The headache that had begun when reaching his apartment did not leave. Its progress was constantly escalating, beating charged clouds of agony through his system. Not just the normal light tapping at the edge of the skull but really deep in there, as though his pulsing brain was determined on growing. Strenuously trying to convince his cranium to do the same, hammering at its walls.

He`d managed to tame its altercation somewhat with a handful of painkillers, though still felt it expostulating.

It was the day after their awakening and he sat in the lounge by the window. He was here served a panoramic view of Plymont. Stared out at it naked minded, feeling the rhythm of his throbbing head.

The lost time was still lost, still buried, and he owned no strength to dig for it. In fact he wasn't really sure whether he cared for its reviling or not. Because the sense of fulfillment toward his earlier hunger was still there. All urgency and restlessness still drained from his system. Leaving him feeling completely calm. The magic he`d felt seeing the pictures and stories of the paranormal events (which were scattered in cut-outs and magazines everywhere around him) possessed none of its earlier intensity, had no knot to tighten on secrets to be found... So, he suspected he had. Yes, the burning man told him, the flame of his obsession was no longer burning to be fuelled, but to become. The one covered in blood also talked to him regularly. Their voices riding on the braking waves in his head. But since neither really had any influence on him they just babbled on for the sake of keeping him company.

Not wanting to bother his raging mind too much, a half-hearted conclusion of what was happening was that he steadily became a spectator, loosing his place as a participant. And truth to tell, he didn't much mind.

So, he kept his place in the chair by the window, observing the performers.

He sat here throughout the day, glancing over at the phone once or twice (which he had unplugged yesterday so as to not be disturbed) wondering if he should call Theresa. But never got to it. Decided he still didn't want to be disturbed, afraid talk would distract his calm.

By late afternoon the pills started to loose their effect so he swallowed a second handful. This time, however, they had less influence.

When light made its departure and the apartment with the observer was lit only from the lights outside, he made his way to the bedroom to try and get some sleep.

But there was little or no real sleep forthcoming.

For most he just lay there staring into the dark room from his throbbing pillow. And whenever his thoughts drifted into the realm of a slumber (and the absurdities of that state came to find him) they were always accompanied by the hammering in background. Nowhere to escape the beating.

In the images here, the discomfort was transformed to a clock planted in his head, ticking away till it at some point would stop and inspire an explosion.

It was the heartbeat of a sleeping beast that had made his head its dwelling place...or womb.

And the doorway that something was knock, knock, knocking on.

All in all, they spoke of waiting and revelations, waiting for something that was coming this way.

Finally he`d had enough of teasing with sleep and stood up from bed. Closing his eyes as nausea swept over him, his pulse rising by the movements and the throbbing becoming a drilling sensation. When re-normalizing, he slowly went into the lounge. Stepping as lightly with his leaded limbs as his fragile fatigue demanded, and found his place in the chair.

The next few days crept by much the same way, the pain escalating and his observing the same. Observing humanities performance. Blind and in denial toward their own absurd condition. With their utterly meaningless lives, shaped by their meaningless routines. Distracting themselves with the latter so as to not recognize the hopelessness of the former, which whole existence pretty much just chased its own tail.

And he knew that there was no hope for this show to reach a conclusion. The actors might be changing but the play did not. Just continued to perform the scenes of life and death, love and tragedy.

Engaging as seriously on the banality in between to keep the play going, keep the actors busy.

They were stuck.

Of course, that was a rather obvious observation. It was what lay within it that was the revelation. Because as he stepped back to see the trees not only did he see their absurd growth, also glimpsed what lay behind. Why the game was stuck, or never started.

The reason being that they were ignorant of how they came to be, so rather than trying to grasp the meaning, they built a wall to cover the glimpses and hints to continue the game. Players who somewhere along the line gave up and just let the walls consume all memories that burned with purpose.

A self-made prison they liked to call reality, a cell they liked to call flesh.

There was, however, a window that still remained in this cell, a window in the wall of reality to freedom, to life. Where there existed no reality, nor flesh, nor matter, nor time. A world of being all. And nothing. The memory of this world, the memory of real life: dreams.

It was all vice versa.

One woke up in the shadow. One dreamt of life.

He was lying in bed now, been lying there throughout another sleepless night. Dawn would soon break outside. Inside things were running and beating as usual.

The pills he`d taken before turning in seemed to have had no effect whatsoever, or the pain so bad it felt like it.

To his horror he suddenly became aware that the walls and ceiling were pulsing as well, and not just a result of his vision, really throbbed of themselves. And as his pulse raised, they did not, they kept the same steady rhythm.

His head galloped with panic now. Lance leaped up and onto the floor. Which action caused new intensity to the sprint, in fact overwhelmed it. The room started to spin around him instead. Felt like being aboard some perverse carousel.

And on the top of this a whispering shouting sound penetrated his head, filling it like a raging wind that was breathed in and out with the thumps.

Lance fell to his knees holding head in hands, trying to make it stop blowing. But it kept on. And the room with its spinning, around and around. He shut his eyes to escape it, but the darkness here was not co-operative, a whirlpool stormed in the sea of blackness. Lance swallowed constantly, trying to keep his abdomen under balance. But failed, leaned over himself and began decorating the floor. Kept on until only slime and air came out. Then collapsed beside it and rolled up like a ball.

The whispering shouting wind escalated in both speed and volume. It sounded like a big engine being revved. Low and high, low and high. More and more aggressive. Lance had control over nothing. His system shut out from his grip, shuddering so violently that he was bathing in his vomit. Thoughts melting in each other, stirred around by the wind. Just fragments of thoughts finding him. With no connections, with no meaning.

Then, a switch was turned off, and he found himself in a quiet hush. The gray dawn lit room did not as much seem to pulse anymore as to breathe.

The wind from his head flown into the walls, ceiling and floor. Had he broken through a hole in reality with the knowledge of it being there? Hadn't somebody once told him that the more you believe the more you were? That the knowledge made you more alive. Yes, someone had indeed shared that wisdom with him, who, he could not remember.

If it was like that, if he had broken some barrier, it still had some way left to go.

And so he started crawling, searching for something. Something that would implode this insubstantial place. A plug that would make its walls run down a divine drain.

His head still throbbed. But as the sounds, the pain was covered in a thick merciful carpet.

He crawled up the walls, crawled onto the ceiling. Studying, scrutinizing for the place to tear the walls down.

He noticed one of them was poking in and out. Something stretching it out from the other side, trying to break through. Looking like a tongue poking a cheek. Going about a yard out then sinking back in.

He waited where he stood in the ceiling, and after a few more attempts a phantom of his past emerged from the bulging wall.

Amanda Peterson came rolling in. Under her long squared forehead, covering the gray eyes and ears was a leather belt. And a second one over her mouth. So she could neither see, nor hear, nor speak any evil.

Lance remembered her, but what she had told he could not.

As with the rest of solid matter the wheelchair was going insubstantial. The elephants alive and running about her blanket. Her pale body ready to melt into the chair.

Amanda was suddenly in the ceiling, and racing toward him. It was not much of a pleasant sight seeing her abnormal tall and thin features with the items over her face coming for him. And he did not linger but crawled for the door and opened it.

There awaited yet another phantom, another woman, though not so easily recognized. She was wearing a pink sweater that lit up the otherwise gray atmosphere. Stood with hands on each knee, bent down with her mouth agape, as if frozen in shock.

"You have to show will!" the woman screamed at the floor, "Will, will, will."

And with that, the phantoms disappeared. The walls resumed their erect and solid guard. The painful throbbing reappearing.

His body was slick with vomit and starting up the spasms again by the stench. Sent out a mouthful of yellow-green acid.

Giddily, he began crawling away from the filth, stripping out of the clothes, and kept on crawling out of the bedroom, closing the door.

He lay down outside, pressing a hand tight at each side of his skull, taking some of the pain away, and thought, will? Show will. Show will to what? of what?

You have seen the performance now you give your opinion, an observers criticism.

What?

He shook himself out of it. The thought having glided through on a calm steady voice, even made sense until senses returned.

