As he closed his eyes, darkness overtook his line of sight, and for a moment, Dean felt nothing.

And then, he felt everything.

As though drawn upward by a tightrope yanked by a furious giant, he transitioned from complete stasis to hurtling through the air - at least, he thought it was the air.

In every direction were multi-colored fractals that seemed to distort even as his eyes would alight upon them, geometric monstrosities that formed the shape of a tunnel. Yellow, purple, orange. Bright shapes composed the kaleidoscopic world that filled his view as he turned again and again, spinning in delirium on his upward journey.

Both above and below him, his visage appeared to be flashing as if part-apparition. To the third-person observer, there would appear to be three Deans jumping from place to place while lifted through the tunnel.

Glancing down, he thought he caught a vague glimpse of his body before he felt something take hold of him, sending him tumbling toward the tunnel's edge in an arial of death.

Piercing through the membrane of the polychromatic tunnel, he was launched head-first into what he could only describe as a blood-soaked hardwood floor.

Lifting his head to take in his surroundings, his vision was first greeted by a creature the likes of which he'd never seen.

Hunched over, with long arms and indistinguishable features, the pale man eyed him with what he could only describe as terror.

'This thing was scared?'

"Yes, that's really the case. I saw it myself."

The pale thing spoke to him in a voice like the shifting of a snake's scales. Unnerving, rough, and layered.

Dean first turned to the creature, and then to the right.

There was a red velvet curtain, pulled apart, and an auditorium filled with hundreds of indistinct figures. They appeared to him as a mass of black - he couldn't clearly make out their shape or size.

They were on a stage.

Performing a play.

"It's your line!"

He turned behind him, to see a smaller entity from upstage left. It was a pink, rubbery thing that seemed a cross between an alien and a mole rat.

It was jumping angrily, and waving its hands wildly.

"You have to play your part!"

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"You'll upset him!"

In his confusion, Dean only analyzed the thing closer. It moved in jagged, jerking motions, as if its body was pulled into position.

Looking intently, Dean discovered that there did indeed seem to be strings coming from the entity.

"Yes, that's really the case. I saw it myself."

The pale man took a step closer, trying again. The panic was evident in his voice. And from his body, the same threads seem to extend upward into the ether.

First recoiling, Dean, upon regaining his facilities, began to think.

Upset….

him?

Dean's blood ran cold. His breathing slowed to a tumultuous halt. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, and it shook his body to the core. Time slowed down, and he was able to perceive everything in slow motion.

Pressure.

Pressure.

Weighing down.

In a moment of dreadful inspiration, he tore his vision from the pale man's visage and dragged it upwards along the threads.

Upwards

Upwards

Upwards to find…..

Nothing.

Where the roof of the stage should be, there was nothing. Instead, inky darkness greeted his vision. After a brief pause, Dean released a shuddering sigh.

At that moment, the darkness parted. Grotesque claws gripped the edges of the theater on either side, and from the depths of the inky blackness rose a thing of true terror.

Cracks spread from the places where the claws had sunk into the theater, as the creature applied pressure, using them to lower its weight and peer into the auditorium.

Half-beast, half-eldritch horror, its horrid features seemed to initiate a distinctive rejection from the depths of Dean's marrow. A slitted nose of demonic make. Yellow slits for eyes that conveyed bestial intent, and a type of primal aura that escapes the capacity of human transcription.

In conjunction with its head, more claws appeared in his line of sight, each clutching a cross brace in their grips. Eyeing their trajectory, in his trepidation he followed each string to their logical conclusion.

One to the ugly pink thing.

One to the pale man.

One seemed to stretch over the audience.

And the last one…

He looked himself over in horror.

And screamed.

Simultaneously, the pale man hissed, and the pink thing shrieked. The audience bellowed in concert.

The waves of sound washed over him, distorting his consciousness until….. he blinked out of existence.

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He fell through the void, blinking through worlds for what felt like an eternity. He saw all manner of things and encountered all manner of entity. He forgot himself entirely.

In the dark abyss, he heard the evil laughter of the devil incarnate. Its grating noise eroded his soul, and he encountered fear in its raw state.

He traveled through waves of prismatic light and caught sight of an immortal paradise. He was filled with boundless joy and felt gratitude for the wonderful boon that was life.

From outside of time, he witnessed a cataclysmic world-ending war between reptiles. Once the war ended, he watched as time rewound and they began anew. He seemed to have vaguely understood something.

He continued to fall. He believed he might fall forever. The lines of his reality seemed to be erratic, constantly shifting and never stagnant. He couldn't orient himself and was thus dragged into a multitude of different dimensions.

A voice stirred him from the ether.

"How long do you plan on doing that?"

Opening his eyes, he found himself suspended in mid-air above a vast, violet plain. Directly in front of him, a robed figure lounged casually on a rock.

Its finger was outstretched, pointing directly towards him.

With a flick of its finger, Dean felt himself plummet, landing plainly on the grass below, leading to a unique scene.

In this surreal, purple world, a robed figure gazed down from its perch, watching him with a bemused expression as a gentle breeze swept the field. Its robes rippled softly in the wind, adding a touch of mystery to the already strange encounter.

"I've been waiting for you."