An empty black room,

The darkness so thick

That light could never penetrate

A deafening silence

Cuts through like a knife

And cleaves your mind in two

Your mind,

Sliced in half

Has now shattered,

Slivers of it

Carving into your skull

All thoughts of yours

Vanish,

All feelings instantly

Dissipate

The silence has taken hold

Of your head and heart,

Leaving only pain in its wake

You are controlled by the darkness,

The shadows make you their puppet

Their movements are copied by you,

Spiders tying their silk

To your hands and feet

Wisps of fog trail past your ankles

And the cold begins to set

In to your bones

Shivers slide down your spine

And your hair stands on end,

The cold has made you numb

To the pain inside your head

Slowly, you lose the feeling

You had in your limbs,

The sensation you previously felt

Left with only faint tingling

And twitching fingers

Then the room becomes bone dry,

Electricity crackling in the air

A jolt spikes through your nerves

And you regain what you had lost,

Flexing your limbs at will

But then the shadows take hold again,

The spider silk reasserting its control,

You fight to make the darkness surrender

But your efforts bring you no avail

Slowly,

Quietly,

You make up your mind

And surrender control,

Knowing that the shadows,

Though taking your body,

Have not taken your mind

Your breath fogs in front of you,

Your eyes close

To the empty darkness of the room,

Your mind stops racing

And you devise a plan.

You stay there,

Suspended only by the silk

And as the air cools down,

The electricity begins to leave,

And your breathing becomes heavy,

Steady,

And calm

Allow the tension in your body to

Let go

And watch as everything

Begins to

Glow

The silence remains, but a softness,

A sweet feeling,

Fills the room

And a smooth light

Enters the space around you

The strings drop

And you are set free,

Your eyes opening

The light begins to dull,

Twinkling pinpricks

Encompassing your vision

A sliver of light shining

From a heavy crescent moon

Hanging above you

The room

Is no longer a room

You find yourself in a meadow,

Flowing grasses and wildflowers

Ripple in a slight breeze

A warmth encompasses you

And a slight contentedness

Settles into your heart

No longer trapped,

You feel as if you’re soaring,

The hills rolling beneath you,

Trees no more than dandelion puffs

Standing up

Amongst the darkened color

Of the flowers and grass

Slowly,

Though,

You near the edge

Of this reality,

Approaching a deep ravine,

A depthless pit of black

As you peer in,

A sound escapes you

A soft gasp,

The first thing you’ve heard

Since you awoke,

Suspended in the black darkness

Of that room

It is only then

That you realize,

Though you have felt

And seen

This world,

There has been

No coppery taste of blood

As your mind shattered,

No sound as you screamed,

Terrified,

And alone

In that room

No scent of dust within the room

Nor the smell of the flowers

Or the grass and trees

You wonder to yourself:

Where am I?

What is this place?

And softly,

As your voice bounces

Around the hills,

A voice from the pit answers:

Your mind.

But what does that mean?

How can you be in your mind

With your mind fully shattered

How can you feel the terror,

The pain and the dread,

Of being alone in the darkness,

The only other thing there monsters

And shadows

How can you see

The darkness

With your eyes wide open,

A darkness

That could never exist

In reality

How can any bit of this fever dream

Be summed up

Into something as simple as

A nightmare

How can such true feelings

Exist in a dreamscape

A place

That's not even remotely

Real

How?

It’s—

Well,

It’s hard to explain

The voice says

It’s a soft voice,

One of reason

And of thought

And kindness, too

Think of it as…

As you said,

A dream

It is a dream,

A hyper-realistic dream

A dream

So real

That it bleeds

Into reality

A dream

So true

That it seems

To exist outside of time

And to play

Against every rule of

Waking world

A dream

So fantastical

That it seems

To never have an end

Nor beginning

And only exists

Within a realm

Of your own crazed

Imagination.

Does that make sense?

You feel yourself standing

Amongst the grass again

As if reality

Has come crashing back down

Upon you

I…

Think so?

Your voice responds,

Not sure how to answer

Otherwise

This dream,

The voice continues,

Has become a reality

A world in of its own

Your head tilts in thought

Like a simulation?

There is a feeling,

A sort of sound—

Like laughter

Almost—

As the voice responds

Similar,

Yes.

You could think of it that way

Your mind begins spinning,

But the landscape doesn’t change

But why?

You wonder

Why is it

That reality grounded me

Both literally and figuratively

But I still am trapped

Within my mind

How is this reality

But also not?

How is it that my mind

Though shattered and broken

Can explain the questions I have

When I don’t know the answers

I can’t be the only one in this

Broken

Reality dreamscape

How would one answer that question

When,

In your mind,

You are always alone

How are you in your mind

With others to share it

The air shifts

And the voice sighs,

The mood of the meadow

Changing

It’s complicated

And more convoluted

Than a simple

Yes or no

The pit begins to shrink,

Forming a blob

Of the darkest black imaginable,

Slowly morphing

Into a humanoid shape

A person

Now stands in front of you,

Its form that of whomever you trust most

The voice continues to speak,

The person gesturing

As it does so

The answer

Is that no mind is entirely alone

There’s always someone else

Within you,

Whether or not you allow it to be

It’s like your conscience

But from a person you trust

The person you would listen to

For the right answer

To anything

And a version of them,

The version you see them as

Lives here,

In your brain

As me.