NAME: Forgotten Life
DATE: 2024-10-24
TAGS: phantasy, weird fiction, existential horror, The Being

I.

You brace yourself for the collision of the islands. The two terrestrial giants draw closer and closer, and eventually their surfaces touch. No impact follows. They simply continue sailing through the void, phasing through each other as if existing on different planes. Your vision blurs and twists until there is nothing in front. Your other senses follow. You fall. Your mind is protecting you. It is telling you to wake up and return to Reality. THIS *IS* REALITY. Your back hits the ground. The sharp pain that courses through your body forcefully dispels your mind's illusion.

Without getting up, you continue walking through the neat, cobblestone-paved streets of the town, surveying their purposeless buildings with a feeling of absolute detachment. Contrary to the expectation, their baroque façades of wood and stone seem painfully plain, and the windows that puncture the walls are also too opaque to inspire any form of aesthetic fulfilment. The only source of comfort in this barren landscape is the multitude of cyclopean clock towers and clockmaker shops that populate the town. Their majestic forms exude an enchanting aura that seems to whisper or quietly sing about some sort of transcendant, otherworldly life. You feel as though you are close to something powerful. Some fundamental aspect of Reality presented in its base, pristine form. When you squint your eyes and strain your ears, you can almost see and hear an all-encompassing, turbulent Flow of perfect order. It is omnipresent. It is directionless. It is... awake.

You approach a nearby storefront, surveying the displayed goods with an awe so strong that you feel you might faint. It is... so beautiful. You could stare at these masterpieces for hours, days - no, an eternity. Surely there are more of these hidden inside? You place your hand on the handle of the carven wooden door and, pausing briefly to take in the sight of its intricate patterns, pull it open, its heavy weight making even that simple motion somehow satisfying.

Entering this antiquated shop, you realise how massive it truly is. The ticking of countless clocks surrounds you. Unlike in the rest of the town, you feel at home here. You feel... dreamy. At the same time, you also feel a maniacal urge to inspect every part of the shop. You decide to do exactly that.

In display cases, on the walls, and even on the ceiling - almost every object in sight is some sort of time-telling device. Proceeding deeper and deeper into the shop with a feeling of unbridled fascination and nostalgia, you ultimately stop at a table holding different kinds of wristwatches. The designs of their faces feel so detailed and delicate, you wonder about the mastery of the one making them. Every single watch appears to tell its own story with a profound meaning that outweighs all of humanity's most excellent literary works. The specimens displayed at a neighbouring table are even more impressive - their full sizes are far smaller than an average pencil eraser... and yet, they work flawlessly! You have a momentary desire to call the shopkeeper, wishing to buy one of these heavenly pieces, but you quickly realise that you could never afford any such treasures. Disappointed by this thought, you move towards a specimen that has had your eyes for a while...

Scrutinising the great grandfather clock standing at one of the far walls of the shop, you find yourself almost transported to the world of its designs. Its engravings depict what appears to be a war between two armies - one consisting of giant, vaguely humanoid beings and another consisting of some race resembling dragons or... flying fish? The creatures' appearances terrify you, and you feel thankful for the fact that the combatants are all wearing armour - though that, too, is a veritable source of apprehension. Every armament of these phantastic beings carries a hint of obscure animacy, the unearthly essence of which coincides with neither the souls carried by organic beings nor the life perceived by humans in advanced machines and devices. Most bothersome of all, however, is how real these reliefs feel. Merely looking at them feels like staring into a portal, like the scenes depicted in them were frozen in time and trapped inside of the clock through some powerful magic. You stumble backwards from the loathsome giant, afraid that you might get sucked into it too. As you slowly turn away from it, you catch a hint of motion within the images. Disturbed by this appalling perception, you quickly walk out of the shop.

Exiting the building, you look at the sky, taking in the floating districts of the town. Each of them hangs at a vastly different angle from the others, and almost every district appears to have its own central clock tower that dwarves all other structures. Looking around, you find the central clock tower of your own district and begin to approach it.

