18.12 cycle six, Ba'seth, of calendar Moonrachia
The world had turned slightly darker before I realized it
I keep rereading the dreams journal again and again…
Either my memory is playing tricks on me, or I’m gone insane already
The more I read, the more I recall the dreams…
Not just one of them, but from the start of those strange dreams
Why both of us had the same dreams is not my main concern right now, but why did I dream all of Aronn's life?
A golden tower rising to heaven, a strange creature with tentacles that could flatten the whole continent, a strange mermaid guarding something…
If it isn’t a sign of something, I don’t know anything reasonable to explain this phenomenon
My whole experience and knowledge as a Metamagics student are useless in the face of this incomprehensible event
Leaning back into my chair, while recalling Aronn dreams or even his memory, from the beginning of it that I could remember till the end of his own life
“Nothing seems weird, but weird enough to happen.” Suddenly, my throat feels tickly and itchy
When I leave my room and head toward the kitchen, the situation turns worse, my stomach feels like it's twisted, and my vision turns blurry
As if it's just my imagination, part of my home was turned into a simple minimalist apartment where Aronn lives
Then my legs give up on me, and my head hurts as if someone is stabbing a sword into my skull
The fact that my throat turns worsened from a mere itch to something unbearable, making it hard to breathe
Kneeling on the wooden floor with tears and a bubbly saliva falling onto the floor
Again, in a single beat of the heart, the wooden floor turned into a white ceramic, and in the second beat of the heart, it turned back again into a wooden floor
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In the last second before I fell unconscious, the whole living room, straight into the kitchen, was visually distorted as if my home was blending with Aronn's house
*****
Before I knew, I was in a place I couldn't name, it's so distorted and eerily scary, it's like something that was forbidden for humans to see
In this space, I could feel I was something vast that could exist in every single space, yet small enough that I think I could fold myself eternally small
“I am Aronn/Kaleth” I said it at the same time, but I could hear a thousand layered voices saying that
In this space, I was simultaneously reborn as both Kaleth and Aronn. I lived their lives in parallel, every memory unfolding exactly as I remembered it
Kaleth and Aronn's childhoods were exactly as I remembered
I talked as if something controlled me, as if it were trying to give a documentary of it
“They’re me”
Every time I talked, a layer of different voices could be heard, but it felt as if they were mine
Are they me?
Before I realized, the ‘life’ that was simulated, which I lived as both of them simultaneously, has reached its end
Where both of them died
Around 20 years have passed now…
All of it is the same as I remembered: Kaleth as a top graduate of Arnentiasis Academy of Metamagics study, Aronn as a suicidal office worker from modern-day Earth.
“I'm them.”
As I was reborn as both of them simultaneously again, and again, I’ve lost count already
“Who am I?”
Then the simulation stopped, and the space changed
I could feel myself falling
Every single beat of the heartbeat
The space changed again and again into the strange dreams ‘we’ had, like a fast paced slideshow presentation
It's too random and too vivid, that’s every time I seen it, it feels like my consciousness is going to burst and scatter into particles
A golden tower, inside which were stairs that grew and were placed randomly as if there were no x and y axes.
A Grand gate that appears in the drowned world, so big that the gate itself is as big as half of the earth itself
A melting moon, which will pour a river of blood into the world
And more
I keep falling despite having no physical body and can’t even close my eyes, so I had no choice but to keep seeing all of the strange dreams over and over
When I reached my limit, where I could feel myself going to burst and disappear
There was something new, that I can’t even explain with a word, as if the vocabulary itself isn’t enough to describe it
I saw myself falling from one perspective, then saw that perspective from another, and another, in an infinite, dizzying recursion
And then my consciousness reached its limit
*****
22.51 cycle six, Ba'seth, of calendar Moonrachia
A deep cold and a heavier weight than I'd ever known filled me…
Slowly, my vision is returned. It's so dark, but my eyes are slightly adjusted to a little light source
It's my own living room, I'm supporting myself with my hand, and standing up
With an awkward movement, I walk toward the kitchen to pour myself some water
As I drink the water slowly with a trembling hand, and put down the glass on the table pretty hard, it made a thumping sound
With little water left on the glass, I could see my own reflection on it
“Since when did I have red eyes?” Then I sit down on the chair to calm myself down and reorganize my thoughts
The pale silvery moonlight showered my kitchen, giving me nothing but more uneasy feelings
While massaging my forehead, I tried my best trying to remember what just happened
But why do I feel like something is missing…? Like, there’s a huge hole in my memory?
When I entered my bedroom and opened the dream journal, I started to write everything I remembered in case I forgot about it
I write the current cycle of day, month, and the year's calendar, which is…
“Exact time? cycle six, Ba'seth, of calendar Moonrachia’, something happens when I’m heading into the kitchen…”
“Visual distortion, insane sensation of pain, then I lose consciousness…”
“After that…? I don’t know what happened, but I’m certain something happened, given every time I tried to recall it, I got an insane headache…”
“But one thing for certain is, I’ve experienced living both of Kaleth and Aronn's lives simultaneously at the same time over and over again, which is only based on my memory, given I couldn’t change any option nor the outcome of it.”
“So, who exactly am I?” Was the last thing I wrote before closing the journal.
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