The afterlife isn't exactly what you think nosleep

I didn't quite realize that the two were connected until around two months ago. Dreams and the afterlife. Reality and perception.

Have you ever heard about those dreams that people have? The ones where they’re feeling stressed, and their dead mom comes to reassure them? Or when they dream about playing fetch with their recently passed dog one last time? I have. I’d never really thought about them much. Dismissed them as feel good stories or the brain attempting to deal with intense situations. I’d never actually thought that they might have actually spoken with them, and especially not from the other side.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It began threeish months ago, when I ran into an old friend of a friend. I had remembered this guy from middle school as being one of those weird kids. Not like the gamer weird or the smelly guy weird, but the one that always had the weirdest theories about everything.

Like Buster, from Arthur, I suppose. Or Agent Mulder.

Anyways, he was odd, but really friendly and got along with most people. It was a trait that he seemed to have kept when I met again, almost seven years later. I met him at a party that our mutual friend was throwing, where he immediately remembered my face. I had no idea who he was, right up until he started going off about one of his weird theories. It was something about the Sun being a living being or something like that.

Yeah.

Anyways, we were talking for a few minutes in between songs from the band (who sucked, by the way. Fuck you, Jared), and he mentioned that he ran a blog. I’ll admit that I was actually curious and inquired further. At this point, he got really shifty and asked me for my email, and he’d send me some stuff he didn't have on there. Interesting stuff.

Naturally this set off my radar. I didn't want the FBI knocking at my door. At the same time though, I guess I’m one of those people who embody the phrase “curiosity killed the cat.” I gave him an email address that I never used in case it was something weird (hint: it was, but not in that way) and told him to hit me up. I didn’t hear from him for a few days, and after a couple weeks I had stopped checking that email account completely. It wasn't until the week after that that I randomly checked the email again and saw that I received a message. It came on the day I stopped checking, of course. It contained a series of pdfs, filled with insane theories, experiments to back them up, and photo “evidence”. I was actually kind of interested, and spent about a week just skimming over them. There was one that kept my attention, however. It concerned lucid dreaming. Now, lucid dreaming can be done, and it’s not like this particular file is the only source on it. You can google it and find a million different methods for lucid dreaming.

However, most of these methods don’t involve connecting yourself to the afterlife.

You heard me. I said the afterlife. "Well Asher," you'll say. "The afterlife doesn't exist!" Then I'll laugh at you and you'll be all mad at me and nobody will have a good time, so I'll preempt that by saying yes, yes it does. I've been there. Not that that's something particularly amazing or impressive. Getting to the afterlife is actually surprisingly easy if you know exactly how to do it (and no, I'm not going to tell you for reasons that should be clearly obvious after we're finished with all of this). Also, the afterlife is really fucking weird and, quite frankly, I don't like it much. It's not what you're probably thinking, not even close.

Back to the story: I decided to check it out for myself. It was one of the saner sounding theories in the file and had the least chance to get me in trouble with the law or cause me to seriously injure myself. All it required was for me to pick up some small, cheap, unnamed items and follow the the instructions:

1. Sleep during before noon or after midnight (same thing). Between noon and midnight, the connection to our world is much weaker. Don't ask me why.

2. Use one of these small items before you sleep. Apparently it helps you establish a connection.

3. Close your blinds and shut your door. Sleep in a basement if you can. Being underground helps, and blocking all the light that you can is essential.

4. Place another one of these items on your stomach while you sleep (meaning you have to sleep on your back)

5. Don't be interrupted. Sleep in an area alone. A cave is the best (ever wonder why oracles always hang out in caves?) but basements work as well.

6. Lastly, drink the last of these items. It will combine with the first and help you establish a connection.

It sounded fun and I had nothing better to do that night (what with finals being done and whatnot), so I decided to give it a go. I felt sort of embarrassed as I started the ritual for all of about thirty seconds before I realized that I was home alone so I was allowed to do whatever dumb stuff I felt like doing. Doing steps 2-6 was quick, and I was dead tired anyways (working until 2AM the night before will do that to you), so step 1 came naturally as well. Before long I was snoring almost as loudly as my sister did that one time on vacation where the entire family was in one hotel room.

I had taken some precautions when I first went to sleep, so that when I "awoke" I was moderately sure that I was actually in a lucid dream. The clock being random gibberish confirmed it. I was actually somewhat impressed at the fact that this method did seem to produce lucid dreaming. Whether it really connected you with the afterlife remained to be seen.