And then before he knew it, it made sense again as a new stream coursed through. This time he did not have the strength to fight the current. Flowed with it, drowned in it.

Have to show our despise for the walls of reality. Show our despise for the people who's too fucking blind or just too fucking stupid to see how pointless it is.

His pain made some profound turn and become fury over the notion.

And the voice let him back in control now that it had steered him in the direction it wanted him.

Need to show that I'm not apart of their banalities.

But how? his mind raced, his pain and anger raced. Both carried on the current of the boiling river of intensity, flowing together as one. Suffering and apoplectic rage in one climatic condition. Offering a bizarre conclusion: he had to eliminate one of the players. Show just how much he hated them.

The peak of wrath did not fade, nor crack, letting some sliver of sense in. Quite the reverse. It grew stronger. And because of the marriage each beat of pain spread out to intensify it further. Leaving him in a frenzy of fury.

He stood up. The heart of his fit thundering red bolts through him. He let out a deep scream of irritation, challenging the beating by hastily stomping into the bedroom. Pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweater, which he managed to take on inside out. Hissed with laughter, eyes brimming with tears and kicked over the night stand beside him, ripping down a picture and smashed its glass surface over it.

His fatigue body, which by now had gone quite some time with neither much of sleep nor food, so full of vital animosity filling every limb he was sure he`d beat himself to a bloody pulp before anyone else.

But he went out, murder on his mind.

It was about six in the morning and still dark enough for the street lamps to be on.

In his high of hostility he was sure he`d always played with the thought of murder, ending the existence of one of his fellow man. See the purity of a life running out in, and by, his hands. For the hate...or just the pleasure.

His head now filled with all the soothing images of torture anguish and murder. The heart pumping it out.

Yes, he thought smiling, yes he would most likely enjoy every second of it. Would probably not be able to stop once the fun had started.

The smile developed to a full blown grin. Grinning for himself, at himself and certainly to himself, Lance Blix, the Human Hater.

He found an alley to hide in, not far from where he lived. Standing there behind a large dumpster, armed with a foot long metal pipe.

He was soon presented to his victim. An elderly man came his way.

The Human Hater looked in all directions, there was neither traffic nor any sign of potential witnesses. It was meant to be then. If he was to show his hate, show his will, it had to be now, had to be with the help of this man.

He inhaled deeply, his whole system trembling with anticipation.

When the man had passed him by a few strides, he tip-toed out from hiding. Lifted the pipe in a chopping position and ran after him. Leaping the last few strides, bridging the remaining distance with the pipe.

A hard hit meeting the mans gray-haired head with a echoing cracking sound.

Lance had expected the man to go straight down, uttering a scream or two. And then perhaps use him to let out more anger. Instead, however, the man stumbled over to the side of the curb, where he stood staggering for balance.

He stared at Lance with big white eyes. His open mouth as a perfect O. His expression something like wonder, puzzlement of what had happened, why it had happened.

Then he started making low sobbing noises as he saw the blood dripping down his forehead. His hands and fingers were playing in the air.

The panic and confusion the man displayed forced a rude and sudden awakening. Draining Lance of all rage. Abandoning him in turmoil. He`d somehow failed to separate what had streamed in. Opened a crack in a wall where the flood barged out drowning him. Intensifying, magnifying, all what he felt.

Was that where his obsession had gone? Gathering somewhere and exploding when stepped on, emotional mines. Something in him pushed him on it?

Lance dropped the pipe. No...no...no.

"I`m sorry," he whispered so low he could barley hear it himself. Then he ran and ran. Ran until he collapsed inside his apartment by the front door.

The walls, the floor and the ceiling were pulsing again. His head beat in such pain he could barley see them. Chest aching, though not even uncomfortable in contrast.

He sat himself up, dizzy. Arms embracing and drawing his knees up to his chest.

In a last aftermath of rage (this time toward it) he beat his head against the door, stabbed by a white flash and a hollow sound.

"How`s that?" he demanded, tears running down his face. "How`s that?"

He beat it again and again, beat it until he passed out. Finding himself back on the floor. Tried to sit up, but unconsciousness gripped him afresh.

He lay looking up. His stomach rolling over itself constantly and occasional spasms jerked at him, gaping open his mouth and making dry noises. While the rest of his face was slack, staring into the dark room.

I`m going insane, he thought, I`m really loosing my mind... And as though on a cue to this thought he saw it. He saw it. Oh dear good God, he saw it.

They were all staring at him. All of them.

From the pulsing walls, the Watchers.

Looking at him with looks of blame, looks of dismay. Wasn`t He the Human Hater? one of the Watchers hollered in his head, eh? And he couldn`t even execute, end, the life of one of the species he claimed to boast so much hate for?

No...loosing his mind.

This had lost all its earlier panic, all its meaning, just an excuse now.

But the Watchers said there were no excuses.

No, of course, there aren’t, he agreed.

And so the pulsing walls started to come closer, the Watchers started to approach him with their blaming looks. Started to press themselves against him, around him, press with their glares. Which also owned disappointment. Obviously disappointment. They wanted to see it too. But now there would be no revelations forthcoming would there? Because Lance couldn't do anything fucking right, NOW COULD HE?

Lance lost his breath. They stole the air around him with their pressuring.

He emptied his bowels in panic. Desperately trying to inhale but couldn't get a sliver of air into his compressed lungs.

They held it away.

Lance managed to get to his feet, reeling for balance on the pulsing floor. Bent over himself still trying hopelessly to draw some air. But became only choking, grunting sounds. His face filled with hot throbbing blood, saliva ran from his gaping mouth. His vision blurred.

Despite this crippling he managed to attacked them. Attacked the Watchers and blamers who wanted to suffocate him.

Tore down the books, shelves, paintings and all other objects hanging on the walls in the lounge. Opened the door to the bedroom and threw it all in there.

Then pulled and dragged the furniture in as well, till there was nothing left in the lounge. Until it was empty.

Lance closed the door leaning against it, dizzy of oxygen loss, scanning the room.

There was one thing missing.

He got hold of some white sheets and nailed them onto the wall, covering the windows to the world.

Then, and only then, did he sit himself down in the middle of the room looking at the naked white walls.

Lance let out a sigh and lay down. The pressure was gone. It felt like a knot had been loosened, a heavy weight relived from his whole torso.

Warm sluggish excrement slid and stuck down his tights. No matter. All he cared for now was to just lay here and let his gaze float with nothing but nothing to claim and distract its attention, just sink into the white nothingness.

He was sitting when he came to it.

The white walls were still pulsing. His head was not. Or at least so little that after the suffering he`d been through this small pain was nothing.

Did it mean the blankness of his mind's walls (where also everything had been torn down and hidden) were here? Had he entered himself?

He saw two identical leather belts on the floor in front of him. Lying completely on line with each other.

Lance reached out to fetch one, to get a better look. As his hand approached it however, it seemed as though his proximity gave it life. Rose its head to meet him. And eagerly started to make its way up his forearm. The second followed its example. Dragging themselves upward with serpentine and sinuous movements. One lying its body around his eyes and ears, locking itself at the back of his head. The other around his mouth.

He was in a breathless, silent darkness.

Then they started to pull. So much their edges cut into his skin, drawing blood. It dripped down his face.

His head filled with a buzzing sound alongside the beats of his steadily quickening heart. His cranium creaked, threatening to burst at any given moment.

Then, a red light spread in the darkness, exploding, and he fell to the floor, sank into the floor, swallowed by it.

The leather belts vanished.

He opened his eyes, blinking a few times to clear off dots and get them in focus. When they were, he saw that he was lying on a stage. Thick purple carpets on either side, and before him were rows of empty red seats.

The spectator was now the point of attraction.

A voice spoke, a voice filling the room, the air and his head.

"Where are you?"

"What?"

"Who are you?"

He had no wish to participate in these absurdities, but the answer fell off his lips nevertheless.

"Lance, Lance Blix."

It was quiet for a moment, then repeated the first question.

"Where are you, Blix?"

"A theatre, I`m on the stage of a theatre."

