Chapter
1 – Blinding Light, Intoxicating Dream
The sun's rise fills my room with
light from the windows, gently waking me up for a new wonderful day. I go
downstairs and eat breakfast with my family, which is made for us by my wife
and mother. My children laugh and play with their food more than they eat it,
but it’s always nice to see them smile and giggle. It fills me with energy more
than the food does. After saying our morning prayers, we head out to daily
mass, go back home, and work on making clothes. We supply all kinds of
clothes for the people in town and make plush toys for the children and adult
children from time to time.
My kids come and ask me for a toy
after helping with work around the house and the neighbor’s house. I can’t say
no to their smiles and sweet demeanors so I give them each a bear plush. They
thank me and run off. When will I learn to tell them no? After cleaning the
clothes of my family and neighbors, I call it a day, eat dinner, read a story
with my family, and then go to bed.
The morning sun rises and my day
begins again. Today, I help out in the shop, fit people for outfits, dresses,
and suits, and exchange gold for our goods. My kids come and ask me for a toy
for helping out on the neighbor’s farms and I give them each a horse plush. Seeing
this, my wife slaps my arm and complains about spoiling them.
“How can I say no to them when they
work so hard and they’re so sweet?” I ask.
My wife dismisses my excuse and
continues filling the racks with clothes and talking to her friends. She’s
probably just jealous I haven’t treated her for a while. I think we’ll go out
to the countryside for the weekend and go to the shopping outlet where we’ll be
the ones buying and indulging ourselves in the best foods and drinks in the
area. Maybe next month we can go down to the beach and enjoy the week with the
kids while the rest of my family takes care of the shop. They usually don’t
mind as long as we have a good time and come back relaxed and refreshed. Once
the day’s duties are done, I close up the shop, join my family for dinner, read
a new story, and then head to bed.
The next day comes and goes like
usual with my kids asking me for a toy to reward them for cleaning the church
and the learning they did in school. Again, my love for them gets the better of
me as I look through the toys to see which is best to give them. Among the
toys, I see one that I don’t remember seeing before, a rat. Picking up the rat
and inspecting it, I see a large rat dressed in a red dress, jewelry, and
wearing makeup with blood on its mouth and claw-like nails that are painted
pink. My kids take the rat thinking that it’s the one I’m giving them, thank
me, and then run off. While looking at my kids, I can’t help but feel a strange
attraction to them different than the usual love that I feel for them.
Something is wrong with me.
Probably just the result of working, so I step out and take a quick nap in a
chair, however, while sleeping, I see the rat again. This time I see it raping
men, women, and children, tearing them apart afterward, and torturing people
for the amusement of others. The rat looks at me and I see it turn into me for
a split second before I wake up and see that I overslept. It’s nighttime now,
but for some reason, it’s oddly dark out and I don’t hear the usual bustling
sounds of the town or the typical sounds of my family chattering. I call out to
see if anyone is around and no one answers.
Everything around me starts to
darken. At first, I think it’s just my eyes or imagination, but once everything
around me start to disappear, I panic and immediately start praying to God for
help to know what to do next. It’s then that my eyes focus on a strange light
in the distance. Going to it, I see a cross in the center of a flame-like light
that gives off a dark golden aura about it. Something about it compels me to lift
it and project my will through it, and once I do, the darkness around me is
dispelled and I see that I’m in a room with a seemingly hundreds of thousands
of people all of which seem to be dreaming. Most horrifying of all, I see that
I’m the rat I’ve been seeing, and the strange urges I’ve been feeling hit me
hard as I feel the need to take advantage of the people who are dreaming and do
unspeakable things to them.
By the time I try to get out of bed
I’m on, a blinding light shines on my face and I see that I’m back to my normal
self, waking up to another morning. The light I’m holding is still in my hand
and is transparent but still here. My wife wakes up confused and asks what’s
wrong.
“This light I’m holding showed me
something strange and horrifying. I don’t even know how to start explaining it,”
I say.
“What light?” she asks. “You’re not
holding anything. It was probably nothing more than a weird dream.” She then
kisses me, takes my hand, and pulls me downstairs where she and my mother start
making breakfast.
No, no, no. This light is truly
still in my hand no matter how much it is fading right now, and despite the
horrible things it showed me and made me feel, it felt right and true, in a
strange way. Feeling its call to use it again, I project my will through the
light that now erases everything around me and shows me a light in the distance
that’s approaching me. No, it’s not a light. It’s an angel, no, a person, an
elf with a golden crown that has twelve jewels of different colors in it. He
has gold and green eyes, light gold hair, light beige skin, pointy, sharp ears,
and is clothed in a bright, almost overwhelming gold light.