I decided to investigate. The file said that the dream world was just slightly above the afterlife (the crust to the proverbial mantle) and that there would be a way to descend into the dream. It described it as being sort of like the Nolan movie, Inception. There are multiple layers to the "dream," where each of these layers represents a layer of the afterlife. Apparently this has inspired religions around the world, producing such things as the Jewish Three Heavens and the Seven Circles of Hell.

This meant, of course, that I had to go deeper. Literally. There would be some sort of hatch, door, cave, etc that would allow you to descend into the afterlife. Apparently this used to be ascend, but something about humanity's perception of the afterlife dictated that it should go down instead of up.

Which wasn't terribly comforting.

I awoke in a facsimile of my bedroom, though it was slightly different. The clock was gibberish, as I said. It was a fair bit neater than my real room (not that I'm a slob, but I'm not exactly a neat freak) and the door was wide open when I ALWAYS keep it shut. It wasn't different enough to make me truly upset, but the subtle differences actually were kind of bothering me. It felt like I had gone to sleep and some people had been in my room before I had woken up. It was a strange feeling, and I didn't like it one bit. My blinds were also shut, but as I went to open them the strangest feeling overcame me, like something was just outside my field of view, waiting for me.

All of this combined led me to feel distinctly nervous, which I was not expecting. I left my room and quickly shut the door behind me, which put me in my living room. All the windows had been boarded up, and the door was chained shut. Caution tape had been layered over it to the point where you almost couldn't see the wood underneath it. The floor was slightly different as well. Instead of the tan carpet I had laid down, the floors were made of concrete, which glistened wetly. The dripping sound of water came from somewhere over my head, and the whole area just felt... unclean. Like a swamp, where the water is just disgusting.

I felt even more uneasy and looked around for something to potentially defend myself. Luckily (or maybe I created it?), my knife was laying on the table next to me, which I quickly snatched up. Going upstairs was out of the question at this point. I can't really explain where the idea came from, but I felt like the house had been reinforced for a reason, and that going outside the defenses that had been assembled would be extremely unwise. Instead, I decided to investigate the storeroom.

I had always hated the storeroom. It was shaped like an L, so you couldn't see one end of it. It had no lights, so it was always dark, and the door to it was just to my right of where my computer station had been set up. I always felt like it was watching me whenever I sat down at my computer, so I usually made a point of keeping the door shut. Of course, like my bedroom door, it was open and the interior was completely pitch black. I looked for a way to illuminate it, but saw no flashlights or matches, or really anything of the sort.

It was then that I realized that I was wearing clothing, instead of my pajamas (yes, I didn't notice until now. Shut up. I had slightly more worrisome things on my mind). Instead of the bottoms and t-shirt I had gone to sleep in, I was now wearing my black hoodie, with grey jeans and my black shoes, all of which I distinctly remember leaving upstairs in the washing machine before I went to sleep. Yes, I realize that I'm in a dream, but it was just one of a series of things that led to everything feeling wrong. Usually you don't remember what you wear in a dream, and usually the dream doesn't go into so much detail that it actually reconstructs clothes that you own, and in a pattern you usually wear them in.

But more importantly, I found my phone in my pocket. It had no bars or wifi, and the clock was just gibberish (weird characters in a language that I didn’t know) but the battery appeared to be fully charged, and my flashlight app was installed. I turned it on and entered the storeroom, guided by its cold white light. The room was completely empty. All the usual things in it were gone. No food, no clothing, no refrigerator, nothing. However, as I rounded the corner, a rusted iron(?) hatch was set into the floor at the end. On it was carved a single symbol/marking/whatever, which I recreated here.

I had no idea what the thing meant, but in this moment I was euphoric I was pretty psyked. Here, in front of me, was the entrance to the afterlife.

As I inspected the hatch, I noticed that it seemed to be recently opened. A layer of displaced rust ringed the hatch, and it hadn't yet become completely damp from the extremely moist air. It set off some red flags and alarm bells, but I had gone too far at this point to go back. So with a mighty heave, I flung open the hatch and almost squashed my foot. A deep, black hole stretched deep into the earth in front of me. A ladder, similarly rusted, fell into the depths. My light revealed that the hole was actually pretty thin, with the sides being made of what looked like concrete.

