Reality

What is reality, really?

The doctors say that it is what they see and hear, that when one is sane, reality is known intimately, without question. I ask them, “How do you know that what you believe to be reality, is truly so?” And they smile that small condescending smirk that they have, hand out their little pills, and say, “Trust us, we know what is real. You do not.”

So here I live in this house of cards they’ve built, knowing that one of these days, it will crumble around them. But they don’t want to listen, preferring to remain comfortably oblivious to the shark infested waters in which they reside, so who am I to tell them otherwise?

Some days I long for them to look, and not look with the glazed eyes of people assured of the world and their place within it, but truly look, with the intent to see, even if what they need to see is something they’ve never thought to look for. Other days, I simply pity their ignorance, and hope that when the end comes for them, they don’t look away, despite the pain of realizing their grave missteps.

I sigh, walking down the halls of the mental institute, the glaring lights reflecting off the bone white walls, the tiles cold beneath my feet, and the rubber strips along the bottoms of my hospital stockings faintly squeaking with every step I take.

There are times when I wonder if I truly am crazy, if I imagined everything as they say, but then I remind myself of the others, the group of people who also see the same things I do. When people come to the organization, there are rigorous tests to ascertain that what they see is identical to all the rest, and if it doesn't add up, they are turned away without exception.

If you don’t see the the eldritch beings, you don’t get into the Third Eye.

It is no small group, there are many branches spread across the globe; our branch alone consists of several hundred people, all of whom see precisely the same beings, down to the most minute details.

I wish I could go back to them, that I hadn’t broken the rules. But the rules exist for a reason, to protect our members from the exact fate that has befallen me- being labeled as insane and tucked away into this small corner of their reality. I shouldn’t have broken them, but I couldn’t just sit by and do nothing while the vast majority of the world goes about their lives, not knowing just how near their end looms. I had to at least try to warn them. Now, thanks to this folly, even if I get out of this place I won’t be able to go back to the Third Eye. I am unequivocally condemned to be on my own in the face of the end.

I wish… but no, wishes are useless. I stand by my choice. There are many innocents in this world, and most don’t have the preparations in place that the Third Eye has. If there was even a small chance that I could help them- and let’s be real, it was more like a fraction of a chance, but even so- I had to give it my best shot.

So I walk these bare white halls, and observe the unsuspecting people who roam them, confident in their reality. I see as a nurse paces past the scaly, centipede like creature with the tongue of a lizard and pincers reminiscent of a scorpion, and watch as the tip of his tail just barely brushes her shoulder, a gentle caress, a promise that she will soon be his.

Each creature has favorites, those they have marked as their own, and nearly every person has been chosen. Once there are none left to choose, they will show themselves, and then the rose colored glasses will come off, and these complacent sheep will realize that their gold gilded reality was truly just an artfully crafted painting. They will try to run, but it will be too late. And that time draws ever nearer, with every echoing tick of the clocks that hang on their white paper walls.

I glance over my shoulder at the vulture shaped being that claimed me long ago, her wet, bulging frog eyes meeting mine. I no longer recoil in revulsion; having long since become accustomed to her presence it is merely disconcerting at most. If I had stayed with the Third Eye, I would have been able to escape the fate that her gaze promises me, but sadly I thought myself to be some kind of shepherd for these poor sheep, and now I live in their carefully concocted pen, awaiting the slaughter alongside them.

Reality is a game that I lost, even though I had all the cheat codes, because I went back to save the npc’s. But at least it’s a game I knew I was playing… they never even stood a chance.