I stood at the summit, and yet, I still had to look up to speak to it. It was…

  Everything. Nothing. A sprawling horror beautifully devouring the world around it. I knew it well, we were acquainted when I was young. It put its hand on my shoulder whenever I would fall behind a group I was walking with. It pierced through the night to reach me when I gazed out the windows into the darkness when out for dinner with my colleagues. It lived beyond the edge of the universe and called out to me faintly, to tell me to come see it, to come home, whenever I was lonely.

  In this moment its pull is stronger than ever, so strong that it feels like this moment has already occurred. So strong I was already pulled in, and the last fragment of my soul to cross the threshold into its domain was doing its best to process the moment, leading it to be played out in slow motion. I wanted to cry, to laugh, and most of all the sigh in relief. I was right. I found Home. This is what always was meant to happen. My fate. I found Home. I didn’t even know what the summit I was standing on was anymore. Nor did I care to look down. I didn’t remember anything… maybe my name if I cared to think hard enough. How I got here, where I’ve been, who I am even, doesn’t matter to Home. A nanosecond, maybe less, a moment, an instance, how could I describe it? It's almost over….

  “That’s not Home.”

  The feeling was like getting lost in thought and realizing you were staring. Suddenly I was aware of my senses. The silence, the frigid cold, the dark mass before my eyes. I didn’t have the opportunity to take it all in, because I began to fall. I thrashed against nothing, and a paralyzing fear took over me. Yet, no adrenaline, my heart didn’t begin racing, my thoughts didn’t try to comprehend my doom. The fear was akin to having a bad dream where something so bad happens that I just cripple over in fear and tell myself it's so bad it can't be real. That I have to wake up to escape. Except I’m not waking up now, so it must not be a dream. I’m falling, there’s no way to stop it, I’m going to hit the ground. I’m gonna hit the ground…

  …

  …

  …

  “Oh.” I lay like a starfish flat on my back gazing up towards the sky. Before me was a… Tower? It flickered in places, moved in others, but if I ignored its dynamic nature, it looked like what I’d call a tower. It reached into the sky and at its summit the sky split open. Home. It looked like a scar, cracking the sky in some places to grow, in others being pushed back by the pink and green aurora borealis. I can’t say how long I stared at it. I can think freely now… but something still isn't right. I can’t remember anything for one. I have my five senses, I think, but I don’t have anything… affecting me? No moods or hunger, definitely should’ve felt pain from the fall. The fall… I raise my head to look at my sprawled body. I’m fine but sitting at my feet is…

  “What are you?” It felt familiar but extremely off, but even though it looked extremely off it didn’t inspire any fear in me.

  “I Break The Silence. That wasn’t Home. It Tells Many Lies. Only once more now, let’s climb.” Break The Silence got up and began walking away, leaving me to stare incredulously at its behind. As it flicked its tail side to side with every step I couldn’t help but feel bothered by the way it spoke. Or not the way it spoke but the fact it spoke at all. As I got up to follow I took in my surroundings. I stood at the center of a crumbling cement pedestal embedded in the ground around me. Pink and green light, like in the sky, shone through the cracks of the pedestal. Only it didn’t behave like light, It slowly wafted up and meandered. Kind’ve like dust but without the physical component. The Fog encompassed everything just a few feet off of that in every direction. Except ahead of me, where Break The Silence already began ascending the steps that led into the fog, but straight past them distantly was the tower, jutting straight up above the fog. It looked like it had no bend to it but its summit seemed strangely above me instead of far in front to line up with its base. Suddenly I was pulled back from my thoughts by what I heard. Or rather what I wasn’t hearing. Break The Silence was still in sight, but I could no longer hear its paws as they touched the steps. Until now I heard them perfectly, even as it got farther it seemed the sound didn’t fade. Was it just in sight? I don’t think I see it anymore…

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  A violent hiss shook The Fog off me. Break The Silence stared back at me blankly. Or was it thinking something? It's hard to read a face that's not human. But before it began to speak again I could’ve sworn it softened its gaze.

  “If you stay here, The Fog will swallow you. You have to stay close to me.”

  I took a step back and suddenly I couldn't hear the breaths coming from Break The Silence’s little nose. “Why should I come with you? I was almost Home but you made me fall. I think. I heard your voice while I was at the summit.”

  “I told you that’s not Home. If you are swallowed, only Tells Many Lies or I can bring you back. But it might even take us decades to find you. I know you want to go to Tells Many Lies. So climb The Tower. I will climb with you, just like always. You’ve… never done this before. Usually you just start climbing.” I hazily saw the furry body raise its haunches to the next step as it turned away to ascend again. I stepped out of The Fog to follow. I caught up with it only because it stopped. Before us stood… if the closest animal in similarity to Break The Silence is a cat then the closest animal to this one is a bison. It was greyed with age and was draped in black furs… that wasn’t its own. Its hooves were caked with dried gore and its skin was horrifically scarred, as if it had been whipped. Its teeth were made of different metals, and although I couldn’t see it, I knew it had a dagger under the furs.

  “Eat it.” I looked down at Break The Silence at my side because no way was he telling me to eat the Bison. Break The Silence was staring at a styrofoam box on the ground before the Bison. I knelt to grab it without caution and only halfway up did I realize it. Something about the Bison… No.

  “You’re Takes Good Care. This box… a sausage with ketchup. You always bring me this.”

  Takes Good Care exhaled plumes. As I ate both of them just watched me, and when I was done Takes Good Care was ripped away by tendrils of The Fog. Not in a single particular direction. Its face split open and its skull and spine whizzed straight at me, narrowly missing the side of my head. A lobe of its liver to the back, another left, the rest went right. Thick black blood poured down the steps and off their sides, fading in the foggy depths below. The fog worked quickly, so that in a moment it was all over. Something about its internal anatomy… that heart was too small for a bison. I swear I saw a clavicle too, but that wouldn’t make sense. I looked down at Breaks The Silence in fear. It looked back at me.

  “You’ll see Takes Good Care again further up. I hope you enjoyed the food, because you won’t enjoy what follows.”

  My body filled with dread instantly. As I began to walk I started feeling more and more fear. A set of double doors ahead of me… I know what’s going to happen, so why can’t I remember? Suddenly it was dawning on me. I was complacent until now even though it was extremely weird because it wasn’t unpleasant. But this is unpleasant. That door… is terrifying. What is this place? Why can’t I remember things? I didn’t mean to, I didn’t realize, but I took a step backward.

  Everything changed.

  The air was stifling, the noise… screams of pain and coughing from every direction, but the door was still ahead of me. I looked around. I was in a room, three brick walls, each with a set of those double doors in the middle, and a fourth glass wall that showed nothing but The Fog. Inside the room, rows of steel frame, white sheet, small beds. The doors ahead of me… taking that step back took me to the other side of them somehow. I want to move. I want to leave. But I’m still afraid of the doors, and my fear is quickly validated as they all start simultaneously rattling. The Glass? No, on the other side is The Fog. Should I hide under one of the beds?

  Break The Silence! I look around but I panic as I realize I am alone in the room.

  All three sets of doors burst open at the same time.