I hesitated, considering my options, but eventually swung a leg over and gingerly tested it. The ladder, despite looking shoddy as all get out, held surprisingly firm. So after one quick check to make sure I had everything with me, I began my descent. It was exceedingly dull and went for way longer than it should have. I kept expecting the hatch to slam shut above me, or for something to spring from the darkness below and grab me, but nothing ever did. The light from above gradually faded, which forced me to climb mostly one armed while using my phone for illumination. Luckily for me, the battery didn't seem to be draining at all. This was pretty comforting, as having a steady source of light seemed like it was going to continue to be important.

Eventually the shaft began to get brighter, illuminated by some light source below. It was a deep red, like the light you expect to see when a starship goes into red alert in some scifi movie. It wasn't much longer until I ended up at the end of the ladder. Below me appeared to be some sort of generator room. A large metal turbine took up the center and majority of said room. Several metal shelves were set up against the walls, and a single red light (a naked bulb in one of those steel cages) flickered on the ceiling. I didn't feel like climbing back up that damn ladder, so I dropped the last ten feet into the room. I noticed that it seemed to have been abandoned in a hurry. Several small items seemed to have been left behind. A wrench, a black plastic case, a box of bullets (which was somewhat disturbing, I don't mind telling you) and what looked like a busted up power drill. An eclectic bunch, to say the least. The plastic case turned out to be a tool case, but it was empty. Sure. Why not?

I gingerly approached the door at the other end of the room, which had a large stamp on it that simply read "L1." It opened surprisingly smoothly for how big it was and led into more pitch blackness. My light illuminated a concrete hallway, with shattered fluorescent lights stretching along the ceiling into the blackness in either direction. I heard scuffling down the left corridor, what sounded like multiple people walking barefoot on concrete. I exited the room cautiously, putting me into the pitch black hallway. I proceeded slowly, but somehow managed to get almost 100 feet down the hall without seeing anything, despite the shuffling getting louder.

Acoustics are a bitch.

That was when I noticed that something was written on the wall. I shined my light on it for a closer look, and saw scrawled on the cement wall in what seemed to be black permanent marker: “Level One is HELL!!!!!” The letters were scribbled on in what seemed to be a mix of haste and probably insanity, and just looking at them made the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach grow even deeper. Obviously the L1 on the door stood for “Level 1,” which meant the first layer of the afterlife (which was apparently Hell). Supposedly there were currently four levels once you're underneath the “dream” world. This meant that I was three levels up from where I wanted to be.

Unfortunately, I was so wrapped up in these thoughts that I failed to notice that shuffling sound had been growing steadily louder. Hey, I never claimed to be a genius.

I turned to see what was making the noise and was promptly greeted with what was probably the scariest thing I'd ever seen. It was at least nine feet tall, with fishbelly pale skin and no hair. It had the face and torso of a human, though down around it's waist, it bent backwards and became almost a horse, though it still looked like a human's back. Protruding from the sides of its body were multiple pairs of arms ending in hands with no fingernails, which it used to walk towards me startlingly quickly. A centipede (inb4 hur dur Human Centipede) would be the closest thing I would compare it to. It had two more arms where a regular human would have them. The hands, unlike its “feet” were tipped with wicked claws, more like a dinosaur's than a human's fingernails. Also, it moved way too fucking quietly for how big and creepy it was.

It took me all of a second after processing this gruesome display for my brain to start screaming at me to run. I concurred, and turned to run. Before I even took my first step, it was on me. It grabbed me with one hand around my leg. My leg screamed in sudden pain as its claws went through the meat of my leg and out the other side, and I went crashing to the ground. My forehead hit the floor with a sickening crack, and everything sort of... went away for a couple seconds. My brain couldn't actually remember why I was so stressed out, though it was certain that it was nothing good.

Everything snapped back into focus and I realized that yup, it was nothing good. My face was about an inch from the thing's, and it just watched me from empty eyesockets for a moment or two. The scene was completely silent, apart from the steady drip of blood from my leg to the concrete five feet below.

Then, without warning, it opened its mouth and shoved me towards it. I screamed. I'll admit it. But just as I was about to enter that gaping maw, the world shattered in a blast of noise.

I awoke to my alarm screaming at me, letting me know in no uncertain terms that it was, in fact, 7:00 AM. I was sweaty and shaking, and felt like I had a really bad cold.

But most importantly? My bedroom door was open, my hands were covered in dirt/rust and the back of my jean's left leg had been torn open to the knee, though my leg was unblemished.

Submitted April 30, 2015 at 11:17AM by artificialdivinity http://ift.tt/1JaVOlT nosleep