A step into the unseen
I was sleeping deeply when I heard my dogs barking. Startled, I woke up and listened. Then I heard something else—the front door opening. My heart started racing. I got up quietly, ready to confront whoever was coming in. I stayed still, waiting to catch the intruder by surprise.
A short man stepped inside. It was too dark to see his face. I clenched my fists, ready to throw a punch—but suddenly, I woke up.
Or so I thought.
Everything felt… off. The room looked like mine, but slightly wrong. I got out of bed and walked into the hallway. It was my home, but the longer I walked, the stranger it got. Door after door after door—until I reached one that led to complete blackness.
Pitch dark. A void.
But something about it felt familiar. I’d been here before, I was sure of it. So I took a breath and stepped in.
The darkness swallowed me whole.
I kept walking, but the ground felt like it vanished. I began to float, or maybe swim—it felt like diving into a deep, endless ocean. Above me, the ceiling shimmered like water, and I tried to surface, but something pulled me down, kept me from rising.
So I swam. And swam. And swam.
Then I saw it.
A massive creature—like a squid, but twisted, demonic. It had four glowing eyes and an aura of dread. As I got closer, it launched fireballs at me.
But I wasn’t powerless.
With my right hand, I hurled fireballs back at it. With my left, I summoned lightning bolts that cracked through the darkness. The battle was fierce, but I struck the final blow. The creature exploded like something out of a video game, bursting into glowing cards that scattered and vanished into the void.
The path ahead opened.
And I followed it.