Manifestation
It was crowded by the time you got here, music thrumming through the floorboards, the air thick with the smell of spilled beer and cheap perfume. Bodies moved in a loose, undulating mass, their laughter and shouted conversations merging into a single, indistinct roar. You pressed through them, a ghost in the machine, your presence barely registering amidst the chaos. You weren't here for the revelry.
Even as you roamed through the rooms, weaving between strangers, you wondered for brief moments if you were insane. That this whole search was a fool's errand, that these 'entities' were merely allegories for the human condition given form through myth and rumor. Then you would feel that thrum, that quiet hum in the back of your mind that told you otherwise. There was a world just beyond your own, and it was starving.
You found your chosen location in the cramped, humid bathroom. The lock was a flimsy piece of brass, easily broken, but it gave you the illusion of privacy. You leaned against the door, letting the vibrations from the music sink into your bones. The first method, the one for Hysteria, required a specific kind of loneliness. Not the quiet solitude of an empty room, but the profound isolation of being surrounded by people who do not see you. It needed the noise, the press of bodies, the certainty that you could scream and not be heard.
The instructions had been maddeningly simple, found in a water-damaged pamphlet tucked inside a library book discussing Women's Studies. Be unseen, be unheard, be alone, and walk far enough away, far enough that you won't be missed. You had to walk with purpose, but not towards anything in particular. It was about the journey, not the destination.
You took one last look at your reflection in the mirror—sunken face, dark circles under your eyes from too many nights spent poring over cursed texts. A ghost already. You take a break to steady yourself, then another. A third. A fourth.
You unlock the door, and you start to walk.
It wasn't always, that you saw her; Apparently sometimes you just found yourself standing in a hall trying to find where you were going, or on a balcony staring out at a city skyline, but sometimes, sometimes the floor stretches longer than it should. Sometimes, space distorts, your footsteps go on for seconds too long, then minutes, and when you look back it seems like the house has disappeared down an endless corridor.
You thought you were going insane, at first. A panic attack, maybe. The noise from the party faded to a dull thud, then to a faint thrum. The corridor stretched, the wallpaper blurring into indistinct patterns of beige and floral. The air grew still, tasting of dust and old paper. The music from the party faded. Not gradually, as if you were walking away, but as if someone were slowly turning a dial. The thumping bass recedes to a distant pulse, then to nothing at all.
Even as you roamed through the rooms, weaving between strangers, you wondered for brief moments if you were insane. That this whole search was a fool's errand, that these 'entities' were merely allegories for the human condition given form through myth and rumor. Then you would feel that thrum, that quiet hum in the back of your mind that told you otherwise. There was a world just beyond your own, and it was starving.
You found your chosen location in the cramped, humid bathroom. The lock was a flimsy piece of brass, easily broken, but it gave you the illusion of privacy. You leaned against the door, letting the vibrations from the music sink into your bones. The first method, the one for Hysteria, required a specific kind of loneliness. Not the quiet solitude of an empty room, but the profound isolation of being surrounded by people who do not see you. It needed the noise, the press of bodies, the certainty that you could scream and not be heard.
The instructions had been maddeningly simple, found in a water-damaged pamphlet tucked inside a library book discussing Women's Studies. Be unseen, be unheard, be alone, and walk far enough away, far enough that you won't be missed. You had to walk with purpose, but not towards anything in particular. It was about the journey, not the destination.
You took one last look at your reflection in the mirror—sunken face, dark circles under your eyes from too many nights spent poring over cursed texts. A ghost already. You take a break to steady yourself, then another. A third. A fourth.
You unlock the door, and you start to walk.
It wasn't always, that you saw her; Apparently sometimes you just found yourself standing in a hall trying to find where you were going, or on a balcony staring out at a city skyline, but sometimes, sometimes the floor stretches longer than it should. Sometimes, space distorts, your footsteps go on for seconds too long, then minutes, and when you look back it seems like the house has disappeared down an endless corridor.
You thought you were going insane, at first. A panic attack, maybe. The noise from the party faded to a dull thud, then to a faint thrum. The corridor stretched, the wallpaper blurring into indistinct patterns of beige and floral. The air grew still, tasting of dust and old paper. The music from the party faded. Not gradually, as if you were walking away, but as if someone were slowly turning a dial. The thumping bass recedes to a distant pulse, then to nothing at all.