Whoa...
I've-I fell asleep for a while. I couldn't help it.
I've been pushing myself to the end even faster,
taking fewer breaks.
I dreamt while I slept.
Edward was in my dream.
Neither of us had really ever left the insane asylum.
We just sat there in matching straitjackets in
uncomfortable chairs, facing each other.
We were surrounded by huge orange-red-and-black mushrooms.
The sight of their amber gills above us,
slowly breathing in and out in a sussurating
mimicry of conscious life,
was strangely calming to me.
"Where have you gone?" I asked him.
"Underground," he said.
"What did you find there?" I asked.
"Acceptance, everlasting life, and mushrooms,
" he said, and smiled.
It was a lovely smile.
It radiated outwards to suffuse his
entire face in a golden light.
"Is that all?" I said. "Was it worth it?
Did you have to give up anything?"
"My fear. My consciousness. My former life."
"What was that like?"
"Do you remember those trust exercises they made us do?
Where one of us would fall into the arms of the others,
and you just had to fall and keep falling
and believe they would catch you?"
"It was like that?"
"It was like that. Except imagine falling for a
hundred years before you're caught,
looking at a black sky full of dead stars in front of you,
and the abyss at your back."
"You're dead," I said.
It wasn't an accusation.
"Probably," he replied.