At first, you do not notice the screams.

You sit alone in your chair, slaying goblins on your computer monitor, and at first, you assume the screams come from the digital world in front of you. But as the final goblin falls, the noise only grows, and thus you begin to wonder: what the fuck is that racket.

Ripping your headphones off your ears, you shoot to your feet, sending your chair hurtling backwards. For now, it is not urgency that makes your movements forceful, merely irritation. Your preference is to stay inside and ignore the outside world, but since the world is forcing its way into your eardrums you have little choice but to acknowledge it.

Stomping over to your apartment door, you throw it open, only realizing what a mistake this choice might be after committing to it. There could be a murderer out here, or a domestic abuser or a violent thief or, or…

All thoughts of terrestrial threats abandon your mind as the feeble organ begins to grapple with the alien horror it is now being forced to witness. A tall, thin man stands a few meters away from you. Except it is not a man, or even a human, because humans do not contort in that manner unless they are very, very dead. And also humans aren’t gleaming white monstrosities with arms longer than their legs and hands larger than their heads.

The pit in your stomach becomes a chasm as you realize that within one of those titanic square hands a human woman is thrashing and wailing. You have finally discovered the source of the screaming! This discovery brings you no happiness.

Despite your dearest wishes, the head of the monster turns your way. Almost nothing that should be on a face exists upon its horrid countenance, save for a mouth. A mouth that is all teeth, prominently displayed in a grin that is too big for the head it sits upon.

The creature’s hand becomes a fist, and the woman within explodes into light. The screaming is gone.

Adrenaline shoots through your veins. Spinning around, you dash back into your room and throw the door closed, as though it can serve as a reliable barrier between you and the abomination outside. You sprint to the window and toss it open, nearly throwing yourself through. But the logical part of your brain catches up and reminds you that you would not survive the four-story drop. And even if you did… your heart drops into the abyss within you. The world you see outside your building is worse than the one outside your door. Much worse.

In that moment, you realize it’s all over. Hands trembling, you pull the window closed, and sink down to the ground. It’s all over. Not just for you, but for everyone. Head in your hands, you lay on the floor, shivering. There is no escaping this. The light is coming, and the screams are growing louder.

Until suddenly you hear nothing, because you have become nothing.

~~~

For a time, you forget yourself. For a time, there is no way for you to remember. There is no way for you to know. There is only light, and there is little point in discerning one portion of interchangeable light from another.

But then something pulls at you, whatever “you” means, and the part of the light that is you leaves the rest, plunging into darkness. Where you are going you cannot say, and why you are going you have scarcely begun to fathom. Is it a choice you are making, or one being made for you? You cannot know. You will never know.

And then the darkness gives way to complete and total blackness. Similar, but… different. It’s comforting, somehow. Warm. And all around you, enveloping you like a blanket. This place… you do not know what it is, but you long to call it home. Can you? Will you be granted such happiness?

Light appears, for the first time in forever. It is but a sliver, yet more blinding than any sun. This light means you no harm, but now you are sure: this cannot be your home. It belongs to another. Your home is elsewhere, and so you must go. And you do.

It takes some time, drifting in the dark. Perhaps hours, perhaps years. But eventually, you find it. Your home. And you awake, a person with a body once more.

“Amazing, wasn’t it?” says a nearby voice, prompting you to glance its way. A man is looking at you, a man you have never seen before in your life. He smirks. “Not as amazing as this dick, though, right?”

He laughs, loud and hearty, and you wish you could go back to the screaming.