[Joel]
Date: 1 May 2025
I'd been dreaming again.
But this one stuck like barbed wire in my chest.
It began hazy—shapes flickering like candlelight underwater.
There was a small silhouette—barely visible, curled on its side.
A black cat.
A faint shimmer of red around its neck gave it away.
Momo.
He lay on what seemed like a stone altar—marble, maybe—but even that was unclear, like I was looking through frosted glass.
His little chest rose and fell rapidly. His paws twitched.
The red bell on his collar gave a single, weak jingle.
He was afraid.
He looked so tired.
Then came the figures.
Shrouded in red robes and black veils, their presence was more sensed than seen. The dream wouldn't let me glimpse their faces.
But some... some had tails protruding from under their robes. Others had wings—feathered or leathery—folded tight behind them.
They circled Momo, moving in slow rhythm. Their voices rose like a tide—chanting words I couldn't fully make out.
Only fragments stuck:
"...gate...walk...betrayal..."
"...spiral...unravel..."
"...breaking...chain... soul..."
The words bled together, echoing too loud and too close.
The air smelled of rusted metal and burning herbs. It was thick, hard to breathe.
Candlelight flickered from every direction, warping the space around Momo.
No windows.
No air.
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No time.
Then—
One figure froze. Tilted its head.
"Someone's watching."
A whisper—wet and static, like sound underwater.
They all turned to me.
Pointed.
Every single one of them.
Then something black slammed into my view—
A crow.
I woke up gasping.
That morning, I felt raw. Like I hadn't slept at all.
The hospital's fluorescent lights burned into my eyes.
Everything felt muted, off-beat.
The sky turned copper as I walked home.
That was when I saw them.
A murder of crows.
Not ten.
Not twenty.
At least fifty.
Maybe a hundred.
They perched in eerie silence atop the rusted gate of a burnt-out house—gutted by fire years ago.
Some on the roof, others along the skeletal windows. Every one of them silent.
Watching.
None of them blinked.
None cawed.
None moved.
They just... stared.
For what felt like hours.
And then—
A shriek.
A thousand wings.
A piercing, discordant wail.
The crows exploded into motion, an avalanche of shrieks and feathers that darkened the sky for just a moment.
It should have jolted me.
But I didn't. Couldn't.
Their silence had frozen something in me—and now, their sudden noise had hollowed it out.
And when the last wingbeat faded, something remained.
Not fear.
A pull.
It wasn't physical, not exactly.
But it settled into my chest like a hook behind the ribs. Like someone had tugged an invisible string tied to my spine.
Something called me.
The burned house loomed ahead, its charred wood skeletal, its blackened walls leaning like tired limbs. Nature had started taking it back—ivy clung to what was left of the porch, and moss swallowed chunks of brick.
Still, the pull came from deeper inside.
I found myself stepping forward.
One step.
Two.
My hand touched the rusted gate.
It opened with a groan, louder than it should've been.
The air was colder here. Too still. Like the wind had been forgotten in this place.
The smell hit me first—old ash, damp decay, and something else... ozone?
I crossed the overgrown yard, shoes brushing past forgotten toys half-melted by fire. One of them was a red rubber ball, cracked down the center like a fruit rotting from within.
Then I saw it.
In the heart of the house, past the collapsed beams and broken walls, a tear in space, hanging just above the floorboards.
Not a circle. Not a door.
A fracture.
It looked like shattered crystal, shards of jagged light suspended midair, each reflecting parts of a landscape that wasn't this world.
Towering trees.
Glowing leaves
And now... I could feel that wind. It brushed against my face.
Carried a thousand scents—earthy, floral, strange.
"Maybe... this is where he went," I mumbled subconsciously.
My body moved without asking me.
I raised a hand, fingers trembling.
I knew I shouldn't touch it.
But I did.
The shard of light rippled like water struck by a single breath.
And the moment my fingertip grazed it, the portal flared—
light bending, warping outward like a flower opening.
Wind howled.
The pull became teeth.
I screamed.
My legs tried to move back but the ground beneath me crumbled.
And then—
I was gone.
The light folded in on itself, collapsing with a crack—like shattering glass.
The wind died instantly.
Dust settled.
The burned floor where I had stood was undisturbed, scorched, and broken.
Just as it had been for years.
No trace of the portal remained.
As if it had never been there.
As if I had never been here.