"True sight is not granted to those who stare—but to those who surrender their eye. For the world deceives the watchful, yet unveils itself to the willingly blind."
Harghh!.. I see, it was just a dream... I guess my mind wandered off too much from all that studying. Well, I wasn't really studying anything important, just some random things that caught my mind: aliens, time-travel, the sort of stuff that would bore a typical person in a conversation.
It's because of these dreams and hobbies that people kept calling me a psycho.
They just don't understand, I suppose, how people could not dream? I mean, since we were children, we have dreamed of things that make us happy, right? We even dream even when we are awake, of happy moments, some dream of friends, some of Love.
It's Just I was a little different, I dream and think more vividly, the Doctors said I have a condition called Hyperphantasia, a condition where I have a strong and vivid mental Imagery, I thought at first it was something everybody simply had, turns out some people when asked to imagine, they either see words, or a glimpse of an object, some only see color, and some see shapes, but people like me,
See it all, we see it as if it were reality.
In this day and age, people still can't understand and comprehend mental and psychological issues, and people always deem it as if it were some abnormality, some brand it as being crazy, or an attention seeker. If only the world could understand that it is a real problem that needs a solution, not discrimination.
Pshhhhh, I sighed in slight disappointment,
"I have dozed off again on my own thoughts. I should get going, I'll be late for Breakfast."
As I rushed from my room, down the stairs, passing along the kitchen, and the dining, but I wasn't fast enough, along our long dining table, a plethora of expensive foods and rare china were set, and beside sat My Parents and my Grandfather, eating their food as usual, but not for me...
One of our long-time maids, Ms. Laura, whispered as I entered the room, "Sorry, I wanted to wake you up, but—"
A deep, proud, and authoritarian voice crackled, interrupting our conversation.
"You're late, Rylee," My Grandfather spoke.
"Yes, sir," I replied. I didn't want to argue or excuse; I know it would only be pointless, and the consequence would be painful.
"How can I even entrust my company to you if I can't even get you to be punctual with something as simple as eating. Such a disappointment, Leave, you're spoiling our breakfast," He ordered, as he gobbled down his throat the braised turkey.
In our House, even breakfast is an appointment, getting late means, you're not getting any, it was a rule made by my grandfather, to ensure that none of us are lacking, not of use becomes a disappointment, but I'm used to it already, on my way out, I tried to talk to Ms. Laura, but she just tried to reassure me.
"I'll be fine, go ahead, don't worry, you must focus on your classes, alright."
However—
Later that day on my way out, as I walked through one of the guestroom, I can Hear, groans and begging, swift and loud bangs of rope hitting the naked flesh, someone being whipped, I cannot see the other side but the voices were to so loud its easily recognized, I knew, it was Ms. Laura, He was being punished by Grandfather for trying to help me, like the others that came before her, He believed helping me would only make me weaker, and more disgraceful, and that those that do so, deserved his "Lectures" I wish I could do something but...
Often Times, I just go to my room and study, and study, to keep my mind busy until the noise calms down, until the house is quite once again, I tried talking about it once with my Father, but He simply ignored me, later that year I learned that, all our family asset, is tied only to my grandfather's name, in other words, even my Parents were already bought.
Today, like any other day, was the usual routine. In fact, I was even spared, with only degrading words. If I had talked back, I would probably have had the same fate as Ms. Laura.
The streets were as crowded as yesterday. I could have ridden my car to school, but I refuse to do so, because I know it would be just another "debt" to our grandfather, and I refuse to tie myself down to him like my parents were.
9:44 AM — December 14, 21st Century
Whinslow College of Medicine
"Rylee... Rylee!"
My name cracked through the lecture hall like a whip.
"Sir!" I jolted upright, breath catching in my throat. "I—I was just..."
"Dozing off again during my lecture?" His voice dripped with venomous pride. "How tragic. I asked you a question, Mr. Caldwell. Let's try this again: what allows us to think for ourselves? What separates us from beasts that live and die by instinct alone?"
