What Lies Beyond

A Story by 7eleven

I write this in a state of panic, and beg of anyone reading this to take it seriously. I shall do my best to accurately describe the events which have just occurred. Again, to anyone reading this, please take me seriously. We are not alone.

My night started off like every other Wednesday night; I was lying in my bed, pulling an all-nighter in order to complete a paper that was due the following morning. Unsurprisingly, as I had drank nearly half a gallon of coffee in an attempt to keep myself awake, I needed to make a trip to the bathroom. Note that I distinctly remember leaving my room at a quarter to 5 in the morning. Everything was completely normal, up until I tried to leave the room. Upon trying to open the door I found that it was jammed, and that the knob would not turn at all in either direction. After a few moments of fruitlessly trying to open the door, I began looking through the cabinets for a screwdriver that I could use to remove the doorknob.

This is when my tale grows truly bizarre; as I was fishing around in the cabinets for a tool, the lights went out. They did not flicker, they simply shut off. While I initially wanted to try to escape without waking my roommates, I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything in complete darkness. I walked through the room with my hands in front of me to feel for the door so that I could bang against it to grab someone's attention, but the door was not there. I just kept walking forward, and came into contact with nothing. After taking a good twenty steps past where the door should have been, and at least 10 past where the wall opposite of the door should have been, I stopped walking. I felt as though my heart was pounding against my sternum, and slowly lowered myself to the floor. The magnitude of my situation became apparent the cool tile of my bathroom had somehow been replaced with what felt like smooth stone. I don't know how it came to happen, but please believe me when I say this: I was, somehow, physically removed from my home and placed somewhere else. By what force I do not know, but I assure you that I am not mad (or, at least was not mad prior to this). Someone, or something, managed to remove me from my home and place me somewhere else.

I sat there with my legs curled against my chest for what felt like an eternity. I was too afraid to move, too afraid to think. The darkness was complete, and I felt as if I'd have seen no less clearly had my eyes had been plucked from their sockets. There was nothing to hear save for my own breathing and the beating of my heart. The place smelled damp, but I'm not entirely convinced that the scent wasn't a hallucination brought on by my sensory deprivation. The only sense of any use to me was my sense of touch, and the only two things I could manage to place my hands on were my own body and the cold stone floor.

And then, without any warning, something grabbed me. Something about the makeup of this...thing made unable to feel it physically touching me. However, I could feel my bare back sliding against the stone, and I could feel the tension in my leg as it tugged at my body. I scrambled to find something, anything, to grab onto and pull myself away, but there was nothing to grab. Suddenly, the thing stopped, and I instantly felt it grab my face. I could not feel this thing's flesh, and I'm not entirely sure that it had any, but I could feel a great deal of pressure all over my head. It held me, almost delicately, for several moments as I sobbed and scrambled fruitlessly to get away.

Then, without warning, it slammed my head against the cold stone. When this...thing did so, I felt a sort of flash of thought. I envisioned something incomprehensible, but only briefly. With every strike of my head against the floor this vision became more and more clear, until, finally, I understood. I wish I had the words to explain it any other way, but I do not. I understood everything. I understood what the “creature” was, and it was no creature. In a strange sense, it didn't even exist in what we would call the material. It was something completely separate from anything we've ever known.

I drifted off into death, as the damage caused to my body and the blood I had lost was far beyond what could be repaired by medicine. However, as you obviously see, I am not dead anymore.

I awoke in my bed, fully retaining everything I had learned. I checked the clock and discovered that it was only three o'clock in the morning, almost a full two hours before I had left my room. I am afraid that, when that time comes again, I will be doomed to repeat my experience. Perhaps for the rest of eternity. Some may call me crazy, and some may call me a coward, but I assure you that anyone that had to experience this would choose the same escape that I am choosing.

As I will hopefully never see any of you again, please, I beg of you -- God, I do hope that, this time, my death is permanent -- please, believe me.

There IS an afterlife beyond our understanding.

Humanity is wholly insignificant to the things I now know.

We are not alone.