You walk along the elegant alleys of the town, often stopping to take in the local sights - colossal chains that stretch infinitely in both directions, series of giant gears, massive quartz crystals that hang in the air lonesomely... Walking up to a cluster of floating glass shards, you take one of them into your hand and crush it, a small smile spreading across your face as you watch the countless colourful particles scatter and vanish. How satisfying...

`How long have I lived in this town now?' you ask yourself. Your head reels from that question. Lived? But you... You do not... live here, do you? You... do not belong here. WHERE DO YOU BELONG?

II.

You are woken up by a loud, annoying sound. Startled by the irritating melody, you turn to face its source. Ah... Your alarm clock. Right. You were having a strange dream, were you not? You cannot remember a thing... Wait, was your alarm not set to 07:00? Why is the clock ringing at 07:43... 07:44... You watch the digits climb in confusion. 07:60... 07:61... Wait, 07:61? You rub your eyes and see that the clock simply says 07:00. Strange...

You get up from your bed, still unable to shake the inexplicable feeling of unease. What were you dreaming about? Were you... dreaming in the first place? You do not remember what it was, but it felt... real. More real than the real world. How is that possible?

Walking into the kitchen, you pinch your nose, trying to ward off the stench of unwashed plates and spoiled food. Why do you even bother to wake up early every day? It is not as if you do anything. You absent-mindedly open the refrigerator, pleased to find that your instant noodles have not yet run out. Thankfully, your relatives continue to leave some food at your door every month. Even if they do it only by habit, it is comforting to know that somebody continues to take care of you, in a way.

You eat the noodles and throw the empty box onto the kitchen counter, next to hundreds of similar boxes of the same cheap brand. Almost tripping over something in the darkness of your own apartment, you move back into the living room. You thank your dream for the wonderful activity you now have for the day - trying to remember what the dream was about.

Sitting down in your rotting wooden armchair, you prop your chin up with your hand and think. What happened in your sleep tonight? Have you finally learnt to enter some kind of dream world? Did you see some sort of prophecy? Maybe it is a sign that somebody will remember about your apartment today. Even if it is simply the landlord allowing someone else to stay here, would that not be incredible? Your mind overflows with your usual obsessive hopes of `salvation.'

Why not just go outside? Right, you have tried that as well... It changed nothing. Nobody even looks at you. The filth, the stench, the horrid state that you are in - even those do not manage to attract any attention. All that passers-by do is brush you aside like some worthless insect. Some worthless insect? Hah, no. Even worthless insects get noticed by people. You sigh.

Your thoughts, despite the short-lived vigour brought to them by today's dream, once more devolve into a repetitive mess that feels too stale to entertain. After all, you have already had every phantasy that you possibly could. All of them, many times over. That is why you cannot even daydream now. You have thoroughly exhausted your imagination. Then should you simply... fall asleep again? Probably. As always, your thoughts come to a halt. Even *you* have forgotten yourself now. You fall asleep.

III.

Your dream continues. Reaching the middle of your island, you finally find yourself standing at the foot of the central clock tower. You cannot even see the digits on its face from your meagre height. The door, too, is too large for you to open. Dispirited, you sit down at one of the walls.

Suddenly, you feel a voice. `Why are you here?' the Being asks in a curious tone. Your soul radiates in response. `By mistake, I believe,' the semantic wave communicates, `I am forgotten. Abandoned, but not Lost.' The Being chuckles in amusement. `You are the first,' the Being speaks, pausing briefly before continuing, `In that case, allow me to find you a home.' Your soul radiates again in muffled gratitude. `That would be most excellent,' it says.

No time passes. You fall into a void. A void between dimensions. A void between the Cosmos and the realm of the Lost. `Forgotten, yet alive... This is where I belong,' your soul speaks. Experiencing a final, inhuman revelation, you begin to understand your own purpose. Thought becomes useless. Your existence is now... tranquil.