The room pulsed with stillness. A few snickers echoed behind me, sharp as knives. I swallowed hard and pushed the words past the fog in my mind.
"The brain," I began, my voice steadier than I felt. "More precisely, the cerebrum. It's the front part of the brain—it governs conscious thought, speech, voluntary motion, and memory. It's what gives us... sentience, sir."
He paused, lips curling.
"Hmph. Very well, Rylee. Next time, stay awake. You might actually prove to be useful, and not just be average, and maybe just maybe—"
"You know, sir, when a student fails, it reflects the competency of their mentors, right?" I heard most of your 6th-year students failed. I wonder how many of them are really tardy.
My statement not only hit my professor's weak spot, but also incited the curiosity of my classmates, but it wasn't left unnoticed.
"If that's so, then why aren't you like your parents excelling in the field of medicine, or like me, a professional artist, balancing my professor life and artistic side?" He replied in arrogance, trying to regain his dignity.
"Ohhh" I reacted, with a small grin on my cheeks, I remembered one of those quote I stumbled on the internet back then, "You meant those arts, Sir at some point you must not ask a Piano playing dog if He's Dog playing Piano, but rather if He's any good playing it" I responded in retaliation.
His face turned red as some of my classmates began to laugh uncontrollably. "Sit." The only words that he was able to speak, maybe out of humiliation, or because He's still processing what it meant.
Such a stingy guy, my professor, sometimes I think it's because unlike other students, He couldn't really catch me off guard with his questions, well I can't blame myself for unconsciously hurting his ego, I love to study, that's how I am, I like doing things that other's think are mundane: Art, Music, Science, Literature, Philosophy... while others play video games, or sports, I play Chess, Checkers, Sudoku, or Scrabble; "Some Nerd" I thought.
Or maybe He hates me because I can just wander everywhere in my University, and He can't do anything about it. Well, what can I do? My family founded it: (Whinslow College of Medicine: Winslow University)...
8:14 AM
"People aren't like animals. We're not bound by instinct—we're sentient. We think. We feel. It's what makes you... you." The professor quoted.
7:32 AM
To see is to thin—
7:32...
...and time collapsed.
The hands of the clock stopped, and the world with it, beads of sweat rolling down my temple, froze in place. The rustle of paper halted mid-whisper.
The wind outside—gone.
My classmates sat like statues carved in breathless stillness, and even the professor, mid-scowl, remained unmoving—lips parted, finger raised, caught in the very act of condescension.
A deathly silence swept the room, not empty but pressurized—as if the air itself were holding its breath.
Then I heard it.
A voice—or the memory of one, echoing through the stillness, fractured like static from a dying radio.
"R#$SFae..."
inaudible...
"Ray1!#$%@"
incomprehensible
Rylee Caldwell.
It wasn't heard. It was known.
And then, louder—closer—clearer:
RYLEE CALDWELL.
In some ethereal places unbeknownst to me, Ink began to fall.
Thick and black, each drop like the sound of a pen dragged violently across parchment. It echoed in every corner, resonating, as if it were scripting time itself. Writing the world.
Writing me.
I walked past my frozen mates, trying to understand the situation.
"Who are you?" I whispered, turning toward the soundless hall.
"Where are you?"
"What is happening?"
No answer. Just that infernal scratching of ink.
And a presence, just out of sight—watching.
"I choose you, my pawn in this trivial matter — of my boredom, my indispensable pawn"
The voice shifted back and forth as if fighting its own
"What do you me-, WHO ARE YOU?" I asked,
"An Author," it replied
Then, it spoke in a ceremonial tone, like a king mid-coronation.
"Rejoice, thy mortal one, you my chosen, the unsighted, seeker of knowledge, cursed with wisdom, the witness in search of light, SHALL SEE IN CLAIRVOYANCE...."
As his words resonated — not just in the air, but in the marrow of the world itself — each syllable struck with the weight of prophecy. Every molecule trembled. The very fabric of reality began to twist.
The world around me shuddered, like brittle parchment caught in a gale, folding and tearing at the seams of perception.
