“How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible. Either the future would resemble the present in which case it would not listen to him, or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless.” George Orwell

My finger followed those words across the page the first time they entered my consciousness. There was never a time they weren’t there. In a flash of light I knew why I was down here, trapped amongst shadows. First smoke, a man in the far distance at a table writing pages falling to the ground as they erupt in fire. The man continues on unphased, his white beard, dragging at his feet, the history of his words burning at his feet as he continues adding page after page…

I hear screams erupting from the ground beneath me as I run my finger down the mirror which materializes before me. Something falls from the sky as the screams erupt from the blood flowing through my arm, the square says to be happy. The toaster that makes my breakfast in the morning also made what’s falling from the sky. I’m not suppose to know it, but I feel it, they make me feel it. I touch the mirror again, reversing every one of my experiences, traveling to and through time, it was the mirror…and I am trapped in a vision.

A reverse memory of her, the dark eyes, I touch the mirror of her as she screams, and splits in two.  And that book, upon opening, which shed so much darkness, and so much light, and such a powerful vision, a vision so powerful, it’s future reality became all but inevitable….how to communicate when you’ve forgotten what you are? There is a hand at my back, I look up at the moon and I remember traveling through darkness. The first light I see seems to be a camera followed by noise and screams and I lie here, at the bottom of a well, water dripping on my forehead. The first quiet I’ve felt in a long time.

Something was buzzing above my head and the buzzing never stopped. I couldn’t tell anymore if it was part of my own thoughts. My hand reaches for the mirror as I see a line in the sand. I see a time when I remembered for the first time, when I forgot my name for the first time. When the mole growing on my face held me back from becoming one of them, and I scratched until it was gone, until I could taste the blood in my mouth and as I was reborn into the shadows they are, I remembered, and I forgot and I became everything.

And the cries I had no ability to calm, escaping from the mouth of the stuffed bear I held in my hands. The bear that protected me when the shadows would come at night. Would whisper in my ear it’s okay. Don’t tell anyone, they won’t listen anyway. The bear told me maybe one day it would be okay if only I learned how to listen. I close my eyes but still the shadows don’t disappear.

I looked down an infinite hall of mirrors, and I saw you somewhere amongst them, your dark hand waves in front of my eyes but I wasn’t afraid.  As a card removed from a deck, you appeared before me and I instantly knew, I saw a way, and since then, I let my heart lead.  I continued on and the pain was overwhelming as everything was repeatedly reflected upon me. And the whirring started again, and your hand waves by once again, but I am still clutching that book and watching all of the demons, and all of the shards of light escape as I drop the book and it falls open to a page I don’t recognize, and words which overtake me as I see a large rectangular structure appear. This must be where they build truth. There is a conveyor belt in the distance, figures appearing on it slowly being carried into their new home. I look down at my feet as I travel along that conveyor belt, with the black smoke rising from the building and the shadows floating up along with the smoke. The man hands me a page, as I hold it in my hands, everything I’ve ever forgotten enters my mind and I look down at the page as it erupts in fire and falls at my feet…abandon all hope ye…who…enter here