"No, no, no. You are here inside me and I-"

It paused for a moment.

"And I Blix, I am you. Now lets try again shall we?"

"Of course," Lance insisted.

"Who are Lance Blix, if I am you?"

"I...I," who the hell was he? he had it on the tip of his tongue. But who`s tongue? It stood still for a moment then, "I`m you," he said tasting it, nodding fiercely and yelled on the top of his voice "I am you. I am you and you are me."

He applauded himself, something which the room of course, joined in on. He could feel it smile to himself.

The power was an entity made by pure will, pure craving, pure ambition. Could not, however, be shaped by it. Always, always a spectator, watching, waiting and learning from the observing, never a performer.

But then, he had wanted the spectator to join in on the performance. And so it shaped its acting after him, after his pure talent. Letting his intensity build in him. Let it be the clock that for each tick brought it a step closer to exploding and let it be the sleeping beast that gathered its strength to be awoken and have its fit of wrath. Because only from that vehemence, only from that rage, could it pick out the pure fruits.

He had wanted to become the power, not its master, and so it turned the table and shaped itself by his being. But not his whole self just some fruitful parts of his nature, carefully chosen and brought to a peak of intensity. And when finished with the harvesting he would merely be an echo of the seeds it had planted from his body of thoughts.

And now, he`d opened the doorway to the memory of it. His new self. Where it had been knocking so constantly to come in. The carpet had been drawn and the performance of being and not being had started again.

He did not move.

His head wasn't throbbing anymore.

Lance remembered it all now. He had the being of Stora inside him. It hadn`t physically hid that time she`d found it. If the will was strong enough there was the memory, the echo, which could breed a knew one. And with her yearning to be out in the world, she had.

But in her, however, it had been more solid and therefor consumed the solid. Whereas now, of course, since Lance had made it mind... It would feed on it.

Something, a soft sound, claimed his attention. Coming from the wall next to the bathroom.

Again, it was there.

Cautiously Lance crawled toward it. But was brought to a halt after a yard. The air was thick and charged with something.

The sound came again, and this time he could feel it. Carried on a cool breath that erected the hair on his arms and neck. With a hammering heart, he reversed to the former spot.

He saw that the wall grew outward. Throwing narrow shadows around it.

A voice penetrated.

"...Let it...go, Lance." The voice echoed sharply in the empty room.

Although he knew very well where it came from he had to turn around scanning the whole room to make sure it was not someone else that had uttered it. Or more of this phenomena taking place. It was not, as far as he could tell.

"Who`s there?"

"Just let...it go. It`s no use..."

The wall bulged out far enough to form the body of a man, like seeing someone lying beneath a white sheet.

Lance kicked with his legs and walked with his palms, pressing the remains of dry shit as he backed up to the wall behind him.

"It will only haul out...things. More time. More pain. More suffering... Now do you want that Lance? Do you want more pain?" it asked between wet deep breaths.

"No," Lance burst out, as much appeal on his voice as though it was holding him at gun-point and wondered if it perhaps should pull the trigger.

"Then do as I say."

"What?"

"...Let go?"

"What?"

"The other being, let go of it."

He covered his face with hands and shook it. Then after some time:

"Where is it?"

"Its around you, waiting for you to merge with it. Now let it in...drown in it. Become it, so it can become me, and you me."

"...I...I don`t want to become you...I want to be myself."

"A little late for that I`m afraid."

The wall was sucked tight enough around its body to imitate skin. Showing, nose, sockets, chin; every feature of a face.

"Who are you?"

It let out a breath that could be a sigh.

"Haven`t we been over this?"

"The voice? In the theatre?"

"And this is me, seeping through the walls of your mind. But it doesn't have to be like this... It could be over in a heart beat. The walls I`m pressing through are the being. Now all you have to do is tear them down?"

"No, no, no."

"Don`t be a-"

"Shut up, just shut the fuck up!"

It laughed.

"Yeah, that`s it. Fill me with that rage. Fill me Lance!"

Lance sensed that it came streaming in with the anger. He tried to calm, but it held the ire at bay. Holding the door open, trying to make him advance it. And he could feel its heart beat again. Feel it nourishing and plucking out seeds from the passion he created.

He won the struggle this time however. Didn`t let it flow in, managed to keep the anger from rising, just held it where it was. And disappointed, it finally sank back.

"Oh, make no mistake. We`re gonna have some fun me and, well..."

He was afraid to move, afraid to breathe and afraid to think. He felt as though standing on some narrow path above an endless void. One wrong step and it`d be all over.

And it would at some point break through the shield of the other being and push him over the edge. He could sense its hunger for evolving.

Then what? Not really a question of what would happen to him, that too of course, but what would this thing do, just what the hell was it capable of doing?

He was holding his hands over his ears to shut out its voice (it talked in his head as well, but the other being made it only incoherent whispers) his face and eyes covered by his knees.

Soon, he felt his bladder pressing. He had to urinate, had to go to the bathroom. But was unsure of the movements to do this, and so delayed it.

A part of him told him to just let it flow as it pleased. He was after all covered in both shit and vomit so why start being concerned with such?

But reasoned responded that he couldn't just sit like this for all time either. At some point he would have to move.

He had to...had to plot something. Try and stop it somehow...

And here, not noticing that it was afoot, he started to build up a healthy irritation.

It had rigged the whole damn thing. The walls which he`d searched, it had made him search them; to tear down the being. So it could wait until it had what it needed from him, the fruits, and just take over. His full bladder ached, ached and squeezed and pressed. Couldn't even go empty it because of the parasite.

He felt the annoyance, felt it was back with as much pressure as the bladder, its heart beat rising. And despite his efforts to struggle to stay in control, it was not to be denied its will this time. It just felt too good to stop, so he let it climax.

Lance jerked his head up, staring at it with a contorting, shivering face, clenching his teeth and breathing with rapid hisses between them.

Its body had visible skin color beneath the white now.

He stood up, staggering and breathing hard with rage.

"Yeah, come out with it Lance, let it all out."

He saw lips moving beneath.

"SHUT UP!"

"That`s the spirit!"

As he approached, the white of the wall melted in by the sockets, unveiling wet and watchful black eyes.

Lance ran over, using the speed to lend him all the force and momentum he could carry, and beat his fist at its hard face.

His right hand exploded in agony, sending waves of pain up his arm. Which only helped to infuriate him further. So much he lost control over his bladder. Urine streamed down his thighs, warm and itching against his skin. He kept beating and kicking the thing in the wall, pants glued to his legs, his feet splashing in the pool of piss. The discomfort fuelling him until he was back in the frenzy.

He, it, heard someone coming up the stairs.

He stumbled toward the front door. With a right foot that felt broken, right hand the same. Of course, this couldn't mean less to him at the moment.

He looked through the peephole and saw his neighbor (a woman in her mid fifties) coming down the corridor with a bag of groceries in each hand. His door was in the far end with view over the whole corridor.

She put the bags down outside the door to the left of his. And when she started to search for her keys he ripped the door open. Wanted to let out a savage shriek, but suppressed the urge with a hiss. She managed to turn half-way around before he leaped at her. His good hand cupping the back of her skull, and, in its side way position, beat it with a solid thump in the door. Smudging the golden 422 sign with blood and some locks of gray hair.

She fell on the bags. Causing a bottle to go in the floor with a thick boom echoing down the hall.

The woman sat there making half-hearted attempts on getting her legs to push her up, pedaling slowly on the floor that was alive with the whispering, sizzling, soda. Her arms were spread, hands climbing the frames of the door.

The woman stared up at him making low snoring noises.

Though in utter confusion, she didn't really seem scared, rather mad. If she`d tried to punch him, he wouldn't been much surprised.

She managed to get a little way up, but the progress was then ended by slipping in a salad bar and fell back down. Beating her head against the door again, smearing it with a trail of blood.

In aggressive eagerness, he gripped both of her ankles, albeit his right hand wouldn't fold properly so he used thumb and fingers like pliers, and dragged her into his white room. One of the bags got under her and followed. The rest he went out and kicked in after them, then closed the door.

