Trial of Dreams
Water closes around you like a shroud.
Cold. Heavy. Endless.
The surface ripples farther away - now a thing of a past long gone. Your lungs burn. You open your mouth in desperation, and the lake invades you. Thick, murky water fills your throat, your ribs, your soul. You cannot tell if you are dying or being born anew.
And then, finally, the light finds you.
Golden and radiant, it seeps into your flesh and the marrow of your bones. You feel your body dissolving, your veins turning to ribbons of sunfire. The ache fades. The cold forgets you. You are neither drowning nor breathing; you simply are. Every fragment of your being becomes part of this otherworldly brilliance.
There is no up or down, no body, no name. Only light, stretching infinitely, until space and time unravel like threads between fate's translucent fingers.
When you open your eyes again, the world is nothing like the one you left behind.
You float in an endless sky of stars. Around you drift countless islands. Some no larger than pebbles, others vast as continents. They hang in the void like fragments of forgotten worlds, each encircled by ribbons of color: silver, gold, rose, and teal. The hues swirl and twist into living currents, luminous pathways that whisper as they move; songs of promise, tunes of longing, poems of memory.
One path calls to you instantly. Wide and radiant, it winds like a celestial highway through the void. Along its shimmering surface you glimpse every dream you have ever held: all your victories, your desires, your perfect self. You see your life as it might have been, unbroken and flawless. It is a vision so vivid you almost forget to question it. At the end of the grand current gleams an island; whole, lush, blindingly golden. You can feel its pull in your bones, the honeyed gravity of completion.
On the other side, another path stirs at the edge of your vision.
It flickers like a dying flame, narrow and treacherous, winding through a storm of debris. The island it leads to is shattered, a carcass of stone and dust. Its ruins are faintly lit by the ghost of something once divine. The current that touches it trembles, barely holding together, yet when you look upon it, your heart stirs. You cannot explain why. Instinct, perhaps? Or memory. Or something older still.
Two roads.
The dim current resists you, pushing you back with every movement. Its surface tears like wet silk as you claw through it, leaving trails of starlight in your wake. Each time you lunge forward, the light bites: sharp, cleansing, cruel.
Your limbs, once light and formless, begin to remember themselves. The fragments of stone between the currents cut your palms open. Blood drips, vanishing before it falls. The pain feels real - too real. With every wound, your body returns. With every struggle, you remember what it means to exist.
By the time you get closer to the ruined island, your lungs are burning again, your muscles trembling from the climb. When you finally reach the shattered shore, the last stone gives way beneath you. You almost slip but in the last possible moment a hand catches yours.
A tall figure stands at the edge. Faceless and ancient. It pulls you up, and where its hand meets yours, the skin ignites in silent fire. Sigils spiral across your palm; twisting, radiant lines coiling around your veins. At their center, a single mark forms: your name, etched in molten light.
The figure fades and beneath your feet, the broken island shivers. From its fractures, flowers of glass bloom, catching the light of distant suns, forming an threshold for you to pass through.
The river of light opens before you, vast and inviting. You let it carry you. The golden current hums in a tone that feels like home.
Shapes drift by. Fragments of the life you wanted: laughter, faces, a door left ajar in the sun. You reach for them, but they vanish at your touch, reforming a few breaths away. Still, you keep reaching. It feels good to believe.
The current grows warmer now. Too warm. The light around you transforms. It becomes syrupy and slow. When you try to pull free, your arms no longer obey. The colors twist around you, clinging like honeyed chains.
The visions begin to rot. Laughter warps into wheezing. The faces split, hollow beneath their smiles. The current tightens, and you realize too late: it was never carrying you forward: it was keeping you here.
You sink beneath your own dreams, into their quiet suffocation. The sweetness curdles into a smell of wet earth and decay. Your reflection gazes back from below, eyes open, unmoving. You are lost in the comfort of possibility and at this moment you know: To dream and never act is to drown with open eyes.
This path is not yet open.
If this was your choice, make sure to come back again to check it out!
All written content is original, drawn from myth, memory, and madness.
All images are generated via Midjourney using custom prompts by the author, unless otherwise stated.
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