Before starting, I apologize for my bad English, it’s not my native language and I’ve helped myself by using a translator, I hope it doesn’t cause too much trouble
It’s a bit tricky to get an idea of how to start this story, especially since it’s not a story as such, and it doesn’t have a beginning as such, but I’ll do my best.
I have always been a person with a high tendency to have nightmares, this has caused different problems throughout my life, going from the simplest, such as a bad rest, to things like a growing fear when it comes to falling asleep.
I can’t say exactly what I’m afraid of, if I’m afraid of the monsters in my nightmares, if I’m afraid of getting stuck there and never waking up again, or if, instead of all this, I’m afraid I’m getting crazier and crazier, maybe it’s all three together, maybe it’s none of them.
Lately I’ve had a somewhat disturbing dream, it’s difficult to define it, just as it’s complicated to describe it, since, although it comes very loaded with images, events, and seems to follow a pre-established line, these images and events are very abstract, confusing, and therefore, difficult to describe.
The first time I had it I was on the roof of an industrial complex, the second time, on the edge of a village, standing on a hill, the third time I was in the courtyard of my house, and the fourth, and most recent, i was walking along a road located very close to my house, which I have traveled hundreds, if not thousands of times, and I have well engraved in my head, similar case with the third time, but not with the first and the second.
As the case may be, I have gone on for what at first would only be a brief introduction, for this story I will take the second dream as a basis, only because it was the most vivid, and the one that made me realize that it was going to be, perhaps, a recurring dream, I will give myself certain liberties since, By its very nature, I don’t remember all the details and some were not very clear, without much more to say, I begin.
It all starts on the top of a hill, the breeze is cool, the air is clean, you can clearly hear the singing of some birds playing and gathering in nearby trees, I find myself, in fact, under one of these trees, enjoying the shade it gives me and the gift of its fruits.
Not far from where I am, there is a town, a kind of village in which some kind of religious festival is being celebrated, I don’t feel like getting closer, I felt like I didn’t belong there, although something told me at the same time that it was my home, a feeling of nostalgia pulled me while a feeling of apprehension drove me away, so I couldn’t get closer, but I couldn’t get away either, I could just be there, sitting under that tree, eating its fruits, enjoying the breeze, and in the company of the birds.
It’s hard to say how much time I spent there, it could have been minutes, it could have been hours, it could have been days, everything happened very fast and very slow at the same time, everything was advancing but it wasn’t advancing, the environment was changing without anything changing, the world was spinning without really turning, not even the fruit it devoured was gone.
From time to time I liked to observe the village from the safety of my hill, it gave me tranquility, I felt that I was not, present even absent, local, even being a stranger, meanwhile, the festival went on, the adults drank and sang, the children played and laughed, the young women so pretty and demure smiled kindly while the young people, So vital and so stupid, they tried to impress them with more and more daring, more and more meaningless things.
I can’t say when everything changed. Do you remember the sound of static from an old TV when the signal went out? Well, similar to that, as I observed the landscape I had certain interruptions, brief interruptions that lasted barely milliseconds and were barely perceptible to me, it was as if the whole world changed for a small instant, or perhaps, the one who was changing was me.
Still unable to get in or out of the village, I spent a long time just sitting there staring at it from a distance, so engrossed in my contemplation that I didn’t notice how the world was finally beginning to change around me.
The breeze was blowing like steam.
The air felt dirty, sick, putrid, desecrated.
The trees dried up.
The fruit rotted.
The festival is over.
The birds began to squawk, what were games turned into a battle, dead birds fell everywhere, most of them participated in this carnage but there were many others who, without following the example of their companions, only watched the battle, watched impassively with their red eyes, just before they began to observe me.
I try to get away from that place, but I can’t, I can’t get away or get closer, I feel motionless, even without knowing if it was paralyzing fear or a higher force that prevented me from doing so, the gaze of the birds hurt, not physically, as is obvious, their gaze hurt in the soul, I felt how they searched inside my being and sought to corrupt it, their squawks seemed more like a diabolical laughter, their eyes, once the innocent eyes of birds, were now human eyes, red as blood and located in front of their heads.
I try to take refuge by looking at the sky, for the ground was littered with bird carcasses, and it seemed that the battle had been over for a moment, the sky was neat, spotless, as beautiful as ever, as perfect as ever.
It is at this point that everything gets worse.
The sky begins to open up.
Birds laugh like monsters.
I hear the townspeople laughing and crying at the same time and in unison, like a macabre melody of suffering and shared joy.
Those hands make their appearance.
From the sky appear a pair of hands, colossal and without fixed color, which seemed to hold and break it as if it were a sheet of paper, breaking reality itself and leaving in its place an absolute emptiness, a black color so absolute that it seemed to swallow the light of the surroundings, panic invades my body completely.
The birds laugh harder.
The festival resumes into an of blood, joy, and suffering, what was once an orderly people was now a savage amalgam of beasts succumbing to their deepest desires.
I look up at the sky again, a thousand eyes peek out of the abyss, eyes as red as blood, identical to those of birds, all watching me in unison, all peering into the depths of my soul. I ask myself, in despair, is it the devil? Or is it God? Is it something else?
A thousand mouths appear accompanying the thousand eyes, a thousand teeth accompany them, a thousand different voices respond in unison, they answer my question, I wake up from sleep, and I don’t remember their answer.
Honestly, I’m glad I didn’t know their answer.