Humanity Lost

It began with becoming aware of floating. I opened my eyes to an unfamiliar purple and pink clouded sky. Said clouds seemed to circle around and passed me on all sides, begging me to turn around. From the corner of my eyes I could spot the colours of dawn beginning to peek over the horizon, far in the distance. It was then I realised I was floating high up in the air, and my body began to turn towards the ground; entirely on its own.

The ground I ended up facing was a bed of rocks as far as the eye could see. It wasn’t until the morning light started crawling across the sea of stone that I began to notice the carving of a perfect circle. From within the ground two cracks formed, breaking through the ground at two opposite sides, slowly moving simultaneously clockwise to meet where the other had begun. The rock within the circle crumbled in on itself and it left a deep dark hole in the ground.

It puzzled me for a moment as I watched in anticipation at what would become of this hole, painfully aware that this all seemed like a weird dream. Something moved from inside the hole, I couldn’t see yet what it was, but I could hear a deep rumbling coming from within the hole, and shadows began to flicker from within the hole.

From deep inside I could see a pink fluid tentacle burst forth at high speed. It was thick, fleshy and once it had reached as heigh as it could go, it plateau’d quickly. From there another smaller tentacle burst forth, extending telescopically like a tower reaching for the sky.

I could swear that as the tower was reaching heights above my own, I spotted three figures riding the top tentacle. I knew I had to be dreaming because from a distance it looked like the middle of the three figures was a rather tall and large cannonball on legs, while to each side of that were what looked like smaller humans on cloaks. I did not get to look at them long before the final tentacle launched itself, with the three figures gripping tightly onto it, whipping like a lasso at the clouds. The figures all jumped at the last moment before the tentacle wrapped itself onto a cloud, after which the three figures landed on an invisible floor, before running forwards and fading out of existence.

As the tentacle tower gripped itself tightly around an invisible bar in the sky, the weight of the entire thing shifted downwards like an dropping anchor. There was a palpable thud emanating from the tower, that followed by an unsettling quiet. The fleshy features lost their glossy shine, the pinks turned muted. From what I could see it had solidified in place completely.

As the shockwave hit my body I felt all levitation leave my body, and I felt myself falling uncontrollably. I tumbled round and round, occasionally catching glimpses of the tower casting a large shadow in the morning sun. I did not fall for long, though before I hit the ground, I woke up drenched in cold sweat.

My heart was racing and what I had just seen still felt vivid and real; just as real as being awake was now. I put my hand on my pillow, soaked all the way through, and it was cold, icy cold. Sweating wasn’t unusual for me, but it was never this cold. I became very aware of the cold and heavy pressing of my sweat-soaked t-shirt, I had to take it off. When I did I could smell that horrible ammonia smell of my sweat, but there was something else too, that I didn’t recognise immediately. I had smelt it before, but it was not a common smell but faul. I threw the pillow off the bed before trying to fall back asleep. I remembered what the smell was just before I fell asleep again: it was sulphur.