Smiling at me, the man says in a
youthful voice, “You’re an odd one. I didn’t think you, of all people, would be
able to dispel the light.”
“Who are you and what’s going on?”
I ask.
“My name is Evander and you are
living in a paradise of my creation. Through God’s blessing and the many
centuries he’s allowed me to live, I was able to create this dream reality you
are living in to finally bring the world to peace.”
“How did you bring peace to the
world through a dream reality?”
“Magic and the aid of my most
trusted friends. When it was first cast, everyone on Earth instantly fell under
the dream and didn’t even know it. It all happened in the blink of an eye. The
dream makes you think you’re going about your daily life while pushing you
towards love and faithfulness to God and keeping you alive no matter what
happens. If you die, sin, or take a wrong path in life, then I correct it, and
the dream makes you think you simply had a nightmare.”
“How could someone truly devote
themselves to God in a dream even if this dream is part reality?”
“God has a foothold in their heart
that will take over the rest of it thereby making it acceptable to Him and
ensuring the person’s salvation.”
“You seem to make sense, but I don’t
think it’s right to force people to love God this way.”
“As if you would know better.”
“I may be a simple tailor, but I am
a devoted and faithful man.”
“That’s what you think. What do you
think your name is?”
“It’s Cyrus.”
“It’s actually Cystitis, and you
are a ratman madame who runs an underground prostitution ring. Those visions
you’ve been seeing are memories of your past life and those feelings are the
temptations that my magic protects you from.”
“What? What about the family I had?”
“You have no family. You don’t even
have any parents. From what I’ve discovered about you, you were born like every
other ratman. By that I mean, a ratman raped your mother, injected her with the
serum the ratmen use to impregnate women, and when you were born with ten or so
others, you cannibalized your mother since ratmen infants only eat human flesh
and are hungry as soon as they are born.”
“That can’t be! I don’t believe
you!”
“Remember for yourself. I’ll give
you a glimpse of what your old life was like.”
Everything around me changes in a
flash of white, as I see that I’m back in the ratman form I was seeing. I’m now
in an underground town with people around me pleasuring themselves with one
another or alone while also being on drugs. In one room, I watch a crowd
witness a mother giving birth to ratmen children and being eaten alive by her
young. As this is happening, the crowd cheers and pleasures themselves with
some of them eating the cooked remains of a ratman infant. I remember this all
now as if it were yesterday and all that I remember.
More terrible memories then come
flooding back into my mind even as I try to fight against them. I had caught a
princess and wanted to influence her. Knowing that the best way to break someone
was through their mind, I forcefully changed her husband into a ratman woman
just as I had been changed and then raped him in front of her. Afterward, I
skinned her children alive in front of her, which finally broke her, allowing
me to have some influence in the kingdom she was from. Another memory has me
eating my captives alive and yet another has been having my way with my
products to test them out before selling, keeping, or eating them. Yes, I remember
the pleasure of it all and the high that it gave me. A wave of temptation
washes over me as I crave what I once indulged in and craved. Perhaps…I could
have another taste…
At the snap of a finger, I am
brought back to my senses by Evander as everything changes back to the void of
light we were in and I resume my normal human form. I can’t help but feel
ashamed of wanting to fall back into my usual habits, though at the same time,
I know that something about this dream reality is wrong.
“You were a peculiar case and hard
egg to break. It took…a century or a century and a half to make you into a
faithful servant,” Evander says.
“A century?!” I say.
“I’m not entirely sure how long I’ve
had this spell over humanity, but it would have to be a century or three give
or take a few decades. Why would I keep track of time when time is at its end?
There’s no point in keeping it if everything is as it should be.”
“No, you’re wrong. Humanity shouldn’t
be forced to live within a dream even if it makes them into better people”
“Who are you to tell me this?
Hundreds of men and women have woken up from the dream and tried to convince me
to end it while others tried ending it themselves, and you can see that their
efforts were in vain. Now, I didn’t kill them. They were respectable people, so
I made them forget what happened and allowed them to keep living in their
happy, peaceful dreams, and I can do the same for you. You can resume your life
with your family and forget any of this ever happened.”
After considering it for a second,
a voice within my conscience pushes me to say, “I refuse.”
I then try using the dark light I have
to dispel the dream, however, not much happens as a result of it and Evander’s
magic overpowers me.
“Don’t think you can fight against
me. I didn’t know you were part high elf given that you are wielding a strange
light magic. Regardless, I will be merciful to you as God intends and convince
you why you should allow this dream to continue.”
Seeing that I can’t do anything, I
allow Evander to guide me wherever he wants me to go. Lord God, is this fate what
you truly want for humanity? Is this the end of time? What is this dark light I’ve
found, and how do You want me to use it? As always and in all cases, let Your
will be done and help me accomplish it.
