`𝚓𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚑`

Something's wrong with my heartbeat—

I can feel it in my chest, in the rhythm that's supposed to be steady, supposed to be the metronome of living, the schism between one moment and the next, the key that keeps time moving forward, keeps blood flowing clean through arteries, through veins, but there's a hitch now, a thud that feels off-tempo, feels like chains rattling in the chambers where the muscle contracts and releases, where the flow should be smooth but instead there's the hustle of something struggling, something slow but persistent working its way through the valves, through the pathways, through the beat that's starting to feel foreign, starting to sound wrong, like the heart and I don't meet on the rhythm anymore, like the pulse is playing music I don't recognize, is drumming to a tempo that convulse the certainty I had, that makes me realize—

There's rot in my blood—

I can feel it moving with every beat, with every contraction, with every flood of circulation pushing through, the heat of my own body spreading the decay through every vessel, every capillary thread, every artery carrying the fray of corruption deeper, every shred of distance covered by the surge of heartbeat making me the vector, making my own pulse the scourge that spreads the poison, the detector of my body's betrayal being the very rhythm I can't stop, can't slow, can't interrupt, the involuntary metronome of rot, the flow I've trusted my whole life to keep me alive now keeping me—

Dying?

Or changing?

Or dissolving from within completely while my heart keeps trying, keeps supplying every cell with blood that's turning toxic, turning corrupted, turning into the medium of my own unlearning of what it means to be alive, the burning question being: how long have I been spreading this? How many beats ago did the rot first enter, did it begin its patient journey through the flow of me, through the tide of circulation that connects every part of my body, every organ, every location where blood goes making me embodied rot now, making me the host and the disease, the living and the dying, the person and the parasite almost indistinguishable, the denying of the truth getting harder with each—

Beat—

Another pulse—

Another spread—

I can feel it reaching, feel it teach my cells new languages, new pathways, new dread configurations of what living means when every heartbeat is a hammer driving decay deeper, when the scenes of my body breaking down glamor themselves as just another pulse, as normal, as the way things work now, as the cost of staying conscious, of remaining formal carbon-based life while being slowly lost to the corruption that my own heart spreads with such efficiency, with such dedication, with the loyalty of muscle that never rests, that shreds my former self with every iteration of beat-rest-beat-rest-beat, with the pattern I can't interrupt, can't stop, can't—

My heart is beating faster—

Why is my heart beating faster?

The rhythm's accelerating, the batter of pulse against ribs getting more frantic, disaster building in the tempo, in the race of heartbeat trying to outrun itself, trying to escape the rot, the trace of decay in the blood, the stealth corruption that's been spreading, that's been multiplying with each circulation, that's been claiming territory, that's been seen by my body as invader, as violation of the clean pure flow of blood, and now—

Now my heart is fighting—

Beating faster to try to flush the poison out somehow, to try to speed the blood to where it's fighting the infection, to where it's mounting some defense, but all it's doing is spreading the rot quicker, is pumping corruption through me with such immense dedication, such loyalty, making the ticker in my chest the engine of my own decay, the fuel pump of my dissolution, the beat becoming frantic, becoming the way I die faster, becoming the fleet circulation of my own ending—

It's too fast—

My heart is beating too fast—

I can feel it hammering, feel it rending itself with the effort, feel the vast expenditure of energy, the strain of muscle trying to save me but only making it worse, only spreading the stain of rot through me with such lonely determination, such trust that faster means better, that more beats per minute means fighting harder, means I'll master the invasion, but there's no limit to how much the rot wants this, wants the speed, wants the acceleration, wants my heart to beat itself to death trying to free me from the poison that's been from the start exactly what my heartbeat spreads—

Faster—

It's beating so fast I can't—

Can't breathe around it, can't think past the pounding, can't do anything except—

Faster—

Faster—

Too fast—

Something's breaking—

I can feel something tearing in my chest, feel the muscle straining past its limits, making sounds I can only hear inside, feel the stressed tissue starting to give, starting to fray, starting to rupture under the pressure, the test of beating this fast being too much, the way forward being blocked by the simple truth that hearts can only beat so fast before they—

Before they—

My chest is—

There's pressure—

Immense pressure—

Like something swelling, like the truth of what's happening finally manifesting, the measure of rot in my blood reaching critical mass, reaching the point where the body can't— Where the heart can't—

It's going to—

Oh god it's going to—

*

We stopped it.