The woman slowly crawled into the room on her back, staring up at him beneath wet gray hair. She made no sounds other than harsh rapid breaths from a tightly drawn mouth, her chins vibrating.

He went over to her and sat himself down on her abdomen. The feeling of his wet pants, cooling against his skin, made him utter a fresh growling hiss of annoyance.

"Yeah!" he yelled from both the wall and his mouth.

He felt something emerging from the woman. The air between them thickening. It tugged at him. Floating from her and up to him. It was her mind, her soul, pulling in him, acting as though he was magnetic to it. Caressing with the wish of penetrating, with the wish of becoming one. And that, by all means, was about to be fulfilled.

On a heavy breath he allowed himself to let out a savage yelp of excitement, took a handful of gray hair from each side of her head and started to beat it against the floor, again and again and again. Had to beat every last drop of life out of her flesh for her being to leave it.

And it did.

The being that was stretched between them flew into him, like a rubber-band, into his chest with a soft jerk.

He was, without taking notice of it, in the name of pure pleasure, still beating her head against the floor.

He let it drop into the river of blood and hair. And just sat there on her corpse for a long time, enjoying the sensation of her circulating him, gradually merging. Increasing his strength and knowledge. Recreating her mind to power, his power.

It was then pulled back behind the shield of the being, and he returned.

Lance did as any person in a white walled cell would do, crawling up to a corner starting to rock. Looked at the body, shaking his head in disbelief.

The red river from her head ran all the way over to the other side of the room, so very, very red in all this whiteness.

Under the episode he had only witnessed it as a distant observer. Unable to effect events in any way. It had been in complete control. And now, grown even stronger.

"Well, I did say we were up for some fun, didn't I?" it uttered, making his shivering body jump.

He looked up. The white of the wall was dissolved in places, reviling patches of skin, reviling him.

"Did it feel good?...As she was recreated, as she became me, did it feel good?"

Lance closed his eyes, telling himself to stay completely indifferent. That was the trick, no emotions. God, he had killed someone, actually killed someone.

"Then stop it Lance, just become it. Let us all be one... Sooner or later you are going to loose it again. You know that, again and again. Until I'm strong enough to just rip it apart. So why wait?...Stop the misery. You can't get rid of me, I am you."

There was some truth to this, of course.

"Yes...Yes it is the truth," it agreed.

It will happen again, he thought.

"Again and again, it`s even easier now."

Stop the misery.

"Yes. Put an end to it."

So I will, he thought.

"Just drown in it."

Lance slowly got to his feet, leaning most of his weight against the heels, as his toes were tender and numb.

It read where his mind had been toward the exchange.

"Oh, don`t be moronic," it said exasperated "You`re not going to kill yourself."

"...You going stop me?"

"I don`t have to."

Lance stared at it. Stared at himself, squirming and wriggling in front of him.

He headed into the kitchen with direction for the knives. But, changed his mind. He had pills that would do the trick and a lot less painfully, he hoped.

And so emerged from the kitchen again and somewhat reluctantly passed it. It followed him with its black eyes and an amused look.

Lance closed the door behind him, meditating on the balance of indifference, facing the bathroom door still holding the handle. He took a deep breath and turned around, exhaling it in a shocked gasp as he was met by his reflection. Greasy black hair hung down in a pale face, eyes blood-shot and huge, with blue-black bags under them. Beneath those, a few days growth of bristles, and small dots of dried blood spattered all over. He looked far beyond a breakdown, sporting a good insanity.

Felt genuinely scared of seeing himself. Most because he couldn't really believe it was him, and that this maniac stranger would suddenly stretch out one of its bloody hands, drag him into the mirror and whatever bedlam was beyond. And he had good cause to be nervous too, had after all seen one of himself coming trough the wall, so who the hell knew?

About to open the medicine cabinet, he ceased the motion, thinking, would it be good enough?

Lance couldn't say for sure if this was an excuse (that he knew he wouldn't dare to commit suicide and stopped the pretence now. To not stand with the pills in hand, then choke and let it be right) or not. Was there not a better, not to mention a more rational, option available here? That of going back to the Naractus Empiria. So as to be sure it wouldn't manage to find a new vessel to perform its deeds.

His mind was still for a moment, then decided that was what he needed to do.

And with that, he set to the task of cleaning himself instead. Which was a slow and extremely delicate business that possessed great amounts of agony. As he was sore and stiff all over. His right side extremities were particularly painful. Nails were broken on his foot and a couple of toes seemed to have gone the same way. The knuckles on his hand were no longer in sight, drown in swelling.

His weary body, lacking both of sleep, substance, and most of his sanity, demanded he constantly stop what he was doing, lean over the sink and wait for dizziness and queasiness to fade. And during it all, it was also the task of holding his mind stable with calm.

He opened the medicine cabinet and found some cotton, bandages and painkillers.

Having washed off all shit, vomit, blood and urine, the dressing part remained. He`d have some trouble getting hold of clean clothes, given they were in his bedroom, so instead picked out what he needed from the basket by the washing machine. Which at least were a lot cleaner than what he`d stripped out off.

When finally finished and slowly exiting the bathroom, met by the sight of the mutilated body, it suddenly struck him just how horrendous this had been. It hadn't just been murder, it wasn't just flesh that had died here. It had actually consumed her very being, her soul. This, by all means, had to be the worst crime one could possibly commit.

Leaning himself up by the door frame he closed his eyes concentrating on getting all in control, his heart racing.

"And we`re going do it again, and again," it said flatly.

"No," Lance whispered casting a glance at it. It was only a couple feet to his left, its head turned in his direction.

"I`m going to end it now."

"The only thing you're going to do is go out there and kill, and kill and kill...Probably like it too. Swallow their souls and consume their pathetic persons."

It did plant a seed of doubt here, on the prospect of him going out among people. What if something happened, if he suddenly lost control?

On the other had they had proved that no safer in here.

He peered through the peephole, could see no one, and stepped out.

"Gonna do some killin’," it yelled as he closed the door.

The brown spillage of soda was still on the floor, only drawn out some with a half dozen foot prints in it.

The blood on the door was dried. Having run down in fine lines from all three numbers.

Glad of the clean air, he inhaled deeply. Then started down the stairs, stepping with his heels on the edges of the steps so that his toes were without too much pressure.

He emerged and started coursing through them. Feeling as though dreaming. The whole scene of the bright day in the outside world utterly surreal, and so were the faces floating past him.

Lance was steeling himself, ready to produce a big grin if anyone stepped on his bad foot or bumped into him too hard, a big grin and perhaps bite his tongue, that should do it.

There was, however, no need for either. He found and boarded a cab and asked to be driven to Princewood.

"Princewood?" the man wondered.

"Yes."

The driver looked suspiciously at Lance`s pallid features. The hospital would probably have sounded a more fitting destination or the local asylum.

"The forest?"

"Yes."

And with that, they were off.

His system was an odd place to be. It felt full of presence’s, of which he seemed only to be lying on the surface of, as though he was merely the skin. The other being the flesh and the power the heart. Pulsing its craving through the veins of the flesh, ready to stream out the moment the skin broke.

At least the driver did not infuriate him in any way, and he soon found himself paying the man, hurrying out.

He stood in the parking lot at Princewood, where they`d come in ignorance only a number of days earlier.

A high whisper seeped into his head, he could make no sense of the words, and glad of it.

Lance started in on the path, through the meadow and to the lake.

Of course, his recollection of where the creatures had brought him was vague, of the place they had entered, none. But he nourished the hope that they would hear his pleading and come out to fetch him. So he began trekking through the woods with random directions, yelling his throat raw and voice hoarse, limbs aching and feet in agony.

His pleadings went unheard or ignored, none came to his aid.

There was no point returning to the apartment, here at least he had a chance for redeeming, and less capable of mischief. So he kept on wandering, lost and soon soaking wet by a cold down pour.

Darkness came, bringing neither stars, nor moon.

He was about to try and find some means of shelter when he became aware of the lights of a small house laying at the edge of the woods where the wheat fields began. Lance didn't much care, but the power did. It started emerging. Lance tried holding back the emotions but it didn't help. Its emotions broke through and so did its voice.

