A Million Roads to Nowhere

Phantasmagoria

Note: Things are happening, folks. I remember when I wrote this section, I had such a vision in my head and I think it turned out pretty good. We're almost to part five, wow! Anyway, I hope all of you lovelies enjoy this installment of Patrick Has a Bad Day. Happy reading! ;)

Patrick has no idea where he is. He's not even quite sure what he's seeing, if anything at all. The space around him seems to be swimming or moving or pulsing- something. The area around him is void of all color- all lines and shapes, too.

Reflexively, he steps forward and finds he can't feel anything under his feet. He keeps moving and swings his arms wildly when he can't find anything solid to grip onto. It feels like he's floating, so he looks down and his body is just sort of... hanging there, suspended.

He swims around in the nothingness until a piercing ringing rips through his skull. He yells, losing concentration. He starts to fall and he knows this because he can feel the throbbing tenseness as he whooshes through the dark.

He falls with his arms and legs outstretched, front facing down. His clothes and hair billow and fly behind him as he falls until he finally hits something solid. He doesn't have time to brace for pain, but even as he hits the ground, the pain never comes.

The only thing Patrick feels is a sound pressure, the most real thing he can remember feeling. He pushes himself up off his hands and knees and takes a look around, puzzled.

Hundreds of blurry black shapes amble through the equally dark beyond, seemingly moving in aimless patterns. The figures appear to be humanoid. They walk upright and have long limbs, but their eyes are big and white and glowing.

Patrick has the keen sense he's forgetting something, but he has no clue as to what. The more he thinks, the more he realizes he doesn't actually remember anything at all. Distressed, he approaches one of the figures and grabs it.

"Do you know where I am?"

The figure's head cocks to the side and they open their mouth, but all that comes out is a bunch of garbled nonsense that Patrick could never dream of understanding.

"I can't understand you."

The shadow person stares at him for one more moment and says something in that indiscernible language and then walks away, leaving Patrick confused and upset.

"Where am I?" he asks. "Who am I?"

He knows words, but they feel wrong in his mouth and they don't flow quite right. Other than that, he can't grasp onto anything. He can't remember why he's here and he can't remember anything about himself, not even a name.

A group of the shadow people begin heading in a certain direction, so Patrick starts to follow along, even though he isn't one of them. He's full of color- greens and browns and pink tones- while they are only blurry masses. He has fine clothes, too, not to mention the fact that he's solid and they aren't.

The group of maybe thirty or forty shadow people walk until they reach a silvery pool that might as well be water. By the pool, several others are lining up at the edge, bodies wavering as if listening to something, before jumping in and vanishing entirely. When they fall, the pool sucks them in, more like mud than water.

Patrick wonders if he should go over there, but he has no idea what they're doing and he doesn't even know what he's doing. He doesn't even know where he is or who he is- he can't remember, but he feels like he should.

Bewildered, Patrick watches as the shadow figures he walked with join the others at the pool and one by one, descend into the silver mud. He looks closer at the area around him, but there's not much to look at. The blackness goes on forever and all there is are shadow people with the glowing eyes and black rocks. Some of the rocks are pebbles and he picks them up to inspect whenever he comes across one. Mostly, the rocks are big and jagged and sit in the distance like mountains. Those rocks lead Patrick to believe he might be in a cave, but the mountains don't seem to get any closer when he walks toward them.