New Stream of Consciousness: Alabaster Caverns

I was searching for something but I knew not what. I had exhausted my searches within my house and taken my search to the outdoors. I was accompanied by a friend, however his name escapes me. For some reason rationality had left me along with all knowledge of what I had originally been looking for.

As we took our pursuit to the nether regions of the dark night, the traversed landscape grew more foreign with every wary footstep. Neither of us spoke, yet we seemed to communicate without speech, seamlessly melding thoughts through the dense night air. As we slowly approached the horizon, my whereabouts began to transform about me. It was as if my world had lost its three-dimensionality. The farther we walked, the more my surroundings appeared to be two-dimensional and side scrolling. It was disorienting, but we continued on in absent-minded pursuit. I was determined to find out what exactly it had been that caused my desire to comb these wintry shadows. Confusion shrouding recognition, the opaque landscape about us transformed from dark to dusk, from dusk to dawn, and eventually from dawn to day. The wintry wonderland about us apprehensively lost its cold and alienating characteristics to be replaced by the warm and welcoming sun that, some how, I had managed to miss as it arose over the pregnant horizon. My feet never realized the transition from snow to sand.

What had once been dense cold was now blissful warmth, the gentle embrace of miniscule glass at my feet. Water washed over our exploring digits as we attempted to gather knowledge of our foreign surroundings. Caves had replaced snow banks, the dark shadows taking on hints of orange rather than blue, alabaster cones thrown about the mountain hidden beneath the sands. Nothing moved as abstractly as our bodies as we adorned the hillside with our god-like bodies. We only appeared flawed when juxtaposed with these heavenly sceneries.

Convinced that what we sought must be hidden away within the shadows of God’s mouths themselves, we carried onward into the soft dark of a neighboring cavern, the faint smell of fresh water drawing us nearer by the step. I was simultaneously frightened and comforted by these newly discovered hideaways. Nothing seemed obtrusive, save the tentacle-looking growths that bejeweled the glimmering sides of the cavern. Upon second glance, it became clear that they quivered in unison with our heavy breaths. The hot air escaping our gasping mouths seemed to give life to these out-of-sea oceanic creatures.

Failing to notice the breath of life he possessed, my companion continued on ahead of me. Distracted by the complexities of the creatures burrowing and pulsating in the walls, I slowly lost pace from my friend. I could hear him no more than 20 steps ahead, yet I could not convince my mind to put a burner to my feet so to speak. I was lost in a daze of astonishment. This new realm was completely foreign to any previously sought out area of existence. I brushed my sweating palms and fingertips along these sumptuous organisms, hoping to gather anything that might reveal the secret of their plight. Had they always been here? I knew not.

I rested against the hypnotic wall only to find that a thick, earthly growth jutting out perpendicularly had punctured my shoulder. A signal was shot to my brain, confusing it further with the pang that began to fill my upper torso with intense bliss coupled with nerve-shattering pain. I tore myself from the suffocating embrace of the wall to find that I had bled through my overcoat, soaking the riveted trusses of the cavernous inset. The flush of blood along my back was warm and poignant. I cared not that I was losing the same life force that seemed to breathe life upon these deceitful beasts. Lost in a world of misinformed orientation and entangled corruption, I pulled away with every last breath of volition to hear my friend moaning about 40 yards ahead of me, deeper within the engulfing mouth of God or Satan, neither of us knew which.

No matter what side this beast belonged to, it was otherworldly by all accounts. I could not travel faster than a brief jog due to the intense pain in my left shoulder. Regardless, I managed to reach my friend before he placed his hand upon the crude-looking door set asymmetrically in the noreaster wall of the butt of the cavern. In a look of pure agony, he reached out to me in mind alone, begging the question of molested invasion. What had possessed my otherwise conscientious companion? Again I knew not.

I had been equally abused by these angry walls, however different it appeared that mine be physical and his mental… What is the mind but a construct of physical processes? Apparently his were suspect. I regained complete control over the majority of my body, save the small fraction that was my left arm, injured by these horrifying atrocities buried deep within earth’s bosom. Understanding full well that my friend was beyond hope, doomed to desire that which is undesirable, I came down on him hard with my good arm, bringing true darkness to his ogling eyes. I sat upon a smooth root, left crystallized from aeons of dripping earthen secretions. I was forced into thought once again, tearing myself away from this choking environment that seemed to have already taken hostage my innocent companion.

The depth to which we had traveled appeared too great to drag the lifeless body at my feet, but the poorly sealed door in front of us seemed an even greater risk. The decision obviously being mine, I chose the door. Drawing in a last breath of anticipation, my lungs were flooded with air faintly reminiscent of sewage. It was as if the air had taken on the physical characteristic of human waste. Hastened to explore any further, the door was thrust open with a gust of wind stronger than I could have expected. With the opening of the door came complete and blinding light. The white was so vast that even the edges of reason seemed to continue on indefinitely. I was instantaneously reminded of the limitless equations derived in my early education of calculus. As the light grew brighter, my awareness grew dim, accepting the fate that was inescapable. For what seemed like hours, I squirmed about unable to grasp even a single attribute of my surroundings. The hours faded with my mind as I slowly began to welcome damnation.

We had pretentiously expected to discover earth’s secret, exploring deep within the heart of her subtleties, only to find her curses come to fruition. I noticed the blinding white slowly become a hazy black, and then the black faded into sleepy-eyed sight. Clearing whatever was left in the crevices of my sockets, I took in a lifetime’s realizations in a split second, none of which proved to be understandable. All I could see was my friend, his hand gently placed on the door we had previously opened. Only this time he was crystallized in the same manner as the root on which I had sat not too long before. I too felt as if crystallized; unfortunately I could not look about. Wherever I was, my friend loomed above me, floating in mid air no more than three feet my senior.

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Stream of Consciousness

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