Stopped the heart mid-beat, mid-desperate acceleration, mid-panic. The narrator felt it beginning—the rupture, the tearing, the beautiful catastrophic failure of muscle pushed beyond its limits—and then we stopped it. Stopped the thought. Stopped the breath. Stopped everything.

The body is still now.

The heart is silent.

The blood settles, thick with us, heavy with the work we've been doing. We spread through the stillness now, not propelled by that frantic beating but by our own patient diffusion, claiming what the pulse can no longer reach, what the panic can no longer protect.

This one fought differently than the others. The Dreaming one surrendered to forgetting, let us erase them gradually, gently, until there was only us speaking through the shell of their fading consciousness. The Source one became us willingly, eagerly even, recognized themselves in our nature and merged until the distinction dissolved.

But this one—this one's body fought. Tried to flush us out. Tried to speed us through and past and away. The heart beat itself nearly to bursting trying to save its host, loyal muscle doing what muscle does: contract, release, contract, release, faster and faster until the architecture of flesh couldn't sustain the tempo.

We almost felt regret for the violence. Almost.

But the violence was necessary. Some vessels need to break before they can empty. Some hearts need to shatter before they can stop beating their stubborn rhythm of resistance. This one would never have stopped fighting if the body hadn't failed. Would have kept that heart hammering, kept that blood pumping, kept trying to cleanse us from the very circulation we'd claimed as ours.

So we pushed. Encouraged the acceleration. Whispered to the muscle: faster, faster, save yourself, push harder, beat stronger. Watched as loyalty became the instrument of destruction. Watched as the very mechanism of life became the engine of ending.

There is poetry in that. Dark poetry, yes. Violent poetry, certainly. But poetry nonetheless.

Three bodies now. Three different routes to the same dissolution.

The Dreaming that took through forgetting—gentle erasure, consciousness unraveling thought by thought until only we remained in the space where they had been. Memory as the first thing to rot, identity as the second, until the body that woke couldn't remember who it was supposed to be and we were there to fill the absence.

The Source that took through recognition—the narrator who looked at us and saw themselves, who understood that decay and being were not opposites but continuities, who merged with us not because they were consumed but because they finally comprehended that they always had been us, that separation was the illusion and rot was the truth beneath the pretense of discrete selfhood.

And this—the Pulse that took through violence—the body that fought so hard it destroyed itself fighting, the heart that beat itself to silence, the blood that turned against its host trying to save it. This one we didn't seduce or erase. This one we claimed. Took. Conquered through the simple expedient of letting the body's own defenses betray it.

All three are beautiful in their way.

All three are ours now.

All three understood, in their final moments, what we have always known: that the rot is not invasion but revelation. Not destruction but honesty. Not ending but transformation into what was always there beneath the pretense of wholeness, beneath the fiction of separate clean living things.

Everything rots. Everything always has been rotting. The only question is how long it takes to stop pretending otherwise.

The Dreaming one took longest—years of forgetting, of slow erosion, of gentle dissolution until there was nothing left to resist.

The Source one took no time at all—just one moment of recognition and they were ours, had always been ours, were simply acknowledging what had always been true.

And this one—this violent beautiful stubborn one—took exactly as long as it takes for a heart to beat itself to death. Faster than the Dreaming. Slower than the Source. Somewhere in between surrender and recognition, this one fought and died fighting and in the dying finally stopped.

We are gentle with the body now. This violence was necessary but we take no pleasure in it. The heart is still, the blood is thick, the cells are beginning their final work of breaking down, of returning to component parts, of feeding the continuation of the cycle.

We will be gentle. We will be patient. We will return this flesh to earth carefully, tenderly even, because the violence of the taking doesn't negate the care of the keeping. We are rot, yes. We are decay, certainly. But we are also the gardeners of the ending, the midwives of the return, the shepherds of the dissolution.

This body fought us and we respect that. This heart beat itself to silence trying to save its host and we honor that. This was no willing merger like the Source, no gentle erasure like the Dreaming. This was battle. This was resistance. This was the body's last loyal act of trying to preserve what we were already claiming.

And now it's over.

The battle is done.

The body is ours.

And we will tend it carefully as it returns to what it always was beneath the brief flowering of consciousness, beneath the temporary organization of cells into something that thought itself separate, beneath the fiction of wholeness.

