, “Stop!” I say, and she does. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What you wanted.” She answers.

“And that is?”

“Telling you what you wanted to know.”

This place has rules she said and know I am able to piece together what those rules are. Breaking these rules, meaning a madness of the soul. Pain through the memory of pain and what it is. I figure there must be a way to avoid the torture, but it seems, only the creature before me knows how.

“What do I do to avoid the torment?” I say confused.

“You know what you’re capable of, you’ve seen what you can do. You have an ability that is out of my understanding but is something I know I need. If you help me, I will help you.”

“Need, me? For what?” I ask a dark awareness setting in.

“I don’t know, I haven’t figured that out yet, but right now it’s really none of your concern.”

Something tells me this creature, this; horrid apparition is not to be trusted. That whatever this demon wants from me, I know is now a bargaining chip that should be questioned as I look upon it, and held onto as if it were my one and only hope of ever escaping from here. In the understanding of the moment, however, it seems I might have to rely on whatever this thing is, to gain the knowledge I need to help the people she mentions. The word love is one that the used to get my attention, and as I think about it, seems my thought and feeling connect to someone, still outside this realm.

This death omen said before, that the fate of many now sits upon my shoulders and whatever knowledge I can retain in-between them. But the price is what frightens me the most.

I am now stuck with a choice, one that is almost impossible to make as I know very little about either choice’s. The only options I have, are to, try to fight off whatever this is and spend my time here never knowing the truth of what it is to show me. Or, let It help me, and submit myself to whatever lies or secrets it may have to share, in order to replace out how, and why I died.

The frightful thing is underneath me now, looking up at me with its corpse-like eyes from the bottom of my feet. “Your time is running short, and without my help, you will never be strong enough to save him.”

This speech, sparks a panicked curiosity” Save him, who is, he?” As I ask this question, I can feel something urgent spark inside me, something that causes my every fiber to catch fire with the feeling that someone close to me is in terrible danger.

“I have seen him pass through here once before, but only for a moment, he is still alive, somewhere, but often I can feel his life is slipping away from him. Something great and terrible keeps close to his side. Something that even I am unable to fathom.”

I become confused and distraught, if tears could fall from my eyes they would do so now, as I panic with the unknowing of something that I should know, a blank. “Who he is, you must tell me now!” I say my sadness in my throat like a rusty pipe.

“I cannot tell you, because it against the rules, you know the answer, and in that I can only help you replace it for yourself.” It says, resuscitating something it has made clear before. An impassable wall that it knows that It, can only cross with my help.

I think for only a moment as I am still unsure what I should do, an image flashes in my mind, one of a man, now fighting his way through a great struggle. A struggle that is so important that warps the very fabric of history as the systematic unraveling of facts and lies shreds a mosaic of the sinister implement.

“Okay,” I say now, a strong but almost random sense of knowing what must be done. “I guess I have very little choice, in this. But if you try to trick me in any way, you will come to regret it.”

“A mutual destruction of course, but fear not. Trickery is for angels and demons and I am none of the sorts.”

“Then what are you?” I ask fearfully of the answer.

“That is something you already know.” The answer is implemented in a shade of the unknown.

Suddenly, she appears to me. Her long fingers grasp onto my shoulder. Her touch is so cold, like a shaking hands like a statue of ice. I gasp slightly.

“My touch isn’t comforting, I know, but please concentrate, open your heart to me,” she says in a whisper “And show me what you see.”