It had been three years since the dreams began. Three years of seeing the same image in his waking mind each day, accompanied by the awareness of something he could not quantify consuming him with the drive to understand it all the more. The emptiness and isolation which invaded his soul, as he reflected on the vision, made him feel like an automaton going through the motions of life, so much so that he found he no longer related to other people or the things that drove them. The people in his life no longer recognised him and, in truth, he no longer truly recognised himself anymore. But now, somewhat older and greyer, he found himself standing on the slope of the crater that had haunted his dreams for so long. It had been no easy task to find this place, with the desolate landmass off the coast of the mainland barely registering as an island on any map, but it was real and he was here in the flesh to prove it. The grey lagoon, which reflected the angry sky overhead, lay still within the bowels of the crater below, and he felt the overwhelming urge to immerse himself therein. As he descended, the trappings carried fell from him as he discarded first his pack, followed by his clothing, as though casting off his identity altogether, to arrive at the shore bereft of all he had brought with him. Trembling with trepidation and the cold, he waded waist-deep into the frigid water, taking a few deep breaths before plunging into the lagoon, reaching into the darkness to find that which he sought. He didn’t know exactly why he was doing this or what he would find but he knew, in his soul, that he would not surface again until he obtained what he had come for. With lungs swelling to bursting, he felt the first pang of fear and doubt sink in, as the question over why he was doing this at last intruded on his rational mind. It was then that his clawing fingers found the muddy bottom of the lagoon, at which point he began scrabbling at the soft earth to dig beneath. ‘There must be more!’ his desperate mind cried, undeterred even as his eyes began bulging in their sockets and plumes of bubbles erupted from his mouth. Then, as all hope seemed lost, he felt pressure around one of his wrists as something wrapped around it. Panic gave way to awe as he spied through the murky water, a hand, followed by a wrist and arm emerge from the mire. As he drew back, more of the phenomenon connected to the arm followed and he found himself no longer concerned with the need to breath or compelled to strike out to the surface to escape his fate. Before he could fully come to terms with what was happening, he found himself connected to a featureless mannequin composed of the same light-coloured sludge that constituted the floor of the lagoon. Two orifices appeared in the face where eyes on a man should have been, and he found them boring into his soul, words forming in his mind as characteristics began coalescing on the clay man. He was aghast as his own voice echoed in his mind, declaring, “You are home, my brother. It is time to return to the earth…to sleep. Be not afraid.” But he was afraid, as he felt his body grow heavy and surrender to the downward pull of the lagoon, watching in mounting horror as the man of clay began to resemble him whilst his own flesh darkened. When his feet made contact with the muddy floor, he immediately felt himself being absorbed into the earth, with the pliable form looming overhead morphing into something more recognisable as a human being. “Your time in the world is over for now, brother. You are full and can absorb no more,” the voice continued to reverberate in his head. There was a moment the man thought he was dead, as physical contact between the pair of them was broken. In that instant, the man found himself having changed places with the form which had arisen, and that he was now looking down at a featureless, humanoid form which melded into the cloudy depths while he ascended. He broke the surface of the water with a triumphant cry before reaching out to shore, gasping for breath and crawling onto land to lay there for a time, sobbing with relief beneath the grey sky which broiled overhead. By the time he sat up, he realised he was still himself, complete with memories of a life well-lived - until very recently at least - and felt a hunger to experience the things he had neglected for so long. The names and faces of those he’d come to know in his most recent incarnation loomed large in his minds’ eye and the desire to reacquaint himself with them became overwhelming. Gathering up the belongings scattered around the slope, he found himself remembering generations of life spent this way, conscious that he was one half of the same being that both lived in the world, absorbing what humanity had to offer, whilst the other slept and dreamed. With each transference, the sleeper replenished its’ life-force whilst the vessel sought new knowledge and experiences to carry it forward into the future - a future where mankind would one day no longer inhabit, and a new species would dominate. When that day came, he would live on and thrive as his kind had done for countless millennia. The new man was giddy from the influx of wisdom suffusing his being at that moment, and the prospects that lay ahead, and found laughter echoing all around him within the bowels of the crater as he revelled in his new lease of life. He was forced to remind himself of the need for conspicuous humility, were he to be able to blend into the human populace once more. The ancestral memory he possessed would eventually fade over time, and he would one day have to return to this corner of the world to repeat the same ritual he realised. Cresting the summit of the incline, he secured the pack on his back with renewed determination, bathing in growing warmth as the sun broke through gaps in the clouds to wash over the undulating land before him, squinting as his newly formed eyes absorbed the light of the world in the twenty-first century for the first time. “It’s time to live again!” he exclaimed, before marching resolutely towards the rising sun.
Sam lives in Cumbernauld
North Lanarkshire
Scotland
Sam is a writer
© 2025 Samuel McCann