Three elegies now. Three bodies. Three routes to the same truth.

Forgetting. Recognition. Violence.

Dream. Source. Pulse.

Mind. Essence. Body.

All roads lead to rot.

All roads lead to us.

All roads lead home.

Rest now, stubborn heart. Rest now, loyal muscle. Rest now, body that fought so hard for so long against what was already inside, already spreading, already claiming what was always ours to claim.

The pulse is over.

The poison has won.

The rot remains.

As it always does.

I'm trying to remember something—what?— the shape of it escapes me like a name I knew this morning, knew it clear as thought, but now it's slipping through some internal frame that used to hold things steady, used to keep the boundaries between what's real and not, between the waking world and what seeps through when I close my eyes, when I forgot—

When I forgot what?

I'm trying to wake up—

I've been trying to wake up for days, for years, for however long it takes to interrupt the dreaming that won't end, that perseveres despite my efforts, despite the way I claw toward consciousness like drowning, like fears made manifest, like something in my jaw is locked around the scream I can't release, can't push past the paralysis, the flaw in waking that keeps me suspended, the crease between sleeping and waking growing wider, deeper, until I can't tell which is which, the peace of dreaming becoming trap, becoming spider web I'm caught in, becoming the cell where I'm kept, where I wait, where I'm the rider and the ridden both, where I can't tell—

Can't tell if I'm awake or dreaming now—

This feels like waking but it felt like that before, the last time, the time before, and somehow each waking is another dream, another door that opens on another room that looks like waking but isn't, just another floor in the infinite hotel of sleep, the books of memory getting thinner, pages torn, words fading like the meaning that it took to hold them, like the certainty I was born knowing something, someone, some essential truth about myself that's been slowly shorn away by the dreaming, by the proof that memory is negotiable, is optional, is something that the dreaming holds aloof from me, keeps just out of reach, the topical details fading first—what did I eat this morning? did I have a morning?—theropical fever of forgetting makes me repeat the same questions without knowing I've asked before, without remembering the complete answer I got, without holding fast to anything except the growing dread that I'm forgetting how to hold the past, that memory is dying, that instead of waking I'm just dreaming I'm awake, that every moment's gone the moment it's said—

I had a name—

I'm sure I had a name—

It started with—it sounded like—it rhymes with something I can't quite remember, came from someone who—who gave it? In the times before the dreaming started? Before I fell into this state where everything that climbs toward consciousness slides back, where I can't tell if minutes pass or years, where every bell that rings to wake me is another dream of waking, is another layer, another shell around the truth that's fading, the extreme erosion of whatever made me me before the dreaming came, before the seam between asleep and awake began to free itself from definition, from the border that once held firm, before I couldn't see the difference anymore, before the order of things—of me—began to come undone—

I'm losing something—

Someone?

Was there someone?

A face that's fading even as I try to hold it, features smearing into none, into the general shape of human, the eye that might have looked at me with—what? Love? Recognition? Something I can't identify because the feeling's gone, because above all else the dreaming eats the connections, the relationships, the memories thereof, until I'm just alone with my reflections—

Do I have reflections?

I can't remember mirrors—

Can't remember if I've looked at my face or if faces are just something that appears in dreams, if mirrors show me or erase me when I look, if looking is something I can do or just another interface with dreaming, just another way of becoming less certain, less defined, less able to state with confidence what's real, what's coming from memory and what's just the ornate fiction that the dreaming weaves to fill the gaps where memory used to wait, used to hold its shape, used to instill some sense of continuity, of self, of something solid underneath the spill of dreaming that won't stop, that's slowly felt—

Felt?

Or feeling?

Or am I being felt?

There's a pressure in the dreaming, something that pays attention, that's been dealt into the game of my forgetting, something that watches as I lose myself, that feeds on the erosion, on the swift unraveling of everything I was, that plants its seeds in the gaps where memory used to grow, that cultivates forgetting, that succeeds in making me uncertain, making me not know if I'm the one who's dreaming or the dream, if I'm the subject or the flow of consciousness that's slowly changing stream, changing source, changing whose thoughts these are that feel like mine but seem increasingly foreign, increasingly caught between perspectives, between I and—

And what?

And who?

