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Kawsmic Dream
Falling asleep one night, I began to drift through the empty darkness deep behind my eyes. Time seemed to stand still until the thumping of drums and a flickering flame caught my attention in the distance. I floated toward the sound and heated blaze, discovering a bonfire in the midst of an open jungle under the night sky. Twelve tribe members, adorned with paint, chanted and played drums at a steady rhythm. Unconsciously hovering above the massive fire, I was suddenly enveloped by it. The bonfire transformed into a young man, lost in a trance as he danced. Hovering above him, I froze, then began to mirror his movements.

The dark shaman began to move, and I found myself uncontrollably following him. Together, we approached a distant lake, flanked by a line of tribesmen on either side. Their chants and drumbeats kept me in a daze as we moved. Upon reaching the lake's edge, the drumming abruptly stopped. The shaman dove into the frigid waters, vanishing from sight. Hovering over the silent, still waters, a fleeting memory surfaced: I was transported back to a sunny day in my childhood, in the woods where adventure always awaited.

In that memory, I had poked a hornet's nest, initiating a chase filled with fear and exhilaration. Each pause for breath was a momentary respite, akin to this brief lull in the shaman's ritual. Shaking off the memory, I braced myself for what was to come.

Everything then flickered into a bright, warm summer day. I walked on a cobblestone trail, flanked by a moss-covered stone wall, encircling the property of a massive two-story white house with a large green oak tree in the yard. Feeling a warm energy to my left, I perceived layers of time leading to this place. It was empty except for the path I was on and a radiant female figure with a bright sunny aura around her. She began talking to me as we walked around, but her words were muffled by the empty paths of time between us.

As we strolled through these empty paths, I sensed that she was somehow me, but in a different timeline, and that all these layers were versions of me at one point. Remembering my purpose, I began making my way toward the celestial house, noticing children playing in the green, grassy yard on a tire swing. I walked past the children playing, toward the front door. A few women on the porch, happy to see me, greeted me warmly, but with these dead paths through reality, I walked past them, entering the house. Inside, I found more women in the kitchen, standing around and talking. They all seemed delighted to see me, but noticing my inability to hear them, they turned away, taking seats at the table. Closing the door, I surveyed the room, spotting a wooden staircase to my right.

The door was then kicked in, and three ageless men clothed in all black and adorned with gold medallions and jewelry aimed their guns at me, firing. No bullets hit me. I phased through the space between us and, without hesitation, ended up cracking all their necks simultaneously, dropping them to the floor. One of the girls yelled, "Why! How are you able to do that? He will be coming for you now." Feeling like this was my home and that these people were not who I thought them to be, I made my way upstairs, passing a few rooms to the one at the end of the hallway. The walls were white and empty, with a single hanging light in the center. Closing the door behind me, I entered the bathroom. In a distant past, a younger version of myself, unaware of the unfolding events in the dream, experienced a sudden, unexplainable shiver, as if a ghostly breeze had passed through. I saw a window overlooking the front yard with the kids playing. Turning around, I looked into the mirror and noticed I had no reflection.

Deciding to shift from one layer to another, I found myself not present in any of them. The more I searched, the clearer it became that I might exist in a time that had ceased to exist, and these people were trying to prevent my return to my own moment. After some time waiting in the room, a man dressed in all black and adorned with gold jewelry burst through the door. He resembled the man from the jungle but was dressed more formally and radiated a more potent aura.

Instantly, he drew a white handgun, crafted from the bones of fallen angels, and began firing at me, missing every shot. I told him he didn't need to do this. His frustration evident, he yelled, "How do you possess complete knowledge!?" as he emptied his clip, missing with every shot. As he maneuvered around the room, I repeated that there was no need for this. The more we circled each other, the more tangible the layers of space became. In a different layer of time, a past version of myself felt an inexplicable deep heartache, glancing over my shoulder as if sensing an unseen presence. This sensation was almost too much to bear, but noticing his struggle, I pushed through the hardest part and grabbed him, choking him out and dropping him to the floor. I became all echoes. This pain wasn't enough to alter my mark on the world. Enraged, he stood, a dark red aura emanating from him. He struck me, but I absorbed the blow, materializing right behind him to snap his neck, dropping him onto the wooden floor. Still alive, he managed to say, "We don't need your death anyway! There are greater infinities!" Then, instantly, he transformed into a tiny black kitten.

The black kitten, with eyes that seemed to carry the weight of unseen battles, looked up at me. In that moment, the kitten symbolized the depression that had been attempting to consume me. The battles fought in this dreamscape mirrored the internal struggles I'd faced. The light in the room intensified incredibly, transporting me onto a holographic throne in the sky. I was now hovering over an assembly of infinite versions of myself, each within their own memories. They all smiled and cheered, looking directly up at me, bestowing upon me an all-knowingness through their experiences. Suddenly, without any thought, I began scrolling over the now miniaturized variants of myself, and after what seemed like minutes, I selected one meditating underwater. The world's layers overlaid my vision, wrapping around me, and I became the memory.

The sensation of all-knowingness vanished, replaced by a warm, tangible darkness. Minutes passed, and panic set in when I realized I wasn't breathing. Desperately, I forced a breath in, fearing I had inhaled water into my lungs. I attempted to rise, but an invisible barrier impeded me. The thought, "I'm dying!" raced through my mind. Struggling harder, I finally broke free from the false reality, watching the memory I was trapped in shrink out of view into the multiverse.

At that moment, all the different versions of myself lifted their heads in unison, mimicking my movement. Within my mind, a complex biological matrix emerged, where synapses sparked with the energy of a thousand stars. The boundaries between thought and existence blurred, breathing life into the fabric of time. Metaphysical reflections cradled pockets of energy, giving rise to alternate dimensions in the recesses of imagination. Dormant wizards awoke, their spells crafted from assembled symbols, drawn from mathematical scribbles. Masters in the art of transforming perception, they hypnotically bound awareness to droplets of the eternal void. I found myself enveloped in a blizzard of static dust, each particle a distinct microcosm within the continuum of moments.

As a storm of subatomic particles ensued, where two great forces met: the architects of creation and dissolution, fostering both beginnings and endings. At the edge of comprehension, where different dimensions converge, I glimpsed various layers of existence. In this convergence, a paradoxical sense of continuity emerged in the silence where even stars are born.

I became a conduit, a focal point where realities converge. From the depths of my perception, time began to flow like a relentless stream, spilling into the vast emptiness, seeding the void with ticking seconds and unfolding eras. I stood as both observer and architect.

The quantum motion unfolded as my consciousness pulsed in sync with the atomic weather of the heavens. Standing as a giant within a sea of streaming stars, embers of what used to be, remnants from the big bang, spiraled on the breath of aeons, connecting networks of interconnectedness across aging timelines, where the finite meets the infinite.

Before leaving, I felt an all-encompassing love surrounding me, anything and everything. I rose, lifting my head out of the dream and up off my pillow, to take in a deep breath.

© C_Mcd