"A nightmare beyond comprehension"

I'm floating weightless, untethered to physical limitations, but this time, in a light orange abyss. Wherever I stare, the color grows to a bright white. I'm blinded by the brightness, so I close my eyes to see a familiar red. Where have I seen this before? It's the color of blood. Two sides of the coin are often not the same, but in this case, I'm blinded by both. Quicker and quicker, forty-two cycles, I flip between closing and opening my eyes, until it's a constant switch between blood-red and pure white. Multiple times per second, the flashing colors make my mind go numb and I'm unable to think, unable to process what had just happened, unable to process what is happening. Another cycle I cannot escape from. Another mess revolving around me.

Beep ... beep ... beep

A constant beeping sound is repeating at a rate of just over once a second. The red and white flashing has stopped. I'm now able to open my eyes. I'm lying on my back staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. There's a rectangular light surrounded by white, black-speckled panels on the ceiling. It has such a cheap industrial feeling to it. To my upper right is a bag filled with clear liquid. There's a feeling of something warm, firm, and yet soft and smooth at my left side brushing up against my left hip. I attempt to sit up but am unable to. All I can do is stare upwards for a little while. It has come to my realization that I am likely inside a hospital room, but I am unsure of how I got here. The last things I can remember are waking up to get ready for the second day of school and a blurry image. This blurry image, it's a pale white blob in front of a dark shadowy background. In the center of this pale white blob are two black ovals white yellow and black splotches below and two enormous red circles above. It's an unfamiliar shape, but for whatever reason, I cannot remember a single thing about what this blurry image represents.

About half an hour goes by of myself trying to recall the past and what had happened to get me here before I attempt to sit back up again. Finally, I'm able to move my neck high enough to look down at my left side. There's a person, likely a girl younger than me, with long, straight, silky black hair resting against my side. That must be my sister. Why is my sister sleeping at my side in a hospital room? Why is she here and not my parents? Why isn't she in school? I rest my head back down and try to make sense of all of this. I can't remember what day it is, what time it is, the last thing I've done, the last person I was with, or anything about the blurry image in my head. I understand nothing. 

"Uh- eh ... aaah"

I try to speak but unintelligible, quiet gibberish is all that can escape my mouth. My throat feels very dry, yet I don't feel dehydrated at all. I'm in a very awkward position and a very awkward state. With no one around to tell me what's going on and my mind running circles in a maze that it created, I begin to let my mind slip into numbness. My eyelids slowly grow heavy and I enter a black abyss. Expecting a dream to come to link back to what I had experienced before ending up in the hospital, I was ready for anything, but what was shown made things much worse. This dream was no dream. It was a nightmare beyond comprehension. 

A slithering sound echoes around in a dark black place. From the little light coming from a distant source of illumination from behind my point of view, I can make out the surrounding to be a concrete cylindrical tunnel. Below and beside me is quietly flowing sewer water. Thankfully, I am unable to smell, but there appears to be fumes of wavy gray smoke coming from the flowing water that I am able to see for brief moments. The slithering motion becomes a drag and push rhythm with a sound of a wheeze on every drag and what sounds like air being blown through untuned bagpipes at every push. I feel the motion of my body and it becomes apparent that I am the source of the slithering noise. The motion is similar to how a caterpillar pinches its body and then pushes its forward half in the direction it's headed. Whether I'm a caterpillar, a snake, or something else entirely, I am doing this worm movement motion with the lower half of my body at a surprisingly fast rate. It feels as though I'm moving faster than I would if I were walking. The upper half of my body remains motionless perpendicularly standing erect in comparison to the slithering portion of my body. It feels as though several tubes stick out of the back half of my upper body in all directions. I'm unable to tell how many tubes there are exactly, but as I scrunch up my lower body I can feel air being absorbed by a couple shorter tubes on the back of my upper body, which creates a wheezing sound. For a brief moment, in between scrunching and extending, I hear a whirring sound and feel as though air is spinning inside the crux between my lower and upper bodies. Then, as I extend my lower body, the air blows out the rest of the tubes creating the ugly sound of untuned bagpipes. It is similar to when a young child obtains a flute or recorder and blows through it as hard as they can covering random holes. The squeaking, the random highs and lows, and the eeriness of an unintentionally and unmelodic catastrophe of noise is what comes out. Contrary to how I should be reacting to the noise in an unknown space, I feel calm and unwavered by the disastrous sounds. In fact, for some reason, I feel very strong. It's as if I know for a fact, that there is no power in this vicinity that could stop me from doing whatever I'd like to do.