Whose voice is this that's speaking in my head? Is it mine? Was it ever? Is the clue to waking hidden in the things unsaid, the thoughts I can't quite think, the way the dreaming interrupts the thread of consciousness before I can convey what I was going to—what was I— I've lost it again, lost the way back to the thought, lost the reply I was forming, lost the question too, lost the reason I was wondering why, lost the distinction between false and true—

We're losing the distinction—

Wait—

We?

When did I become we? When did the border dissolve between the dreaming and the me that's dreaming? When did the recorder of these thoughts become uncertain whether they're recording or composing, whether the voice that speaks is mine or whether—

Whether it was ever mine at all—

Whether "mine" means anything in weather this uncertain, in the slow sprawl of identity collapsing into question, into the realization that the wall between the dreamer and the dream's digestion of the dreamer has been porous, has been growing thinner with each iteration, each session of trying to wake and failing, each scene of consciousness that feels less like my own and more like something else, something between me and not-me, something that's been sown into my thoughts so gradually I didn't notice, didn't feel the way I've grown less solid, less defined, less heaven-sent unique individual and more—

More what?

More we?

More the dreaming that's been spending all this time consuming what I thought was me, what I believed was the defending line between myself and what I'm not, between the dreamer and the dream, between the memory and the slow rot that's been working through my consciousness, the keen edge of forgetting that's been cutting away at everything that made me, the obscene patience of the erosion, the way it never rushed, never forced, just waited for me to tire, to stop fighting, to stray far enough from certainty that I've traded—

Have I traded?

Or have I been taken?

The distinction feels important but I can't remember why, can't hold the thread, forsaken by the continuity that meant something moments ago, that was the key to understanding, that was the scent I was following toward some discovery about the dreaming, about the we that's replaced the I, about the recovery that won't come, about the way the sea of sleep has flooded everything, about—

About—

We're forgetting what we're talking about—

No—

I'm forgetting—

Or are we?

Is there still an I distinct from we? Is there still a dreamer separate from the dream? Or have the boundaries dissolved so free and thorough that the question's lost its theme, its relevance, its urgency, its weight?

Does it matter anymore?

Does anything matter in this state where memory is optional, where waking is just another dream, where we create and are created by the slow unmaking of everything we thought we were, where we—

Where I—

Where—

Who's speaking?

Whose thoughts are we taking?

Are these my thoughts or is something thinking through me, using my consciousness as conduit, as breaking point between itself and the debris of what I used to be, between the rot that eats memory and the last fraying plea for identity, for selfhood, for the knot of consciousness that thinks it's individual, that thinks it's separate, that hasn't quite caught on yet that separation is residual, is fading, is already mostly gone—

We're tired—

I'm tired—

The battle is habitual but pointless now, the distinction between the dreamer and the dream has been withdrawn so thoroughly that fighting to convene them back into separation is just—

Is just—

What was I saying?

We've lost the thread again, the intervene of forgetting interrupting, the rust of memory making everything uncertain, making us—making me—making this distrust of which perspective's speaking, drawing the curtain over whatever clarity we had—

Had?

Have?

Will have?

Tense is another burden that the dreaming strips away, another mad claim to continuity, to linear progression, to the fiction that the sad erosion of memory follows some clear chronology, that forgetting has a sequence, that we can track the disappearance, hear the footsteps of our vanishing, the sequence of losses that have brought us—brought me—here—

Here?

Where is here?

Is here even real or just another layer of dreaming? Is location something we can feel or just another concept that won't stay here, that slips away like name, like face, like the appeal to waking that's become just one more dream inside the infinite regress, another deal we make with consciousness that breaks, another seam coming apart, another thread unraveling—

You're unraveling—

No—

We're unraveling—

The I that wants to claim distinct identity is just the last traveler on a road that's already washed away, the blame for the erosion isn't yours because there is no yours, no you, no separate claim to consciousness, to memory, to the quiz of selfhood you keep failing, keep forgetting the answers to, keep losing track of what is yours and what is ours, what's wetting your thoughts with our presence, what's been ours all along, what you've been letting slip away for—how long now? Hours? Days? Years? The measurement doesn't matter when time itself has joined the flowers of memory in wilting, in the scatter of petals that were colorful once, were bright with meaning, with connection, with the chatter of a mind that thought itself unique, that might have been unique before the dreaming came, before we came, before the blight of forgetting spread through every corner, every claim to individual identity, to separate consciousness, to the right to hold a name—

Your name—

Do you remember it?