"We out killin’?"

Sam sat by the kitchen table, staring down at the plate of fish with a small grimace. It wasn't the contents of the meal that inspired it but the fact of it being there. Fish on Thursday, every Thursday. That was the problem, the routine of it. His life was filled with these exact same routines, from one days bathroom visits to the next. Everything. Even the fact of him sitting here thinking about it was a damn routine.

It wasn’t by choice, but either a subconscious need or circumstance. He tried to show some spontaneous sides from time to time, but for some reason, it just didn`t work, spontaneous acts became only a change within the routine.

He was sixty-seven years old now, and he supposed most folks at that age had their choirs worked into their withering systems. What irritated him, however, was that his life now was pretty much as eventful as it had been at adolescents. He wouldn't be surprised if he`d been sitting like this, mourning over his dull life in front of a plate with fish, some fifty odd years ago.

He`d read somewhere that most men regretted, and cursed, the lives they'd led at their death-bed's. Grimly wondered what his would look like, though, thinking of it, he`d probably have to go through seven or eight heart-attacks just to work it in.

Sam was about to start eating, fork half-way to his moth, when the door bell rang. He had few visitors out here and was momentarily stunned. Wondering what the hell had gotten into the phone. He hauled himself to his feet with help from the counter. Crossed the kitchen and into the hallway to the front door.

He could have found no suiting way to describe what he felt as he was presented to his summoner. The mans nature was that of an extremely powerful one, so much so he was overcome with fright and awe in equal measure. The intertwined emotion creeping up his spine and clung to his chest. Hanging so heavy he could barley draw breath.

Somehow managed to clear his throat and spit out the greeting he`d come to the door with, "May I help you?" It was such an absurd question he should have ended it with a short laughing shrug at his stupidity.

The man murmured something unintelligible by way of reply. He was wearing a gray shirt, dark and sodden by rain. His face full of twitches, the skin sickly pale. Above the sunken cheeks stared eyes so black the night behind seemed bright. And with such depth he was sure watching them for too long would drown him.

The man suddenly gripped the door with a white bandaged hand, jerking it out of Sam's hold.

Sam reversed a few steps. Swallowing from a dry mouth three, four, times in a row. Numb with horror and wonder of what it was that climbed in his doorway.

He hadn't thought himself to be such a coward, but the realization came when suddenly his legs stopped reversing and folded up beneath him, finding himself sitting on the floor with prayer streaming up his throat.

The man kept approaching.

Sam closed his eyes, only to find the suspense of the blindness worst. So he tried a half-way agreement, squinting. And through the slits was served the vision of the man leaping at him. Sending both in the floor. Breath and prayer exploding out of him. He had time to fill his lungs once before the mans hands were about his throat, closing it.

Sam's head immediately filled with a bursting sensation, hot blood mounting head and face. His Adam’s apple working crazily under the grip in the breathless throat, heart thundering in the pressure.

With slow and leaded hands he made a hopeless attempt to free himself of the grip. But there was no freedom forthcoming. He after all lay down and the man sat, pressing all his weight onto the hands.

He stared up at the shivering pale face and black eyes, from a blurred, watering and pulsing vision. Even his thoughts felt as though pulsing. No, something was pulling in them. And then for a brief moment he felt himself, his life and thoughts, flowing out. Flowing into the hands pressing at his throat, could feel himself in the mans flesh.

A heartbeat later it was over. He was drawn back in his body. The hands had suddenly let go (did he not even feel a slight hint of disappointment from this fact?) and the man whispered on a soft voice, "Please kill me. You...have to kill me."

White eyeballs were visible behind the blackness, looking out with despair from beneath a shadowy carpet.

The man had been sitting with both knees on his chest, but now slid off and hit the floor to Sam's left, lying completely still.

Drawing breath down his aching throat and swallowing constantly he glanced at the gaping door and the darkness of the night which it introduced. Then back at the being knotted up on the floor beside him, still with his feet on Sam’s abdomen.

Sam understood little of the episode that had just enfolded, though gathered enough to comprehend the man was possessed by something (from which the power he felt sprang) and wanted to die because of it.

He did not have the strength to fled for the door, the best he could make of an escape was crawling into the kitchen, with complaint and agony from every limb.

If he just didn't move. Not a finger, not a muscle. Just kept all slack an avoided all motion, just lay absolutely still.

But he suddenly realized this plan was already failing, everything was on the move. His body rose to its feet. He had lost all control over it.

Lance had no idea how he`d managed to regain it earlier, but knew well enough that it was not easily repeated.

He was heading into the kitchen he saw. Where the man sat under the table, pressing himself up against the counter. His bald head, only with white hair on each side, slowly going from side to side. Lance`s body hunched down to see that the man had armed himself with a knife. Of which was held in both hands between his legs, waving.

The man mumbled something of not being able to do it, just couldn't do it.

It took his word for it. Ignoring the weapon, excepting him to drop it from the shivering hands. And leaning a bit forward delivered a blow. Using the wounded right hand, making patches of fresh blood spread over the white bandage.

The mans head was knocked into the counter. And it turned out he could do it after all. Most likely an ignorant mechanism to protect himself from the assault. The hands and knife jumped up finding their way to the side of his throat. The blade sliding in with almost half of its length.

He glanced down at it. It vibrated more violently here than in the hands that had planted it. The neck muscles were racing, blood sprouted and spattered everywhere as a result.

It retreated and let Lance back in.

There was an intense burning from the intrusion of the metal. Fluid overflowing both inside and out. His throat hopelessly trying to handle the fluid by swallowing. Then started coughing. Tasted the salt blood as it splashed out his mouth.

The motions made the blade widen the wound.

Lance fell to the floor, his hands automatically going up to the wet throat, desperately trying to prevent his life from gushing out.

He felt the power doing something that made his heart go more regularly.

Lance was having none of it however, and pressed against it. Determined that this was his flesh and welcomed the heart to take a well deserved retirement after forty-seven years of fine service as his organ.

He welcomed death.

And felt the power loosing whatever grip it`d had.

It started seeping out instead. And both he and the other being were drawn out with it. Because like it or not, he was in those emotions it had harvested, and he was in the being of him on the wall.

All three hung over the dead flesh. And Death came to collect them. Souls and powers to the Azolom`e Cowoze or the Naractus Empiria.

Death was always a new being. Man, woman or creature. It was all the people with power dying in this moment. These features were not blinked through like still framed film, or anything that civilized. They grew out of each other. In a grotesque fashion of oozing through the pores, folding out of all body openings. Letting him glimpse a fragment of one creature before a new infiltrated its flesh and changed it.

The power meanwhile, separated with them as Death embraced him. And Lance was torn in both directions.

There was no way to explain the sensation. It was as vague as the connecting gap between a beginning and a end.

He was split from himself.

The part of him in the wall was torn off.

In return the other being tried to fill the hole.

The power entered the man.

Lance was swallowed by Death.

He was naked. This naked body was free from both wounds and pains. Lance had dreamt up this flesh. Dreamt it up by the memory of how it felt. The whole process had gone extremely fast, the feeling no greater than that of a limb waking up after having fallen asleep. And now as though the whole body woke up. The heart started beating and blood flowed tingly from foot to scalp.

Then after the body was intact, the merging with the being began.

Like his mind was so much clear water that drops of blood now splashed into. The red fluid spreading and mingling, exploding, with alien thoughts and possibilities.

The being, however, did not come in such a large quantity that it transformed him completely, the water could still be seen for what it had been. His nature the same, but his place in it utterly different.

What of his personality that evolved was a much greater perspective, his intellect stretched to a vaster domain with endless of hidden knowledge. Knowledge coming from a puzzle of all the different personalities that had made the being. Memories and experiences that in a profound way changed his way of seeing things. Pieces of other peoples understanding, puzzled into his. Connecting and reinventing him to a person who could have lived the eventful life of a few hundred years. Seen the way of the world from the ugly and the beautiful, the killer and the clown, from the silver spoon to the shovel, from the sick to the vital, the victim to the perpetrator.

