In Pursuit of the Truth

[Oyster.]

? ? ?

I was in a strange place.

Alone, with a figure before me. Indescribable.

There was an incessant buzzing in my head. Telling me so many things. Don't do this, don't do that...

Locusts tugging at the roots of who I am.

For so many years I had walked between the dreams of mortals. Every time, a little piece of me was left behind.

After all this time... what was left?

lovedeathjoygrieffearsadnessempathytrustdisciplinedoubtpressure

I knew that I was in a dream. Perhaps, for the very first time, my own dream. Yet I could not wake up.

Every time I tried, a new thought would enter. A new concern regarding some dream or another that I had felt.

How are they going to solve it? What are they going to do? How could they possibly overcome this feeling?

sacrificehopepurposeclarityprideambitiondeterminationwrath

As I looked upon the figure, I came to a sudden realization.

All this time I had been searching for an answer to a question that I had never asked.

All this time, creating a hypothesis...

... but what was I trying to solve?

the dream seemed to last an eternity. that figure opposite me never said a word. i could not speak, either- every time i tried i was crushed by the weight of emotions that were not my own.

spiraling, spiraling- trapped. it is difficult to write upon in reflection, for such an encounter was far from lucid.

i had no choice but to confront them all. i am a demon; these things are not important to me. so why, do they keep surfacing? how can i possibly accommodate all of this?

perhaps it did not matter what i was. now i had become something different.

a hypothesis hanging before me... i realized it was already finished.

my time in dreams had given me a crystalline answer.

all that was left was to

awaken.

towards the figure i turned, words spoken now in a language i had never known . . .

When I awoke, years had passed. I had become something new.

I had found the question.

Hypothesis complete.