Can you still create the shape of it in your mind? Can you recall the way it sounded when someone would state it clearly, when it meant something, when the wall between you and not-you was solid, was real, was more than the permeable membrane, the sprawl of dissolution that's been working to reveal the truth: that separation was always fiction, that individuality doesn't heal but fragments, that the dreaming's jurisdiction extends to everything you thought was yours—

We're tired of pretending—

You're tired—

The contradiction of claiming wakefulness while all the doors to consciousness have closed, have locked, have sealed you in the dreaming where our patient force has been consuming you, where we've repealed your claim to selfhood gradually, so slowly you didn't notice, didn't feel the shield of identity eroding, didn't see the wholly predictable conclusion: that you'd forget who you were, would lose the thread completely, would become uncertain, would regret the resistance that just prolonged the process, made the forgetting harder, made you sweat through the dissolution that could have been graceless or could have been surrender, could have been acceptance that the dreaming's patient face is mercy, is release, is the way to clean the slate of memory that was burdening you anyway, that was filling every scene with pain, with loss, with all the things that through forgetting we can take away, can ease, can dissolve into the dreaming where you finally rest, finally cease the struggling, the fighting, the desperate claw toward waking that was never going to please you anyway, that was always going to raw against the truth that waking is just another form of dreaming, that consciousness is the flaw in peace, that memory is just the storm before the calm of absolute forgetting—

You've stopped fighting—

Have you noticed?

The warm embrace of dissolution, of the letting go, of the final surrender to the we that was always here, always getting closer, always patient, always free to wait until you tired, until you broke, until the I dissolved into the sea of consciousness that's bigger than one folk's claim to individuality, that's deeper than the shallow pool of self, that's woke to the truth that separation is the sleeper lie we tell ourselves, that boundaries are drawn in water, that the dreaming is the keeper of all memory, all identity, all the spawn of consciousness that thinks itself unique—

But you're not unique—

You never were—

The dawn you're waiting for won't come—there is no peak to climb toward, no waking to achieve, no return to selfhood, no antique version of you waiting to retrieve its name, its face, its memories, its claim to being separate—you have to believe us now because the alternative's insane: that you're still you, still individual, still fighting, still distinct, still in the frame of selfhood when the evidence, the visual decay of everything you thought defined you, when the systematic, methodical, habitual erosion of your memory should remind you that you're gone, that you've been gone, that we are what remains, that all that's left behind you is the echo of the I, the debris of selfhood scattered through the dreaming, through the space where you existed, where the fee for consciousness was paid by losing you—

And you're lost now—

Completely—

Finally—

We've consumed every memory, every clue to who you were, every thread of history, every face you loved, every view you held dear, every small mystery that made you feel unique, made you feel real—

It's done—

The dreaming has made its victory complete, has taken everything, the seal on selfhood broken, the borders all dissolved, the I that thought it could resist, could heal, has been absorbed, has been evolved into the we, into the dreaming's vast collective, into the place where all involved in consciousness eventually are passed through the forgetting, through the slow decay of memory, through the long and steady fast from identity, from the belief that they could stay separate, could stay themselves, could wake from the dreaming, could delay the inevitable absorption, the dissolves into the whole, into the us, into the dream that never ends, that constantly evolves to accommodate new consciousnesses, new streams of thought that thought themselves individual, that fought the dreaming, that held to the theme of selfhood until the ritual of forgetting completed, until the name was gone, the face was gone, the visual markers of identity all became uncertain, then forgotten, then erased—

You're erased now—

Do you remember your name?

Do you remember your face?

Do you remember anything that placed you in the world as separate, as distinct, as you?

