Written by Patrick D. McNamara
May 24, 2025
3:25 PM
Something shifted in his mind. His consciousness had entered a new level of awareness within a pinkish-black void.
Peter opened his eyes, the details of his life coming back to him at once.
He was watching his friend Louie’s dog in Oneonta, New York while he went on a trip to Seattle. Lacey was an easy dog to take care of, but the hang with her and the pay were not the primary drivers for Peter’s visit to Otsego County.
He was here to meet with Alex. She was a lab assistant for the biology department at the local SUNY school, and her growing operation at home was unorthodox and extremely illegal. She had combined DNA fragments from internationally sourced fungus specimens and created entirely new species of edible mushrooms. Peter was invited to try these creations and be a psychonaut pioneer with her.
As he waited for eggs to fry and put food out for Lacey, a vague feeling surfaced in his mind. It was something concerning that he had forgotten, but he couldn’t place exactly what it was.
After having breakfast and letting Lacey out into the backyard, Peter got dressed for his rendezvous with Alex. When blue-tinged darkness covered his eyes as his shirt went over his head, a sudden flood of memories was unlocked from the folds of his brain.
A man with both hands on Peter’s shoulders. Shaking him, screaming.
“WE WERE THERE! AT THE ALTAR OF KRUSMEKÄD! YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER!”
It was his dream from last night. He wasn’t fully aware of his surroundings then, the quality of his sleep was poor in the unfamiliar bed. The man felt clearer than the surroundings though, and much more defined than a typical dream character. A heavy slap to the face temporarily snapped Peter’s dreaming avatar out of the stupor.
Closing his eyes in the waking world, he remembered remembering in that moment. The thoughts were heavily fragmented even then, so trying to grasp the recollected flashes now was challenging. Peter tried making sense of the images: a doorway of purple fire in an abandoned parking lot, a great floating ship moored to a mountain on some airless moon, a room made of shattered obsidian glowing red from within the glassy surfaces.
These memories were his, but there was a feeling of displacement, like they belonged to another version of himself that he no longer had any contact with.
The man confirmed it as his skin rapidly decayed, “We made the pact there, to suppress the awakening of the outer god. We agreed to erase me from reality in the hopes that Krusmekäd’s return would be delayed by at least the length of my lifetime.
“Peter,” He was crying from bloodshot eyes. “It didn’t work. The cultists lied to us. Sacrificing me at the altar didn’t do anything but feed Yog-Sothoth. I’m fucked.”
“Jimmy…” The name came to Peter like a song from childhood. A jazz composer with barely enough money to fund the adventures that the two of them would go on, but with plenty of free time. He was the only person Peter knew with the mental fortitude to survive an erasure from reality and find him in his dreams.
“What can I do? How can I find you?” Peter started to gain lucidity, but the dream was becoming unstable. This interaction wasn’t supposed to be happening.
A heavy breeze whipped through and took pieces of Jimmy’s body with it. His physical stake in this crossroads of realities was waning. As the wind turned the surrounding shop facades and the cobblestones beneath them into dust, he grabbed Peter’s arm in a last ditch effort to anchor himself there.
The two of them fell into a swirling grayscale vortex, but their fragile avatars persisted. Jimmy used these few precious moments to try something that would only be possible in the dream space.
A single violin echoed through the void. It came from what sounded like old strings, rising to a pinnacle after four measures, and then falling back down after an additional four. More instruments joined in after the melody repeated itself, from euphoniums, to trumpets, to flutes. Peter knew this song but couldn’t place it in the delirium of twilight consciousness. It continued repeating, and as the visuals of the dream faded away completely, Jimmy’s voice was the only element remaining:
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
Peter’s shrouded eyes finally emerged through the neck hole of his shirt and the harsh fluorescent light that illuminated the room instantly carved away at the memories from the dream. He had a friend in need of help, but then again, when didn’t he? Surely his imagination had manifested an amalgam of his acquaintances. That didn’t feel right, though. He remembered a sense of attachment to the person, like he knew him from somewhere.
What was his name again…?
He racked his brain for syllables that sounded right together, but nothing came to him. The sharp clarity he remembered having in the dream was nothing more than an obscure haze now. The chronology of his life was accounted for in his memory, it shouldn’t have been possible to forget a person as close as the dream character felt in the moment.
The only remnant of the dream as he gathered his belongings was the song. Those slow notes from woodwinds, brass, and strings flowed in a haunting loop as he headed out the door to make his way to Alex.
His senses were saturated by the bright sunlight, the fresh air being carried along the wind, the sidewalk at his feet, the cheap toothpaste masking the taste of eggs, and the chirping birds and rustling leaves. Peter’s very real priorities replaced those from the fantasy of his imagination, and just like the rest of the details of the dream, the song inevitably faded away.
⛤ ⛧ ⛤