Covered in the ethereal cloak of the Spirit, you are swept along through the cool damp air, a tangible contrast to the enveloping warmth embracing you.
An occasional fire casts flickers of light onto the walls, and you begin to make out figures.
Millions of them. Billions of them.
Chained to the walls of their caves.
"Where are you taking me?"
"Beyond."
"Beyond what?"
"Beyond the Boundary."
"What Boundary?"
"My Voice will wake the others if I speak, and what I am about to show you is beyond your ability to conceive of it. Be quiet and try to Perceive, and we will discuss it when we are out safely Beyond."
The nightmare you witness as your soar through the cavernous darkness stands in stark contrast to the grey dreams that are your only recent memories.
Pale bodies, billions of them, chained in the darkness. Shallowly breathing. Scarcely alive.
As your eyes adjust to seeing for the first time, you begin to Perceive the terrain.
It becomes apparent that you are making your way through some kind of vast network of caves. Some are so enormous that the sea of bodies they hold fades out beyond view, and others are tiny, containing a single human in tormented isolation.
Strange beings stand guard at the mouth of each cave. As you look more closely at the beings, you can see that although they wear clothes, they are decaying, as if their very essence is rotting from within. They speak incessantly, uttering the same words that strangely seem to be flowing in response from the mouth of the cave.
Are the caves speaking?
As your ears continue to discover how to hear, they gradually attune to the cacophony, each sound becoming magnified - a relentless assault on senses newly awakened to the din of chaos and despair.
Descending through a narrow pass, you come close enough to the mouth of a cave to get a better glimpse of the captives within.
They are asleep, but they are speaking! The words coming from the mouths of the caves are the words coming from the mouths of their inhabitants in unison, and the words coming from the mouths of the captives are the mindless repetition of the incessant chatter of the Keepers of that cave.
Involuntarily, you suddenly find yourself vomiting out pale grey liquids, that cascade down onto the pale grey bodies uttering the pale grey words into the pale grey expanse of the caves.
The Spirit grips you tighter and you feel... something that you have no words for.
"Am I... one of those?" you ask the Spirit with horror...
"No." The Spirit whispers firmly. "You were one of those, but now you are awake. That is why it was so hard to wake you. It is nearly impossible to hear My Voice while you are mindlessly repeating the empty words of the Keeper of your Cave."
Confronted with a terror so profound, a realization so appalling, and a cacophony so deafening, your body rejects the overwhelming horror with another wave of nausea and vomiting, before darkness claims you, and you succumb once again to unconsciousness.
Forward to 1.6 Outside the Boundary
Back to 1.4 Unmoored in the Seas of Chaos
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