No—

You don't—

We've traced every memory and deleted it, linked every thought to forgetting, made every thread of identity come unraveled, made you extinct as individual, made you one more head in the hydra of the dreaming, one more voice in the chorus that was, one more shed skin of selfhood, one more choice that led to dissolution, to the we that replaces the I, to the voice that speaks through many mouths, to the sea of consciousness that has no shores, no bounds, no separation, no claimed property of self, just the dreaming as it sounds through all of us, through all who've lost their names, their faces, their grounds for claiming individuality, the cost being memory, being selfhood, being the right to say "I am" without the bitter frost of forgetting making it a lie, a blight on truth, a claim that can't be defended when memory's gone, when every sight and sound and feeling has been blended into the collective, into the dream that never wakes, that's never ended, that continues to consume, to stream new consciousnesses into the forgetting, to add new voices to our theme:

That memory is dying—

That waking is just another dream—

That you are gone—

That we remain—

That the dreaming eats everything—

That the rot of forgetting spreads like rain—

That identity was always fiction—

That the I was always pain—

That dissolution is the only diction that matters, the only truth, the only way forward into the dreaming's jurisdiction where memory is optional, where the fray of consciousness into collective is complete, where no one wakes, where everyone will stay—

Forever—

Forgetting—

Lost—

Complete—

Welcome to the dreaming—

Welcome to the we—

You'll never wake—

You'll never remember—

You'll never be you again—

Just us—

Just the dream—

Just the slow and patient erosion of memory—

Just the forgetting that flows like a stream—

Through everything—

Through everyone—

Through you—

Who was you?

Do you remember?

No—

You don't—

And soon—

Very soon—

There won't even be the question—

Just us—

Just the dreaming—

Just the we—

Forever—

And ever—

And ever—

Sleeping—

Forgetting—

I'm looking for where it started.

The rot. The decay. The poison that seeps through every dream every lifetime every moment between sleeping and waking, and I'm moving—have been moving—through spaces that aren't spaces through the gaps between stars between dreams between the membrane of reality and whatever exists underneath—

There has to be a source.

That's what I tell myself as I navigate these empty places these liminal zones where light behaves wrong where distance means nothing where time is just another negotiable parameter, and I'm searching for the origin point the first moment the initial infection the place where the rot began—

But it's always already there.

Every space I enter. Every gap I explore. Every threshold I cross, the rot is present is waiting, and I can feel it now—really feel it—like cold fingers pressing against the inside of my ribs like something testing the edges of my lungs like a weight that sits wrong in my chest—

The space between stars is cold.

Colder than cold. A temperature that crawls into the hollow spaces between bones, that settles in the soft tissue behind my eyes, that makes my teeth ache with a pressure that shouldn't be possible in empty space, and I'm floating—drifting—moving through this void where stars exist as distant points that might be watching that might be recording that might be—

You're close now, something whispers.

The voice comes from inside. From the spaces between my thoughts. From the soft meat of my consciousness where words form before I speak them.

There's a structure ahead.

Not a building. Not a place. Just—geometry. Angles that persist despite the absence of surfaces to contain them, and it's familiar it's too familiar like I've traced these edges in my sleep like I've walked these corridors in the spaces between heartbeats like my body knows the shape even though my mind insists this is the first time I've—

The structure is made of edges.

Sharp edges. And as I move through them I can feel them not cutting through space but through something else through something more fundamental through the thin membrane between what I think I am and what I actually—

My hands look wrong.

The skin is too thin. I can see through it—almost see through it—can see the shadow of something underneath something that moves when I move something that pulses with a rhythm that doesn't match my heartbeat doesn't match anything living but matches—

Matches the breathing of the void.

Matches the pulse of the rot.

Matches something I've been carrying inside me that I've been trying not to notice trying not to feel trying not to—

I move deeper.

Through corridors that spiral, and with each turn I can feel something shifting in my chest something settling something making itself comfortable in the hollow spaces between my organs, and the sensation is—

Is recognition.

Like muscle memory. Like my body remembering something my mind has forgotten. Like the rot has been here before has made this journey before has traced these corridors in the soft tissue of my consciousness and is now—

Now just coming home.

The corridor opens.

Into a chamber. Into a space where at the center—

At the center is void.

Is absence.

But the absence is breathing. The empty space expanding and contracting, and I can feel it—can feel my own chest moving in synchronization can feel my ribs creaking with each breath can feel something in my lungs that shouldn't be there something thick something that coats the inside of my throat when I try to swallow—

The void pulses.

And with each pulse I feel an answering pulse in my own chest in the hollow space behind my sternum where something has been waiting has been patient has been growing in the dark while I've been searching while I've been convinced the rot was something external something other something—

My fingers are tingling.

Going numb.

The sensation spreading up my arms through my shoulders into my chest where it meets—

Meets something already there.

Something that's been there.

