As James slowly regained consciousness, the first sensation he felt was the pain. Suffering from a felling of wrongness he slowly opened his eye. It wasn't easy though with all the blood that had dried in his eyes. The smoldering remains of his car off to the right where he lay , spewed suffocating black clouds high into the air." Well at least the fires of Gondor have been lit so there is at least a chance of rescue." Turning his head and attempting to ignore the rice crispy sound from his neck ; he looked to the wreckage of his trusty car. How lucky he was to be thrown from the burning coffin. The attempt to jump from the vehicle by removing his seat belt may have been what ultimately tipped him over the edge but it also saved him. How long had he been out? Judging by the state of the car long enough that if he had been in the car he could be served well done."

  Attempting to sit up slowly his battered and bruised arms could barely move let alone support his weight. Next he check to see if he was able to move his legs." I can't feel my legs at all. I think that I might have to give up that career in dancing." Having no phone on him either, he wasn't going to be calling for rescue. He had his cell phone sitting on his dashboard when the accident happened and now it was part of the bonfire.

"Well I better try to call for help ;maybe I'll get lucky for once in my life."

As he raised his voice as loud as it could go he yelled out.

  "Help! Help! I've fallen and can't get up. " Then in an authoritative voice he said, "Then you need life alert." Laughing despite the terrible situation he call out again and again. He screamed and screamed until he went hoarse. Minutes later he quieted down. "Doesn't look like help is coming any time soon." He needed to stay awake. He knew it had something to do with shock and not waking up again, but he was so tired. As he lay on the ground his head started swimming and spinning. " I must be losing blood because I just feel so cold." he croaked. Going quiet he just sits there. He just needed to be still and hope. The problem is that the road is not well travelled and he was not scheduled back in the office until next week.

"Well my only hope is my accidental smoke signal." He sighs to himself

   "Or maybe ill just lay here until an animal comes along to make a meal of my liver. Hope it brings a nice Chianti." He laughs to the terrible and dark joke although the gallows humor causes him to spit a gob of blood. "No jokes need to focus on surviving."

How long he lay there he couldn't guess. The only sense of time he could get is when the lazy sun peaked through the trees for a brief moment. Could have been hours, could have been minutes. He just didn't know. All he knows is that he is dying. He could feel it. His impending doom, not his leg, but now the pervasive cold feeling had infiltrated the rest of his limbs. Just the cold embrace of death.

  Watching the sun make its lazy fall to the horizon and coming to terms with his demise. He started to watch the sky. The colors specifically being what had drawn his eye. He thinks to himself how beautiful it all was. While sitting there lost in thought, he was brought out of his thoughts by movement. Floating motes of unnatural light descend from over head. Gentling floating down closer and closer, they are not the natural warm colors of a sunset but the unnatural pulsing neon lights of a rave.

  "Am I hallucinating now that I am dying." Never one for drugs or other mind altering substances. he would describe this as taking a hit of acid and tripping balls. The surreal lights had appeared far away but now are much closer. Hovering within spitting distance of him they started to orbit him. James just stared fascinated. All thought of his impending demise replaced with wonder. Faster and Faster they spin the colors mixing and matching. A psychedelic kaleidoscopic cascade of colors. Falling towards him, he is swallowed by a wave of light. At first he is merely blinded by the light, but then all hell breaks loose.

  The whirlwind of colors condenses, seeming to turn from insubstantial light to a cocoon of fire. What had been merely had been warmth earlier over took the cold from his injuries to turn into an all consuming inferno worth of pain. His throat raw and torn from the screaming. Where as before he no sense of time due to slowly drifting into a slow death, His perception of time was stretched because every second was a eternity of the worst pain you could ever imagine. It was drowning and burning all wrapped into one. The worst way one could die. Just as he was about to be broken by the ordeal, His vision went dark and He felt the sensation of falling again. He felt himself falling through the world, from everything he'd ever know. The hole in reality receded into the distance. Faster he fell away until it was only a pinprick of light in the surrounding dark. The he knew no more.

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  After an undetermined amount of time, James stirred. The first thing he noticed was the total lack of light, pain, or anything in general. Peering around in a vain hope for anything at all to focus on, James became more and more frantic. He held his hand to his face. He couldn't see it. nothing, just the all consuming blackness. A twinge of pain spiked in his head.

