I reach inside for my power, that perfect light within which gives unassailable force to my every action, and for the first time ever, my grasp closes around nothing at all. Emptiness answers my summons. I peer within and see only a yawning abyss where once was a shining column.
My mind has become an unfamiliar land. No bright and inspiring palace decorated with gold greets me. No great paintings hang on the walls in celebration of my achievements. There is only dust and dirt and the silent, open maw of a hole that I had never seen before.
I must return home and seek counsel and discover how to fix whatever has happened to me. I open my eyes to the world around me again.
I…open my eyes.
I do not open my eyes.
My eyes are wide open but only see the desolation within. I no longer know how to escape my own head.
Is the hole getting bigger? Are the walls closing in? Since when are these oppressive walls within my mind? The hole’s edge crumbles inward. It is getting bigger.
Peering down into it reveals nothing but inky darkness and dread.
I feel it as a devourer of certainty and truth. The abyss calls, to lay down my burdens and everything else I am and embrace my shadow within. It promises chaos or void or self-destruction or all three.
What else can I do? I choose the fall.
I open my eyes for the first time.