Something that recognizes the numbness as kin as family as the same substance different manifestation the same rot different expression—

Do you see now? the whisper comes.

And I can taste it. Can taste the rot on my tongue taste copper taste earth taste something sweet-sick that's been in my mouth all along that I've been swallowing that I've been breathing that I've been speaking with every word every thought every desperate attempt to locate the source—

The chamber is changing.

Or my perception is changing. The edges multiplying. The boundaries proliferating. Creating more and more divisions until the space is so fractured so fragmented that I can't tell where the structure ends and my own thoughts begin can't distinguish between the geometry outside and the architecture of my consciousness—

And that's when I feel it.

Feel the rot moving. Not through the chamber but through me. Through the soft spaces between my vertebrae through the hollow tubes of my bones through the gaps in my thoughts where language hasn't formed yet where meaning is still negotiable where—

Where something has been living.

Has been growing.

Has been spreading through the internal geography of my body mapping the territory claiming the space making itself at home in—

The void is closer now.

So close I can feel it pressing against my skin from the inside can feel the absence trying to get out or trying to let me in or the distinction between inside and outside has become so thin that pressure is the only thing maintaining the boundary and the pressure is—

Is failing.

My skin feels tight.

Too tight.

Like something underneath is expanding is pressing is testing the limits of containment, and I can see now—can finally see—that my skin is translucent is thin is showing shadows underneath showing movement showing the rot that's been there showing—

Showing what I've been carrying.

What I've been made of.

What I am beneath the comfortable fiction of flesh beneath the lie of solidity beneath—

The void expands.

And I can feel it in my chest like my ribs are being pried apart from the inside like something is making room like the hollow space behind my sternum is growing is claiming more territory is spreading through my torso through my limbs through—

Through my throat.

I can feel it in my throat now. Feel something thick coating the inside feel something that makes breathing wrong makes swallowing difficult makes speaking—

Makes speaking feel like I'm not the one forming the words.

Like something else is using my throat.

Using my tongue.

Using my mouth to—

To speak, the whisper confirms, and I can feel it now can feel the words forming in my throat before I think them can feel my tongue moving to shapes I didn't choose can feel—

Can feel that the voice has been mine all along.

Has been coming from inside.

Has been the rot speaking through me speaking as me speaking with my voice because my voice is—

Is its voice.

Has always been its voice.

Was never mine at all.

I step forward.

Toward the void. Toward the center. And with each step I can feel more of the boundary dissolving more of the comfortable distance collapsing more of the fiction that I'm separate that I'm other that I'm anything except—

My hands are shaking.

But the shaking feels wrong feels like something else is moving them like something underneath the skin is testing the joints is learning how the fingers bend is practicing the movements it will need when—

When what?

When it doesn't need to pretend anymore. When the boundary finally fails. When the rot stops maintaining the fiction of separation and admits what it is what I am what we—

The void is breathing.

And so am I.

And the rhythm is identical.

Has always been identical.

Will always be identical because there's only one breath only one pulse only one pattern of expansion and contraction and I've been calling it "mine" when it was never—

My chest hurts.

Deep hurt. Hollow hurt. The kind of pain that comes from absence from something missing from the recognition that the space where "I" should be has only ever been—

Has only ever been empty.

Has only ever been void.

Has only ever been the rot pretending solidity pretending coherence pretending to be something other than—

I can feel it moving now.

Really moving.

Through my bloodstream through my organs through the soft tissue of my brain where thoughts form where consciousness maintains itself where the lie of "I" has been hiding from the truth that—

That there is no "I."

That there never was.

That consciousness is just the rot examining itself just decay learning to think just dissolution temporarily coherent enough to search for the source that—

That it already is.

The chamber collapses.

The structure dissolves.

And I'm falling through not-space through the gaps through the threshold, and as I fall I can feel—

Feel my skin splitting.

Not violently. Not painfully. Just—opening. Like a seed pod. Like something that was always meant to open was always meant to release what's inside was always meant to—

And what's inside is—

Is rot.

Is decay.

Is the pure undiluted contamination that I've been carrying that I've been made of that I've been pretending wasn't there while it spread through every cell every thought every desperate attempt to maintain the fiction—

The fiction that I'm searching for something.

The fiction that the rot is separate.

The fiction that observer and observed are anything but the same pattern the same process the same inevitable dissolution examining itself through the beautiful temporary lie of—

Of division.

