#listened to evil star by king gizzard while writing this btw

[stillgrows]

@decomposited

A flood of information. Violence, terror, apathy, disconnect, void, all of it connecting and intermingling with even more words than Sigma could think to describe, a horrible torrent, a gaping wound, a tsunami higher than they could see, pulling the world out from under them, their world out from under them, and they were so small, and he knew what they had agreed to, and they were drowning———

Silence. Stillness. Those were the first two things Sigma was aware of. The flood of panic was sequestered to the back of their mind; they were aware of it, of the weight of it, lurking there, pressing and seeking any weakness it could find and threatening to take them over again. But their defenses held—the same defenses that landed them here.

They should have been dead. It was possible they were dead, they supposed. They never had any thoughts about what would come after, even when faced with it. But they didn't think they were dead. They were floating—or were they falling? Drowning again. Panic surged through them once more, the air leaving their lungs in a thoughtless, terrified gasp, bubbles rising upward. They flailed, desperately seeking the surface.

They broke through, coughing and gasping, clearing water that wasn't there from their lungs. Beneath them was the water, its surface solid and smooth despite the ripples. It reflected the starry sky above like a mirror, but their reflection was nowhere to be found. They stood on unsteady feet, not trusting the ground they couldn't see. From this angle, with the stars reflected so clearly on the water they looked to be beneath the surface, it looked like the thick glass floor in the center of the casino.

But there were no stars below. There was the earth and the twinkling lights of cities far below the Sky Casino there, and here there were stars caught in the deep sea.

Sigma's mind was moving slow, still groggy from the onslaught of information their ability had pulled from Dostoevsky, and it was only now that they realized that the improbability of it all made sense in only one context: a dream. The impossibility, the rationalizing... this was a dream, and they—

A quick look-around revealed one part of the dream their mind was doing its best not to parse, or not create. Shadows. The depths of the sea made solid. A current ran a chill through their bones, and for a moment they thought they could see a faint cloud of their breath before it was gone. There was a presence there, just out of sight. They could feel it, even if they couldn't see it.

This may have been a dream, but they were not alone.

"Who are you?" they asked, voice sounding braver and more sure than they felt. Their fists clenched at their sides, manicured nails digging into their palms to steady their shake.