Stuff I've dreamt

Many have tried to reach the surface over the centuries, but they always float back down. It's too far up to swim without rest, your tail tires out, it's too bright to see where you are going, they always end up turning back down without noticing.

You don't know why they try to reach the surface though, the sea floor is much to beautiful to risk not coming back.

Everything looks like an iridiscent dream, the light bounces off of every surface and creates lights from all the colours one could imagine, the small ripples in the water giving the illusion of forms that aren't there. There is not a single dark corner, everything is covered by light and thousands of colours. You like that. The beautiful lights, the colourful fish, the soft sand...

You don't like the voice though. It's soft and familiar, like your mother's whispers felt like when you faked being asleep so she wouldn't make you tidy up your room... It's nostalgic.

You don't know what it wants, but it's starting to drive you crazy. Every day, every hour, every second you can hear it, like someone shouting your name from far far away. Except it doesn't say your name, maybe it didn't feel the need to learn it, it just tells you to swim.

Sometimes you ignore it, sometimes it drives you so crazy you go swimming in the middle of the night so that it will shut up.

You don't know what to do, you don't want to tell your friends and family, they'll call you crazy, they'll kicyou out of the colony, or worse...

No, it wouldn't happen, they wouldn't do it. But they could, so you keep quiet.

Months pass and the voice only becomes louder. You have already shunned yourself so that no one finds out, but you are starting to believe that they suspect something is going on...

They are conspiring against you...

You are not crazy. You are not. Your body doesn't itch and it also doesn't twitch. Your voice doesn't tremble and neither do your eyes. You aren't losing weight, you just aren't really hungry, and the voice makes you move a lot, you are just losing all that extra fat your mom used to say tha neighbouring girl had.

You aren't crazy, you are just...tired. Sleep will do you some good, the voice doesn't talk to you when you sleep. You dream of swimming, of rainbow fishes and colourful rocks, you dream of the voice. But it doesn't tell you to swim this time. This time the voice sounds firm, authoritarian, and it tells you to go up.

You wake up in a cold sweat. Everything is blurry, others would say you looked like you where in a frenzy, but there was noone out that night. You start to swim as if possessed. Maybe you are, the voice screams at you louder each time you seem to slow down.

So you go up, pass the colourful rocks, pass the rainbow fish, pass the life you've you've been building for years.

You don't think, you can't, it feels like a dream, but it isn't, isn't it? It's real. You wish it wasn't.

You swim, you don't see the bottom anymore.

You swim, it's been a while since you last saw life.

You swim, your tail gets tired, but the voice doesn't let you stop.

You swim, you are pretty sure days have passed since you started swimming.

...

You swim, you are hungry, you don't really feel it, you can keep going.

You swim, the light is really bright now, all you can see it's white.

You swim.

You swim.

You swim.

You sw-.

You stop swimming.

There is something above you, the voice has gone silent for the first time in a long, long time. You are starting to process everything that has happened in the last days.

How strange. When did that happen?

Above you the water is impenetrable, it's still liquid, but you can't cross.

...

You keep trying.

You need to cross.

You don't know why.

But you NEED to cross.

YOU NEED TO CROSS YOU NEED TO CROSS YOU NEED TO CROSS YOU NEED TO CROSS YOU NEED TO CROSS YOU NEED TO CROSS

You can't cross.

You start hitting the water.

It's keeping you from the other side, from the surface.

That's strange, you don't know why you know that.

You keep hitting.

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The water breaks.

You cross.

The surface is beautiful.

You had heard stories about the 'sky'. They said that it was a place even the surface couldn't reach. But you are seeing it. Rather than seeing the sky, you are in it. The entire universe is around you, stars, galaxies, planets...

And, in front of you, a beach, there is nothing special about it. The sand is white; the grain, fine. There is nothing more.

Until you hear it again. The voice, though now it sounds near.

There is a figure in the beach now. It's cloaked in darkness, but underneath you can see a blinding light, brighter than anything you have ever seen.

"Is this a god?" You ask yourself. The voice answers for you, not with words, but with actions. The water goes stiff, like how it was before, and you realise you can't move, you don't WANT to move.

The figure approaches, it's bigger now, more sinister....

It's in front of you now, you manage to see behind the cloak that shadows it and past the blinding light before the world turns dark for the first time in your life...

Something pulls you to sit up, the sailboat wobbling because of the sudden movement. The water is still calm, so you jump in, except you don't sink, instead, you find yourself standing above the water. The cold of the water seeps into your bones as you realise you are not near the port anymore. There is a vast horizon every way you turn to look to, but the boat is still there, so you walk.

You keep walking for a while, and then you return to the boat's side, afraid to lose it, but also dreading stepping in again, so you walk again, this time faster, you run around until you tire yourself out.

You feel warm now, the water cool on the soles of your feet, you want to be inside the water, so you take a step forward and fall. The vastnes of the ocean surrounds you, you feel free for the very first time in a while.

What was it that kept you chained? You can't remember, you don't want to.

Time passes and you tire yourself of swimming, so you push of the surface of the water, giving yourself a boost as you steady yourself atop it's surface once more.

You walk back to the boat and stay near it, not going in but not moving away either, you are afraid, afraid of what?

Of the depths that you were swimming so freely in not so long ago? Or of the boat that keeps you anchored to a past you are yet not ready to let go of?

And suddenly, you panic, and you are back again to the place near the port, but this time, you can't stand atop the water, and you sink.

Panic takes over as you try to resurface, but now there are waves and currents pulling you into the depths of what used to be a safe place. You keep trying to resurface and reach the sky, where you were supposed to go, but now it's to late, the past kept you down here for to long.