"Well I'm here for the long run. Can't move or see."

  With that, James time in purgatory as he likes to let himself know begin. Sitting there floating in the void; what was one supposed to do. Since he had no sight or movement, he no frame of reference for time. Its easy to lose track of time when you are alone with your thoughts., so He did the one thing that he could do to pass time. He reminisced about the good times. Before his dad had passed away. Him riding his first bike, him finding love for a brief time, the times with dad, all the other things that make life worth living. He can fell it on his skin but he feels that he is crying and like that time passes.

  How long in that state he sat he would never know. The only thing to mark time was the recurring spike of pain. After the last time for one brief moment the dark lifted. He didn't know what he was expecting, but the Lovecraftian nightmare that surrounded him from all sides was not it. wrapped around the top of his head one of the many undulating tentacles seemed to be drawing something from him. All went dark again, his senses were smothered again and the sense of calm returning.

"What the hell was that?"

  Now panicking over what he had just see. He realizes that the darkness isn't so empty. The spike of pain picks that time to make its appearance again. "Is that what that was the whole time?" Calming down a bit he thinks to himself that the thing must have been here the whole time. "It must be somehow causing this unnatural darkness, but what is it doing to me?" Taking a mental checklist of everything on his person, thoughts of his father come to mind. Unlike before the memories are fuzzier, somehow a half remembered dream. "No!" he screams to him self"

  "It must be taking something from me." The clues all there. The unbidden memories, the pain, and the fact that the tentacle was definitely wrapped around his head, all of it came together and made itself abundantly clear. It was eating him. Devouring everything that made him him. His childhood and other important memories seem to be prioritized. In his panic the only thing that still came to his mind that was somewhat clear, was the situation that had brought him to where he is now. The rockslide, the fall, the cold, all of it followed by the blinding radiance. The next time the pain came like clockwork, he held on to that blinding radiance in his mind's eye. He didn't know how but the effect was immediate. A pulse of light from his lower abdomen rush up as if sucked through a straw.

  The immediate surroundings became visible and the horror was revealed in its full glory at last. Writhing like a pit full of snakes. Bubbling similarly to pustule on the verge of popping. The eyes, the inhuman intelligence behind them. No connection possible between the two. As if the ant in comparison to the person. This predator though had bitten off more than it could chew. The pulse light, unrefined, turned into liquid hate absorbed through the feeding organ.

  The silence of the the void split by an indescribable inhuman sound with no reference. The being recoiled from me as if burnt. the tether that so far had kept me captive was quickly torn away and thrown into the distance.

  One moment I was there surrounded and in the next the beast or what ever it was had escaped beyond my vision. Heaving a soft sigh James took account of his thoughts and memories. Important information of his real life and family seemed to be damaged. His internal library of pop culture seems untouched. Deemed unimportant and irreverent.

  "You know you could have taken some of those and left my childhood. I watch a lot of stupid moves." he says lamenting to himself. Now that things had calmed down he finally looked out from his own internal thoughts. "Holy shit." All around him the void that had seemed so empty was now full of wonder and light. Stars and other celestial bodies dotted his vision. He found one of the planets closer to him than the others. The planet very different from home. For one thing it was quite a bit larger than home. Life that is the feeling he gets from the world. Vibrant, a quality more real than anything he had ever seen in his past life. Leaning in to examine the world, he felt himself drifting faster and faster to the world. He finally met some resistance. A barrier of light sprung up, keeping him form falling further.

  A flash of inspiration struck James like lightning. He needed to mobilize the force that had saved him from the eldritch horror. Thinking of the light that brought him to his current position. He lit up like a Christmas tree. He imagined the light structuring itself into a drill. "Ride the spiral." he sings to himself, boring a hole through whatever force was keeping him from making land fall. The shield cracked and with that he was through, Like a falling star he streaked across the sky. Heads turns and looked to the sky. What is it? An omen of good or harm. The world would come to know in the relatively soon future.

  Streaking out of sight of his many observers, James slammed into a far corner of the world. away form many of the larger population centers. That is a good thing because he slammed into the ground with enough force to be felt throughout the entire continent. Aa the catastrophic event subsided, a billowing cloud rises from the large crater. A man whole looked like he had been through a shredder stepped out and uttered one thing.

"Take me to our leader.' and with that he fell to the ground unconscious.