Pieces of all seasons wrapped in one, serving him the greatest wisdom and understanding there could be, having experienced them, their stories.

As the power entered Sam he was led on a trip through its mind, snatching up fragments from its body of thoughts.

Darkness surrounded him. Not a passive darkness, it was with life in every particle. Men, women, animals and other creatures he had no name for. All bound together as formless shadowy figures. Displaying the memory of the flesh they had once occupied, clinging to the echo of once having been. They were the ghosts of ghosts with no one to hunt but themselves, and doing so just to keep the memories of an own existence alive. Reflections of minds trying to grasp what they were and had been, out of reality, out of time.

And he understood that here.

Reality was a trap; indeed the trap.

Mind had created it to become solid. It had created flesh. And in that mass of frustration mans new nature sprang. And all it had been was separated in the making.

The pieces:

Dreams and Death.

Magic and Life.

Creativity and Love.

This was the sole answer: to unravel the flesh holding them separated and making them one again; again be mind in an existence beyond time, beyond reality.

Here in the black heart of experiences, in the anatomy of the power, he saw it all so clear. Who would have known brutality and sentiment to walk hand in hand? That it was pieces of what needed to be as one.

The creativity that tried to remake this oneness, to gather its unity in stories of romance and violence. Of life and death. Dreams of love. Love for death. And all dreaming of life.

This was the last thought in its inspiration.

The merging started.

It melted into his flesh, and soon it would melt into his being. So they could be one, so he could become it. This thought didn't seem appalling at all, quite the reverse, just being...seemed just right.

With every breath that promise advanced to fulfillment.

"And when we become stronger," the voice of the power said "we won't need this flesh to cover us, we'll departure this primitive state, and the darkness you saw, the darkness you'll be, will bleed into the night, become the creeping darkness, become a living night."

Sam thought dreamily of the prospect of being everywhere.

"Everywhere, in everything," the voice promised.

But that broke the chain of thoughts, as it suddenly became clear to him that the reason for this conversation was just to distract. Of course it didn't care whether he liked the prospect or not. He`d have no choice in the matter as soon as it was completed. He was just a vessel. Which the parasite passenger tried to keep calm as it took over the steering, so as to keep him from mutiny and irrationally actions that could cripple its temporarily means of transport.

This enraged him enough to push out the chair next to him and crawl out from under the table. He had to stop it while he still was capable of doing so. The fact that he still was (with thought of its strength) was that flesh, his flesh, was made of him, every particle. It might be primitive, but it was just as stubborn and needed persistence to change to a new master. Sam couldn't let that happen.

Guilty hate filled and raced through his system. Most of this fury springing from the fact that he had, and still did feel seduced by the offer of being apart of it.

He sensed it knew his thoughts, sensed he had precious little time before it took over. And so dragged himself up far enough to search the surface of the counter with his hand. Got hold of a small fish knife which he griped and fell back down.

The parasite tightened his thought capacity in protest of what he was in the act of doing.

Although he had a hard time making his wit unfold in patterns of coherence, he managed to hold onto the knife and rise it. Then let it fall to his chest.

His naked mind had for the last moments concerned itself with only pouring up one image, that of the dark kitchen. The darkness of which floated about in divided movements, like veils. And in their midst a naked man was levitated, hanging in the air with arms and legs spread, snakes of the darkness coiling around his skin.

Then the pain from the knife washed over him like cold water, washing away the vision, or perhaps drawing his sight back from another state.

The knife for all it boasted of streaming sticking pain, had not gone deep. His shirt was open and he saw the black-handled knife standing in the center of the chest, just bellow his breasts, puncturing the white flesh.

Sam griped hold around it. Biting his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, and pulled it out. Which was difficult despite its short penetration. Felt as though the bones and muscles were gripping the other end arresting it.

Fuelled by a last chance of spontaneous creativity. He took hold of his left breast, a handful of it, and brought the knife to it. Bowed his neck up to see the splendor, muscles trembling. Then cut.

Sam shrieked in pain and triumph.

It had only cut half-way, however, the blade laying in the pocket of flesh. So he gave it a fresh cut, still in the scream he had begun, and oh God in heaven the whole breast went off. Separating the handful of fat from his chest, feeling the nipple against his palm. Warm blood streaming down his shoulders and neck.

Though he fainted three times, ambitious anger lent him sufficient strength to manage the disconnecting of the second breast.

He died a very proud man.

It was not only his psyche that underwent changes.

Ordinarily the being would not have advanced the anatomy in any way, just the mind. But since mind here made flesh and his mind had been in for considerable changes, his new persona effected his person.

It felt as though every organ in his body wanted to go each their way, pulling in each direction. He grew and swelled all over. However, it didn't seem his bone structure and flesh was going to follow the progress of his innards. His brain creaking at his skull, eyes bulging and pumping in their sockets, heart feeling like an over-blown balloon compressed and pounding at his chest.

If he`d ever wondered what the Hulk felt like during his transformation, he now had some insight.

The bones started to grow, at this point he lay sprawled on the hard brown earth, screaming with evolving lung capacity. Even though it were mere moments since he`d dreamt up this body the pain was as good as his own. Oh yeah he felt pain. Felt as if this whole body was pain, a living throbbing being.

The teeth didn`t manage to follow, they slowly came sliding out of the gums with long, ripping, roots. Some emerged flying, chased by tails of blood. His nails cracking open as well.

Joining teeth and nails disability to grow the very skin about him decided it wanted none of this. And so ripped open. A rift grew from forehead to the tip of his nose, then split apart, fluid drowning his enlarged eye-balls.

All of a sudden the pain subsided. He was still conscious and still under metamorphous, but all anguish gone. Like a deep hush after, or rather during, the storm. And the only thing he really felt now was the pressure as he slough his skin to grow.

He helped it off, tore it off.

Every part of him pulsed in a slow powerful heartbeat.

Lance lay in a pool of blood and skin.

The blood was sucked in by his new flesh.

He slowly rose from the pool, finding the distance down to his feet almost twice as far as it had been.

The new flesh was hard, but still as flexible as it had been, if not more. And despite seize and height, his limbs felt lighter to lift and move.

For the first time since his arrival here, he scanned his surroundings. He was in a desert land. Behind him and to both sides only flat brown earth to be seen, no objects. The ground on the horizon, however, was shining with extreme yellow brilliance. Seeming like fluid; a liquid sun.

The white skies above were solid enough to reflect the yellow of the ground.

Lance started toward it.

It turned out to stretch over quite some distance. He could barley make out that it ended in the same brown land ahead and to either side.

He sat himself down on the shore of this golden sea.

Its substance appearance was not easily judged. In a most superficial view it did, as he`d observed, look as though the sun had melted, and drawn with it some clouds in the fall, which now were swimming around in its body. But when studied with a more careful eye (if one could due to the brightness) there appeared to be phantoms moving in it. No, not moving in it, they were it.

And not ignorant to his presence, nor passive, he felt it trying to draw him nearer its edge.

This was the being the white man had talked of, the shaman. And, of course, much of what now made Lance, sourced from this being. And an equal part wanted to just dive in.

As he studied it, he noticed himself reflected on the surface. He was very big, a giant. Flesh and bones had grown together. Melted to one mass. The new flesh had a dark red color, mixed with spiraling whiteness from of the bones. His head and face looking like a skeleton surfacing a sea of flesh. With deep bony sockets and a huge skull.

It now broke in a grin of amusement.

Because Sam had managed to kill himself before the power merged with his mind, he floated out of the body, unchanged by it.

In this fleshless state he was merely a being of thoughts. He could see no sign of his substance. At least he knew he was no see through duplicate movie ghost. Because he saw in all directions at once. And therefor felt like he was round, that his vision had been folded up. He was seeing this with his thoughts. But however strange this new state was, it didn`t really feel new. In a profound and inexpressible way it felt curiously natural.

He floated upward, approaching the ceiling. At the same time as he looked down at the floor, at the mess of flesh and blood he`d once hosted. Sam also saw it still inside. Surrounding the corpse in an aura so black it was barley visible beneath.