Time cracked.
Space groaned.
And I — I was detached.
It pulled me in, a monstrous void of endless depth — not a darkness, but an absence. It devoured all sound, all light, all sense, turning the world into fluttering pages soaked in ink that bled like veins, dripping language I could not read but could feel.
Then came the light.
No, the loss of it.
Colors fled — not faded, but peeled away — each spectrum unraveling from my eyes like threads from an old tapestry. And then, in a breathless instant, I was somewhere else:
The Room of Eternal Darkness.
I stood — or floated, in nothingness.
Then—pain, fast and unprecedented.
From every direction, strings of crimson erupted like the bursting of a heart, lashing through the void. They struck me, pierced me, and bound me in the air like a marionette of meat and memory. They were alive, writhing with intention, soaked in blood not my own.
And from the pitch below, sigils ignited.
Symbols — impossible shapes that screamed when I looked at them — blazed to life in cold flame. Their light was warm and freezing, ancient and unborn, holy and blasphemous.
I tried to scream. But only dust I exhaled,
Then I saw — not with eyes, but with something deeper, older. My sight was no longer mine. I saw not the world, but its meaning, its bones, its lies.
"Do not speak the shape of things," said a voice that split my name in half, "and expect them to remain unchanged."
The shackles pulled tighter.
I was descending.
No!— I was becoming.
And standing at the heart of it all — half-shadow, half-light — was a figure. Watching. Waiting. Weeping.
And smiling.-
*Then a Thud from my fall of loftiest highest, was somehow as near as a bed from the floor
Argh, My back... is Wet?...
What.... then there, as the dim of light reached my hand, a crimson of death, a remembrance of life,
BLOOD?!
I was in shock and awe, BLOOD? There is blood everywhere, not a corner, not an inch, not stained in this horror.. Am I dead? Killed?
Then I realized*
No, it wasn't mine, I wasn't hurt either, I tried to look around and search for something rational, logical, I even tried to pinch myself.
"This is— a Dream, A NIGHTMARE" I shouted in my Mind, as I hold my hand in front of my face, below a puddle of water mixed with blood—
"No. No, No, No. Why, why do I look different? My body feels wrong, stolen, borrowed."
*A gulp of saliva and heavy breathing echoes across the hall of blood and death
"Hurgh hurgh hurgh, They were right, the Lord was Right, WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TOUCHED THE HOUSE OF KHOLER"
Those are words of a bloodied man, in terror, in confusion, and agony
Before words even began to croak from my dried throat, his voice again regained its volume, a hint of dreaded despair and anger.
"Stay away, I beg you mercy please, you, worse than the putrid horrors, I beg your-"
Horrors? Before I could ask,
My eyes have shifted, as I saw all of the dead, dismembered bodies of men wearing what appears to be clothing from the medieval age, mixed with the industrial revolution. I remembered the Anatomy lessons of my professor back in Whinslow, how they showed us pictures of the human body in a cross-section
There struck me with that thought as I looked at the cowering man, I remember those images of how the human body was sliced in different parts in a sagittal manner, divided into sections...
*In a flash, a burst of blood and splatter drenched the Man before me, divided into parts as if carefully and precisely butchered, the same way those anatomy books have depicted
...he didn't scream.
There was no time.
His body collapsed into symmetrical heaps — arms severed at the mid-humerus, thorax split perfectly through the sternum, the halves falling like wet paper to the stone floor. His head rolled once before resting upright, eyes wide, mouth still shaped in the syllables of mercy.
But I had not touched him.
I had only remembered.
The silence after was suffocating. Even the shadows recoiled.
I stared at my hands. Steady. Clean. Yet something deeper than blood coated me — in my conscience a knowing, ancient and wrong. My breath stilled. The scent of iron curled into my nose, and the dim glow of gaslight flickered across the polished bones.
"Impossible," I whispered.
But I knew.
It was the first time.
My thoughts have killed the man before me, not metaphorically but literally.
The first time thinking had made it to reality.