Vice Versa

It was yesterday - or was it tomorrow? Yes, yes, I remember now. It was tomorrow. I can hardly bring myself to say what occurred on that most horrifying day, but I must, if only to confirm my insanity.

I don't recall exactly how I stumbled upon the place at first; one second I was not there, and the next I was. It was a subtle change, too. Only after a moment of thought did I realize my surroundings had changed. I still do not know where the place was or how I got there, or even how I escaped.

What I do know is that it was terrifying. The cruel realization for some reason compelled me to look up. My eyes met with a vast sky, its sickly, unnatural, blue shade appalling and beautiful at the same time. Diseased patches of some white, gaseous creature drifted by. Despite the fact that none of the featureless, puffy masses had made any attempt at an assault, I promptly fled.

To where, I cannot tell. Every step I took, the wispy apparitions followed. Only then did I notice a blinding orb between them, hellish tendrils of evil light spreading throughout the blue abyss. It was most likely the eye of some awful thing in the sky.

I lowered my sight, not wanting to continue gazing at the burning eye, for fear I might provoke it into anger. Immediately I was greeted with an arguably more hideous scene.

All around me were unspeakable monoliths, their impossibly Euclidean angles filled with unnatural cells of rocky, dirt-red or some horribly glistening fibre. Openings of translucent shapes - with only four sides, I might add! - lined the walls.

The tops of the great obelisks were slanted in ways I can not even begin to describe. All I can say is they were either frighteningly flat and made of the same odd substance as the rest of the unnatural structures, or they were adorned with an impossible three angles and covered in dark-brown scales.

Beneath me was a strange, uneven, stony plain, sickly ochre lines running down the center. It made my skin crawl just being near it.

I was given a fright by some uncanny, hellish din from behind me. It was something between the grinding of bone on bone and a tongue licking razor-sharp blades. Another wicked noise joined the fray soon after the first one began, this time a shrill roar.

Immediately, I turned to face the source of the noise. Charging straight at me was a metallic, maroon organism. I cannot begin to try and understand what the beast was. It had a single, black eye in the center of its body, surrounded by some red-brown flesh (seemingly hard as metal), and propelled itself on four strange, rubbery, black legs which lacked any angles! For a split-second I thought I saw something else inside of the monster's four-angled eye.

I leaped out of the way just in time to avoid being run down by the eidolic monstrosity, surprised when it continued on its path instead of turning to pursue me. I found myself belly-down on some eerie surface, covered by green prickling hairs. Cautiously, I pushed myself up, not wanting to disturb whatever the green, almost organic hairs were a part of.

It was then that the... the thing appeared.

It was more terrifying than all of my previous encounters combined. Scarier than the screaming, mechanical monster, and the ground-hair, and the floating beasts in the sky.

The creature was short but gangly, with four limbs, two of which, and I am not lying, it was standing on. A patch of dark fur sat atop its deformed head, but otherwise it was hairless and emaciated. The monster had emerged from one of the disturbing monoliths.

Only one joint was in each arm, causing the slavering beast to move unnaturally, as though something was holding it up. It would put one limb in front and go forth, then the other, and go forth, and on, and on, and on. Perhaps the most horrifying aspect was its face. Two - only two! - eyes rested at the top of the pale, pathetic thing, above a sharp protrusion with two holes at the bottom. What I can amount to its mouth was but a thin crease surrounded by unnerving wrinkles.

The monster took one look at me, its mostly white eyes widening in what I can only assume is a grim delight. Its thin mouth opened, baring horrendously blunt teeth. An evil scream of fury emanated from the gaping chasm that was its round, toothy maw. It was then that I silently bid a sad farewell to all I had known.

But to my surprise, the abomination did not attack. Instead it turned, fleeing in its same terrifying motion. I did not want to wait for it to return.

And then I was back home.

I still do not know what that unnatural place was, or any of its obscene inhabitants. At the most, it resembled a false world from some ancient fantasy novel, a made-up kingdom known as 'Nuu Yowurk', but even that is a stretch.

I am terrified to leave my abode. All I do every day now is twiddle my tentacles and hope I never return to that horrid place.

Written by Pyro-Gibberish