You realize that you are dreaming…
but your body won't obey.
You stand in the middle of an empty world. No school. No city. No sky.
Only an endless black plain, pulsing like a living heart.
Each beat — yours.
You try to breathe — and suddenly understand:
you no longer need air.
You live on fear.
A step sounds behind you.
Slow. Certain.
You don't turn around.
You know who is there.
— Do you still think this is a dream? — the voice echoes directly inside your mind.
You feel something warm running down the back of your head.
Not blood.
It's your thoughts, slowly dissolving.
You turn anyway.
He stands there.
Not Simon.
Not Nolan.
Not the Prince of Hell.
It is HIM — the one who comes only in dreams.
He has your face.
But his eyes are empty, without pupils.
His mouth smiles, though the smile carries no emotion.
— I am what remains when you can no longer be afraid, — he says.
— Because fear… has already devoured you.
The ground beneath your feet opens like a wound.
Hands rise from within.
Dozens. Hundreds.
All of them — yours.
You see scars, moles, familiar lines of your palms.
— Every version of you, — he whispers. — Every thought you suppressed. Every fear you never lived through.
The hands grab your legs.
But they don't pull you down.
They grow into you.
You feel your legs becoming heavy.
Your bones dissolving.
Your body losing its shape.
— Don't resist, — he says softly. — Resistance is for the living.
The darkness does not enter suddenly.
It persuades.
You suddenly realize that you want this to end.
That you don't want to choose.
That you want someone else to decide for you.
And in that moment, you feel a hand on your head.
Cold.
Familiar.
— That's why you are mine, — the voice whispers. — You wanted to be broken.
And then the most terrifying part begins.
Not pain.
Not screams.
Silence.
Absolute.
You stop thinking.
But you are aware that you have stopped thinking.
Your will is carefully folded, like paper,
and placed somewhere deep inside.
— Now watch, — he says.
And you watch.
You see the world.
Yourself.
Others.
You see them living, laughing, fearing.
And you feel…
not envy.
not anger.
Hunger.
— Go, — he commands. — Show them what a real dream looks like.
You take a step, obedient, submissive — he controls you through threads, cold, like a puppet.
And you realize:
you are no longer walking.
You are spreading.
And at that moment, the person wakes up.
In a cold sweat.
With a racing heart.
But…
he still feels
a чужую hand on his head.
And somewhere very deep inside,
he is no longer sure
who exactly woke up.
You open your eyes.
You see nothing.
No walls. No floor. No sky.
Only endless darkness, thick and cold like steel.
You hear breathing.
But it is not yours.
It is inside you, as if someone is breathing with your heart.
You try to move.
Your legs won't respond.
Your hands sink into an invisible, viscous mass.
Every breath feels like swallowing sand.
— Did you think you had a chance? — the voice whispers, and it is everywhere.
— There is no hope left. Not a single one.
You try to scream, but no sound is born.
Your voice dissolves before it exists.
And you understand: no one will hear you. Ever.
The darkness slowly, almost carefully, scans you.
Every thought, every fear — exposed.
And it chooses… your weaknesses, one by one.
You see yourself.
But it is no longer you.
It is an empty shell that only appears alive.
Inside — nothing.
No thoughts. No emotions. No memory.
— You wanted to be strong? — the darkness laughs. — Look at what remains.
You try to remember who was with you.
Family? Friends?
Their faces blur, disappear, as if they never existed.
— There is no one. Not you. Not them.
— It's over.
You fall.
And realize: there is nowhere to fall.
The ground is gone.
The sky is gone.
Time is gone.
Only this moment remains.
And nothing will ever come after it.
You are no longer human.
You are a shadow that doesn't exist, yet still feels pain.
— And this is all that will remain, — the voice says, so close you feel it in your bones.
— No salvation. No end. Not even death. Only eternal emptiness.
You try to resist.
But resistance is an illusion.
All you have left is the feeling of your own helplessness — and it will last forever.
And then the darkness smiles.
Its smile is a world that never existed.
You do not fall into it.
You dissolve.
And there is no one left
who will ever remember
that you existed.
The end.
You do not wake up.
You realize that you have always been here.
There is no "before."
No memories to return to.
When you try to remember a beginning — there is nothing, as if it never existed.
You sit.
Or stand.
Or lie down.
You are not sure, because your body is no longer a fact, but a habit of thinking that it exists.
At some point, a thought appears:
"If I think — then I exist."
And right after it — another:
"What if the thought is not mine?"
Silence answers faster than you can become afraid.
You begin to test yourself.
You try to feel fear.
It appears — but not fully.
Like an echo of something that once belonged to you.
You understand:
nothing is taken away here by force.
It is simply never returned.
You wait.
You don't know for what.
But waiting is the only thing that still resembles time.
Then you notice something strange:
the waiting no longer stretches.
It has frozen.
You are not stuck in darkness.
You are stuck between thoughts.
And then understanding comes, slow and cold:
No one is trying to break you here.
They are waiting for you to break yourself — because it is the only possible outcome.
You try to tell yourself:
"This is temporary."
But the word "temporary" means nothing if there is no "after."
You try to imagine an escape.
But any escape is an idea of the future.
And the future does not exist here.
You do not scream.
You do not cry.
Those reactions require hope that someone will answer.
And here — no one answers.
Not even the darkness.
And at some point, you catch yourself thinking:
"I don't care anymore."
And that is not relief.
It is a sentence.
Because when you don't care anymore,
you no longer fight,
but you also do not die.
You remain.
Forever.
And the most terrifying part is not that you are here.
It is that after an endlessly long time,
you will stop considering this terrifying.
Not because you got used to it.
But because there will be no one left
to be afraid.
And then it becomes clear:
You are not in the darkness.
You are what remains of yourself.
And there is no escape.
Because only those who still exist
can leave.