Looking at it, and he had precious little choice in the matter, his system filled with a sensation of doomed dread, fright with no hope. If he`d had eyes he would have closed them, if the freedom of movement was a possibility he`d have fled. As the case was he couldn't do either.

He steadily approached the ceiling. Wondering if he would he be hanging under it like a stranded helium balloon. The answer came soon and no, instead he sank into it, as if sinking into the surface of water. Though obviously vice versa, he was of the insubstantial matter.

Just before he was out of the room, he saw the entity creating movements from the dead body.

Then he was looking down at the roof of his house and up at the black skies.

He was flying, floating, just above the crown of trees, through the air, in the air, and not spreading even though apart of it.

His substance of thoughts owning the body of where he was. The revelation of this was quite overwhelming. Would he with time forget his human mind which the flesh had shaped. And the familiarity felt in this state be reviled with another bank of memories? Perhaps be apart of everything. This wind that would be breathed by animals and humans. Apart of the air as it was inhaled and apart of the being exhaling it, in the wind as it shook the trees, in the trees as they shook.

Lance was still sitting by the shore, travelling in his new intellect.

His memories were uncannily accurate, with all the smallest details. He could remember every sentence, could in fact return and relive every vivid second of his life. And when doing this, when swimming in his mind, he got drawn so deep into himself it felt as the dreams had before. Only he had full control over what was being conjured.

There was so much to be explored. He knew now of other worlds, the worlds where the creatures of the Naractus Empiria came from. Lance saw these worlds in his mind’s eye, layer upon layer, stairs of worlds. Saw them as wide mountains on top of each other, surrounded by lights and colors. And he was in one of them now (or half-way there) earth was a step. From here one could both travel up and down.

The fact of this brought some obvious explanations: that those two neighbor steps had caused quite some confusion throughout human history. As they had been glimpsed, and sensed, and described by most cultures.

Prophets had seen the world above, of which boasted a species whose features had inspired awe in its divinity, and reasoned with their dogma that a place producing such creatures was surly a paradise. And the world below had been glimpsed, whose races of such appalling and grotesque appearances it had, of course, been judged and categorized by the narrow sighted earthlings as evil; a hell.

But worlds followed both upward and downward.

There were, of course, those who had seen this truth and claimed it to be so, but for most, their statements had been rejected as ludicrous and plain ungratefulness.

The visions were broken here by seeing drops of the sea jumping up, raining in reverse. Then just hung there in mid air, a yard above the surface, defying gravity. Their drop bodies looking like small liquid creatures.

He raised his right arm toward them, surprised both at how easy it went up and how far.

They made no movement for some time. Then one slowly approached as though shy. It met his middle finger-tip, feeling like a cold sucking mouth.

No sooner had it met him then it was gone, penetrated the finger, spreading, exploding, through his system. Circulating with hunger, making the water redder. And suddenly he saw that they were all coming, a storm of drops coming his way, and more still rose from the sea.

He started crawling backward, with a vision of the whole sea finding it to lift its mass up to a gigantic wall wave and break over him if he stayed by its side tempting it.

The backing up, ceased the new drops from coming, they sank back down. But the once already on their way, found their target, meeting him all over. Finding his flesh, finding his mind. Making it more vivid, making the gap from who he had been greater.

A memory of this being's creator got jogged from the stream. From the shaman who had tricked his way into the Azolom`e Cowoze.

Palvin Sainatara.

He did not posses the powers of a great necromancer, or the knowledge of a shaman gained by study of the metaphysics. He had rather dubbed himself a warlock after stumbling upon a glimpse of knowledge, and grasped enough to nourish it into a fruitful obsession.

The memory Lance had entered, Palvin was walking in a cleft wounding through a mountain. Each wall a great many dozens of yards high, with the sky wedged between them in a blue tail. It was perhaps ten feet narrow.

Lance felt everything Palvin`s senses picked up (including the mans thoughts, of which were a somewhat chaotic mess, the one thing they spoke clearly of was urgency and anticipated excitement) from the wet shoes stomping along in the watery sodden sand, to the mans foul body odor.

The full salt air of the sea filled his lungs, filled his ears with the thundering booming echoes in the cleft as waves broke on the shore. And in the background seagulls shrieked.

Lance was just an observer of course, he couldn't control or move anything.

From the bank of Palvin`s thoughts the year seemed to be the early 1800s.

Palvin came out on the other side of the cleft, stopped there scanning the territory. No longer shielded by the walls of the mountain the wind was strong, crying in his ears.

The shoreline continued as far as he could see ahead. To his left the ground rose to grassy dunes. In the same direction, barley visible on the horizon and the only man made thing in sight, was a small hut. He climbed the slope and ran toward the hut.

Reaching it he rapped on the door a half dozen times. It took long enough to be answered for him to repeat the knocking.

A red headed woman opened it, inviting him into a stale darkness.

Palvin was surprised by the woman's age, he was here for her death bed after all, and she looked a little shy of twenty. He`d expected a crooked old woman with a large nose boasting a rich collection of warts. But, she was a witch after all, so she could most likely deceive appearance with little effort.

He let his eyes wander, inspecting the room, but made out little else than vague shadowy shapes. The only light was that of a pulsing wax candle on the table across the room, the rest of the interior pitch black. The windows were covered from the outside with shutters.

The witch escorted him toward the table, to a wooden bench behind it, made of a split tree. The table was of thin round branches tied together with what looked like hair.

She vanished into a second room.

Palvin was trembling, waiting for the ticket to the Azolom`e Cowoze.

His intentions at first had only been to find power so that he could die and be taken to that glorious place. The endless soul of memories and feelings. What heavenly pleasure to forever float and drown from experiences to experiences, stories to stories, feelings to feelings. Exploring the minds of men and creatures from all the worlds and from all time, intertwined in this place, all sharing their lives. With powers that magnified them. Oh such things to see, to feel. For what might love be like blown up a thousand times from what the flesh had managed to produce? And what about fear and misery? It went hand in hand, of course, that was the beauty of it, all went hand in hand. Sentiment and brutality, all glorious experiences, all glorious pieces of the puzzle. Like dipping from cold to warm water; the cold with strange, refreshing and tensing pleasures of its own and the warm feeling much the better when first having felt and received the tens of the cold so it could seduce it away, and then together, but oh together, it was perfect.

Palvin had located power, but it had changed his way of thinking, giving him an ambitious streak. Seeing it from a new angle. Because if there were pleasures to be had being apart of the being, how then to be it? All dipping inside him, all of them in him. To be them, be their experiences, their minds, one mind, his mind.

So instead of taking his life joining the Azolom`e Cowoze he set out to make his own.

The witch reappeared with an object carried in both hands. Lay it in front of him on the table. A knife. Its handle formed as a horn, made of something that looked like gray stone, and covered with pins. Its blade thin as a finger and long as a foot, shining and reflecting the flame of the flickering candle.

He looked up at her frowning.

"I assume this blade is for cutting one of us?"

"Yes...you to cut me."

And with that, she turned around sinking down on her knees, backing up between his legs and bowing her head forward, uncovering her neck from red hair.

"Make a deep wound over the length of my neck," the witch instructed.

Palvin leaned over her reaching for the knife, barley able to take hold of it because of the pins. But the knife, however, had a will of its own and wanted a tighter and more intimate grip. Before he knew it, the pins stabbed into his skin and flesh. Sucking all of their length through his fingers and palm, sucking in blood. He let out a gasp of both shock and amusement.

He felt it apart of his hand all the way from the wrist, could actually feel his blood pulse through the blade. He waved and turned it about, impressed by his new limb of flesh and stone.

Then laid it upon her neck. Seeing his eager eyes in the slightly tilted blade, felt the soft skin through it.

He pressed it deeper and pulled. Cutting from side to side.

The skin parted to a slightly ajar mouth. The fluid came streaming, but did not spill a drop, just lay by the lip of the wound, waiting for him.

The blood had an intense almost shining purple color. And for all its stability was not thick but as water. It even looked appetizing.