After a couple of minutes, a light begins to shine at the end of the tunnel and the sound of running water slowly grows louder. It only takes a few seconds to reach the end of the tunnel. I have come to what seems like an open-aired connection of several sewage pathways. There are eight other tunnel entrances, evenly spaced apart, with the numbers one and three through nine written in roman numerals above the tunnels in a dark red color. Following that logic, I would assume the roman numeral for the number two is written above the entrance to my tunnel. The sewage pathways each have water flowing from them where they create a spiraling current of water in the open-aired connection. In the center of this open-aired connection is a large grate. Above, is a blinding light as if mirrors or glass amplifies the light of the sun to beam straight down into this connection. The light gray dullness of the concrete that the connections and tunnels are made out of is illuminated to look as if it's completely smooth and as valuable as a precious gem. After taking a moment to notice all the surroundings, one by one, a shadowy figure appears in each of the other six tunnels I can completely see the entrance to. The two tunnels beside me likely also have a shadowy figure appear, but I am unable to confirm this. Some of the shadowy figures look human-like, and in varying sizes, while some look reminiscent of creatures from myths and fairytales. Since the light from above beams straight down, I cannot completely see into any of the tunnels, nor am exposed myself. Unable to see what I or these figures looks like is mysteriously intriguing, 

Suddenly, the water flowing sound stops. I look down towards the drain and notice it is completely dried up. The wheezing and bagpipes noise begin again before I notice I'm moving forward into the light. Each of the eight other figures follows suit bringing a nightmare of sights before my eyes. Despite how I feel, there's an overwhelming feeling of power around me that seems to calm me. No reaction on the outside is made, but I still am unable to see my appearance. It is possible that I looked scarier than any of the other eight figures. To my left, is a tall spherical figure with six stout legs similar to an elephants beneath it. On the half towards the tunnel is several dark purple needles darting several inches out of a dark purple shell. Very swiftly, the needles randomly dart back into the shell and out, or possibly are changing their length from extremely short to extremely long. I would assume that each needle at their longest is the length of an average man's arm and at shortest, no longer than an average number 2 pencil. The main body of the creature is pale white with patterns of red and blue painted around it. The front half appears to be its entire face. There are five eyes on this creature with one eye directly in the middle of the top of its front half and two eyes slanting down to form an arch on the top half of its head. A blue lines splits the face in half with several red an blue arches and waves extending from the center line. It is almost completely symmetrical with one exception: an oddly placed black horn juts out from the top right. There appears to be no mouth. The only opening is a small pitch black one at the very bottom of its face that occasionally has what looks like a purple forked tongue jutting out of it.

To the left of this creature is a womanly figure looking very similar to a stereotypical succubus, except that she is completely unclothed. While that sight should suggest erotic feelings, instead it reveals some terrifying features. While she is pale skinned with a pretty face comprising of two curled ram horns poking out of her crimson colored hair, there's something off about her body. Like a succubus, she has two black feathered wings sticking out from her lower back. The unusual things are the oval marks all over her body. At least, at a first glance, that's what I believed they were. Upon a closer look, it becomes apparent that those oval marks are actually rapidly blinking eyes and opening and closing mouths. What's even more unnerving is that randomly after closing, when the openings open up again, what was an eye sometimes become a mouth and vice versa. With a dozen or so of these repeatedly opening and closing ovals on each of her legs and arms, she has several more smaller version on her chest and stomach. I can only imagine what's on her back.

To the left of the succubus-looking monster is an even more frightening sight. Many people who've been on the internet have been exposed to the knowledge of trypophobia, which is the fear of tightly grouped together holes. While the previous monster may trigger that, it is nothing compared to this monster. It's a tall slender figure that is the color of sand with several holes of various sizes all over its body. Slithering in and out of these holes appear to be centipedes and millipedes. It's as if this monster is a walking bug's nest!

Nearly directly across from me, on the left side is a pitch black figure with an undefined form. Only a single yellow eye with a red pupil and black iris remains still in its center. The black figure constantly changes from a silhouette of a man, to a cycle of animal silhouettes: gorilla, horse, wolf, eagle, alligator, and shark among other random shapes and undefinable forms. To the right of the pitch black figure is what looks like a cheap Halloween ghost costume. It's a completely white sheet with two black holes for eyes and one black hole for a mouth. But, if for a moment you stare into any of the three openings, an image of burning bodies or blood-covered screaming children comes to the front of your mind and stays for what feels like an eternity.

To the right of the cheap Halloween ghost, is what looks like a large pink brain with three pairs of tan hairy human feet sticking out of its brain stem. At the base of the brain stem are several purple tentacles. This one, for some reason, appears to be the least scary sight, despite it being so openly grotesque and far from any human or creature. Next to the brain is what looks like an ordinary spectral bat. With each wings less than half a meter and itself only standing about a quarter of a meter tall, it seemed very much within the realm of an average animal. For some reason a constant stream of blood was pouring from its mouth and its eyes were constantly veering in several direction.