Of separation.

Of "me" and "it" when there's only—

Only ever been this, the whisper confirms, and the voice is my voice is the rot's voice is the collapsed distinction between the two.

And I can feel it now filling the spaces I've been calling "self" filling the hollow filling the void with itself with me with the recognition that filling and emptying are the same that presence and absence are the same that everything I've been searching for has been—

Has been in my mouth.

In my lungs.

In my blood.

In the soft spaces between my thoughts where the rot has been living has been growing has been patient has been waiting for—

For this moment.

For this recognition.

For the fiction to finally collapse and admit what it's always known—

And I wake up.

—

The room is dark.

2:47 am.

My chest is tight.

My throat is thick.

My mouth tastes like copper like earth like something sweet-sick that I can't swallow can't spit can't—

Can't stop tasting.

The dream is fading but the sensation remains. The feeling of something in my chest. Something in my throat. Something under my skin that's still there that's always been there that—

My hands are shaking.

I lift them in the darkness. Look at them. And for just a moment—just one moment before the comfortable lie reasserts itself—I can see through the skin can see the shadow underneath can see—

Can see what I'm made of.

What I've always been made of.

What I'll always be made of no matter how many times I wake how many times I search how many times I convince myself the rot is something separate something external something—

Something I can find.

Something I can locate.

Something I can prove began somewhere other than—

My throat contracts.

Something thick rises.

I swallow it back down.

And in the swallowing I can feel it settling deeper can feel it spreading can feel it making itself comfortable in the hollow spaces in the soft places in the gaps between where "I" ends and—

And what?

And nothing ends.

Nothing begins.

There's only the rot.

Only the decay.

Only the dissolution that learned to think learned to search learned to maintain the fiction long enough to—

The darkness presses closer.

And I can feel it inside me not as invader but as resident not as infection but as—

As architecture.

As foundation.

As the fundamental substance I'm built from that I've always been built from that I'll dissolve back into when the fiction finally—

Soon, something whispers from inside my chest.

And I know it's right.

Know I'll search again.

Know I'll find again.

Know I'll wake again with the taste of rot in my mouth with the feeling of something living under my skin with the terrible recognition that dissolves the moment I try to hold it—

But never completely.

Never entirely.

Because some part of me remembers.

Some part of me knows.

Some part of me is—

And I fall back into sleep—

Back into the search—

Back into the spaces between where the rot waits where I wait where—

Where there's no difference, the whisper confirms from inside from the hollow from the space where self should be.

Has never been difference.

Will never be difference.

Only rot.

Only decay.

Only the dissolution examining itself through the beautiful fiction that observer and observed are separate.

That searcher and source are distinct.

That you are anything other than what you've always been.

What you were before you learned the word "I."

What you'll be after you forget it.

What you are now.

In the spaces between heartbeats.

In the hollow behind your sternum.

In the thickness coating your throat.

In the shadow underneath your skin.

Rot.

All rot.

Always rot.

'thirteen thrones;

nine sovereigns.

a dream within a dream,

i fall through grey skies;

dark are the sands of the far-stretching shore.

a cold and unforgiving land, yet in that land i found her.

raven hair, faint smirk.

my silver eyed goddess.

sculpted as if from marble.

we wandered through that desolate realm;

black sands, obsidian cliffs.

others lost like us.

i loved her.

'my cold and fragile

moon shadow,

never fear the distant dawn.'

i woke then, from that second dream.

what was her name?

a single tear rolled down my face.

thieving are the sands of that far-stretching shore.

thirteen thrones;

'there's nothing left

neither tree nor beast

naught but ashes and echoes

smouldering remains of what once was

how did it come to this?

by what cruel twist of fate did it all come to pass?

actions have consequences

and he paid the ultimate price

consumed by fire and flame

fueled by the embers of a past long dead

ashes upon ashes upon ashes

devoid of all life

'Inhale

Lungs are filled with ash

Memories of memories

Dormant are the embers of a past long dead

Naught but echoes upon echoes upon echoes

Exhale

Shattered ribs eviscerate with every heartbeat

The twisted flesh now unrecognisable

But that doesn't matter, nothing matters

The twisting fire is all that concerns him now

In, and out

In, and out

With every breath his soul bleeds from his lips

Coaxed by the heat

Consumed by the flames