His response was instant, letting his mouth and lips meet its.

It turned out tasting horrendous.

He jerked his head back in revulsion, but the fluid, however, was not about to let him have second thoughts, it held his jaws open wide. Hanging in a tail from the wound to his mouth.

Despite this show of solidity it belied all such appearance when entering his mouth, where it sloshed down his throat. Choking him, making his body convulse and spasm.

The fluid soon had this stopped, however. As it made its way to his mind it presented a gallery of pictures. And kept filling it until his intellect was overflowed and finally extinguished itself.

This pulling the string which started the unraveling of his flesh. It was unknotted and took on the formula of the fluid.

Palvin tried to struggle against it at first, but soon found it useless and flooded with the stream. Penetrating the wound, penetrating her flesh and flooding up to her mind.

A mind within a mind within a mind.

He sank deeper and deeper into her thoughts.

Palvin had known that he had to hide in her being, be her being. But it was hard loosing oneself completely.

All persona, however, was suddenly gone (for the time being) wiped out and spread around.

While waiting for her death, he thought her thoughts.

She was not scared of the prospect, why would she be? She knew what was coming, it was her paradise. And this her last fling with magic, which she`d soon be sharing, tricking Death.

It didn`t take long before the time came, no dramatic conclusion just the stillness of the heart.

Then the men, the women and the creatures came for her. Pulled her out of her body and then, oh then, Death swallowed them. And nothing but nothing could hold him away.

What happened after this was a peculiar haze of visions, the main event, however, was that the being, Azolom`e Cowoze, seeped into her mind. Met him, and separated him with the witch. Like it separated all from their powers. So that the powers would lay like shields around them, keeping the souls from merging.

Then it came inside him, but could not divide him from his power because of his flesh. So instead a small fragment of the `Cowoze merged with him.

Felt that he couldn`t hold on to the flesh much longer, though now possessing wisdom from the new powers knew ways to emerge. He took one he believed would bring him back to the world.

Not so.

Palvin was trapped between flesh and the dead. His flesh not solid enough to be apart of reality, but by far too present not to be.

The piece of the Azolom`e Cowoze in him, started to misdirect Death to deliver some of the dead into their chaotic substance. But he, it, could not separate the once coming in from their powers. And their powers again were influenced by the reminder of the flesh that was here, and took on that half-way formula.

Palvin managed to consume this souls at the beginning, but as time went by it finally became so much that he could no longer hold on to who he was, no longer hold on to him in the ones that made his body of thoughts.

And so they all melted to one being, one personality effected by all beliefs, opinions and ethics.

After that merging it owned so little ambitiousness that it no longer drew the creatures coming here directly into it, at least did not struggle to do so. They could recreate their flesh, if that was their wish.

With that, the memory was consumed by his thoughts. And those being: what was he still doing here? When they dreamed up their flesh, they automatically emerged from this state, into reality, away from the Sainatara being. So why?

The answer, he supposed, was logic enough; he was apart of this being, apart of the half-alive.

And as if to confirm this theory, he now saw that he`d entirely miscalculated the situation of the drops. Which he`d thought to have lost interest after his retreat, but now seemed it had rather tasted him (itself) and decided he was much to its liking, wanted a bigger bite.

The memory he`d conjured had lasted no more than a dozen seconds, but during that time a snake of the surface had begun crawling toward him, looking like a thick beam of light filled with white shadows.

He had no wish of finding out what such a piece of the being would do to him. So he hastily got to his feet and started running away from the Sainatara being.

Cast a backward glance and saw its pursuing part did not give up but grew larger. Hovered above the ground like a cloud of light. Moving fast too, but so did he. He was in fact shocked over the speed he produced. And despite his seize, he did not make great booming stomps, he scarcely made more sound than an ordinary bare foot person would have made. But damn he ran fast. And couldn't help but laugh in delight, pursued by what had now widened with a another three yards, burning so bright it cast no shadows.

He needed to find a way out to the living, to their reality and into the Naractus Empiria. Scrutinizing his wits for a solution, Lance found it to be making his mind, willing his flesh, more solid. And so started to concentrate on less solidity.

It did not change his psychical appearance, but mentally toward his psychical. Entering the other side he was still a purple giant skeleton.

Found himself out of the desert land in the hall where Stora had been skinned. To his horror he saw that he was not emerging alone, he was still being chased. He`d brought some of the being with him to this side.

It now looked like liquid bodies, sewn and woven together in white and yellow light.

Oh good God what had he done?

He just kept running. Running in attempt to be free of his crime. It was too late to stop it, it consumed creatures on either side, weaving them into its mass as it unraveled the flesh they had created to avoid it.

He screamed now, screamed in horror and alarm. Warning of its coming and to let them know he didn't mean for this to happen, he was in as much danger as the lot of them.

Up he went, moving up the sloping hall, hearing beyond the din he was making the shrieks of anger and agony from its deeds.

It didn't even slow its pace, just sucked them in as it went, and grew for every yard it covered. Kept following him it seemed, and would let nothing distract it.

Lance ran up the dark tunnel, fled out into the forest. And still it came after him. Seeping between the trees with all its forms, lightening up the night.

The pursue kept going till they emerged from the woods and was presented with a height that served a panorama view over the glittering nightscape of Plymont.

And something happened.

Forgetting him now (or, of course, having had this as a destination all along) it rose up to the dark skies, rolling its mass out like a carpet. Covering the whole of the sky, setting the night on fire in a sudden flash of light. Illuminating the scenery below as though in mid-day.

The carpet were alive with phantom bodies, swinging and twisting in each other, stretching out from the sea of sun.

Then, as it wanted to go in all directions at once, it exploded. Lance stood on the hill watching as the air filled with a vista of burning rain. Raining with drops that had creatures living inside them.

Sam had just entertained the thought that he was perhaps going to be apart of all, when he stopped. Hanging completely still over the crown of a pine. He waited, but nothing happened. Not until a bird suddenly rose from the tree beneath, and as it flapped right toward him he flinched to the side, not having the slightest clue of how he`d accomplished it.

Will?

Sam put it to the test and concentrated on further movements, and he did. Managed to move fast too, before he knew it he was over town.

Here he was met by a splendor of colors. Coming from around the buildings, where people bathed in them. Brilliant rushes of intense colors and light, spraying out of them. While they slowly floated around circulating it. And in every beam of light there were pictures.

The phenomena only took place around the buildings occupied by people. And he knew exactly (with less idea how) what was going on, he was seeing the dreaming people.

He willed himself over to one of the buildings and his thoughts immediately filled with their dreaming visions and voices.

The people were not in their real flesh of course, just having some core where the rest could spring from, most only half-shaped with the roughest features.

Then the night suddenly turned to day in a heart beat.

Which he first thought was one of the dreamer’s influence, but retreating from them realized it was not. (That was, if he hadn't completely drowned in one of their minds.)

The air filled with drops, they fell everywhere, trying to find places to grow, and entered the dreamers dreams, entered their minds.

Sam was touched by drops himself, presenting him with a deeper nature of knowledge and understanding.

People could handle dreams; they were taught they were just the blurred mess of a sleeping brain, no magic in that. But as it entered this mess, something happened, it became...more alive, became more real. And understanding slowly started creeping in that in fact it could all be reverse, they could be living the dream, dreaming of life.

But how could their tender minds except a state of no limitations? It was just to take a look at how they built their lives and societies to comprehend that they wanted none of that. Building shields around their shields to prevent seeing the truth: that the face of reality had no face.

They did not except the understanding that displayed in their dreams, it contradicted their whole nature of being. So instead they chose not to understand, took a stubborn decision of refuge in their own dreams, memories and understanding. The walls of reality fell down and they rather took cover in the ruins than chancing a glance of what lay on the other side.

And in doing so trapping themselves further, trapping themselves in their old and stale beliefs before they were tainted with new possibilities.

Their auras of dreams dwindled, light and color extinguished to gray pools as they sealed of the window before opened.

In short, instead of confronting their own idiocy, they drowned in it.

Perhaps because of his experience with the images of the other power or perhaps of his fleshless state.