Next to the bat was a familiar looking monster. It was very fat and large with its face entirely comprising its front half. It had several chins and held a very wide grin exposing yellow and black stained teeth the size of a human skull. It had two slits for a nose and its eyes were big blood-red circles. I was unable to look at the creature or being directly to the right. For whatever reason, every time I tried the sense of power I was shelled in would quickly vanish and fear would take over my body and direct me to look at the brain creature. I attempted one last time to look to my right when my perspective darted towards the brain creature once more who now was secreting some kind of slime from the top of its brain-shaped body. 

"STATE YOUR TITLES."

An over-bearing command from an undiscernible voice sent shivers through my body. The same voice then began.

"APOSTLE THE FIRST."

Without a moment's hesitation, after a wheezing sound, and exhaled amidst the sound of the untuned bagpipes, my body released the words.

"SYGORITH THE SECOND."

As soon as the bagpipes sound from my body ceased, the spiky creature to my left began to rapidly change the sizes of the spikes on its back releasing no audible words nor any sign of communication I could understand. Even though it had been constantly moving before, it suddenly completely froze. The succubus creature then spoke in a charming and sweet voice. The sound that came out of the mouth on her face was so beautiful and melodic as if it was sung by a professional opera singer finishing the greatest performance of their career.

"ALMERIA THE FOURTH."

The walking bug's nest then had a large centipede with jut out of the largest hole which was situated at the front-top right portion of its head. It then spit out an unknown liquid, that upon landing on the gray concrete of the floor, began to release smoke and bubbles. Following this spit, a pale human-like face popped out of the front of its head and spoke in a squeaky voice.

"GIURNIR THE FIFTH."

The black figure with no defined form suddenly took the form of a perfect sphere and its unchanging eye turned into a straight neon yellow line. A voice came from the line as it changed into waves, peaks, and valleys similar to that of an old generated artificial intelligence voice.

"BISA THE SIXTH."

The Halloween ghost's cloak began to ripple as if a breeze was passing through. Without changing the size of any of its openings, the words echoed from all directions.

"CHOLA THE SEVENTH."

Then, the brain creature began to shake and out from the front of the brain slowly grew an antennae or tentacle or beanstalk. It was unknown what it was but it was a thin protrusion from the center of the brain with a small trumpet like opening at the front. In a tooting voice, the brain creature began to speak very quietly.

"EMILLYS THE EIGHTH."

The bat remained silent. It's possible that the bat was simply a real bat. Finally, the familiar giant face spoke in its familiar shrewd voice.

"KALYPSO THE NINTH."

A moment of silence spanned after the giant face had spoken. Then a voice coming from directly to my right stated in a quiet and somber tone.

"All nine of the greater phantoms are in attendance. Is the boy watching and listening?"

That's when I spoke involuntarily once more. First, a wheezing sound, and the exhale of bagpipes.

"Yes, I have brought the boy's soul here."

Suddenly, I was no longer in that unfamiliar slithering body with pipes sticking out of my upper half. I was now sitting on the grate that was in the center of the connection room. My body felt familiar in shape and size, but it felt as though I had no weight. I was now staring at the unfamiliar body that I had originally thought was mine in this dream. Its lower half looked like a blue-scaled snake with a white underbelly. It led to a top half that remained looking like a snake except its head. There were no eyes, but in the center of the top portion of the snakes head there was what looked like a slot machine roller. On the left roller displayed a silhouettes of a man, a bird, and a snake. On the middle roller, it displayed a silhouettes of a fish, an ant, and a dog. On the right roller, it displayed the silhouettes of an eye, a mouth, and a brain. Several long pipes stuck out of its side and its back and a white sac like that of a toad's chin sac largely protruded from directly under the face looking like a slot machine. The power that I had been masking myself in before had completely disappeared. I was now powerless and helpless. I wanted to scream or run, but I remained frozen and silent. The surroundings turned black as I stared at the snake-like phantom. These are phantoms. They are real. They instill fear into humans at the very sight of them. 

"Kalypso what are you doing!"

I was unable to tell which of the nine phantoms had let out that phrase, but before I knew it the large black and yellow teeth the size of my skull formed a circle around me and then everything went pitch black and silent. It was then I had woken up from my dream. I was so scared that I had managed to overcome the weakness of being bed-ridden in a hospital and I darted straight up into an upright sitting position. The room was noticeably darker than before and the only light source came from the rectangle above. In front of my hospital bed was standing a man in a suit and glasses. 

"My name is Ewan Bullocker. I'm with the Spokane Police Department's phantom division. You may know me publicly as a phantom hunter. I have a few questions for you ... Iroh ... Linag."