Today is 24Mar. I think. Maybe 25. I’m not sure. Its not like I can even trust my own mind anymore. I am writing this down because I don’t know what else to do. I can’t talk to anyone about this or I’ll be committed alongside many of my patients. What I experienced, what I saw. What I still see is beyond explanation.

My friend Dave no longer exists. Just like the stories of my patients, he has simply vanished. We went out fishing the other day and it all started simply enough. We went to a new spot he had found and the weather was clear. There was not a cloud in the sky and only a slight breeze as we set out our lines. We talked about all the recent changes in our lives and our plans for the future.

I was the first to notice it. Something in the distance just on the horizon didn’t look right. It was as if the sea itself was elevated in a precise spot. I would have thought that maybe it was a illogically large wave if it were not for the perculure angularity of it. Straight edges and corners do not often appear on waves. It was as if there was a cube of the ocean placed on top of the ocean itself.

Dave and I passed a pair of binoculars between ourselves in amazement. He thought it might be something similar to a waterspout however this was impossible as well. There was no movement in the structure, no clouds above it, no shifting in the water around it or anything adverse we could see. It was some form that denied the laws of nature.

I was apprehensive but when Dave stated that we should go investigate I did not voice any complaint. He had lived most his life on the sea and I was no stranger to it either, and something like this was begging us to take a closer look so we reeled up our lines and started in that direction. As we approached the enigma we lost sight of the shore line, which was another oddity because we weren’t far enough out for that. We were less than 2 miles from the shore originally and considering the distance we covered we should have been able to still see land however it vanished beyond the horizon all the same.

As we approached the elevated section of the sea it grew to unparallelled proportions. It truly seemed to reach the heavens above and seeing the top was a fool’s errand even when we were still quite a ways away. We decided to not get closer than ¼ mile seeing as we had no idea what it was and what it may do to our ship but at that distance we were allowed a view that we couldn't not fathom. While it appeared from a distance to be a cube or a wall of some sort, up close it was actually full of impossible geometry. It was like an optical illusion, a living representation of a Escher painting where stairs twist and turn illogically so too did the surface of this sea formation. Some parts on the surface appeared circular but depending on how one looked it could simultaneously look angular.

It made me dizzy just looking at it.

We took pictures best we could and tried to radio in our finding but all we heard was static. We could not pick up anything on the radio or any other devices. Even my cell phone lost all service. We decided to try and sail around it before heading back. Even though the structure’s height was at an impressive magnitude, the base was manageable appearing to be maybe a mile long on the side facing us. We could clearly see the straight corners on either side of us indicating that at least it was a cube’ish shape as a whole.

As we sailed, however, the edge of the structure evaded us. No matter how far we traveled we did not appear any closer to the edge. We picked up speed and and there was no change, it was as if the corner moved away from us as fast as we traveled, or maybe we weren’t moving at all.

After some time considering this we decided to head back to the shore. We turned the ship around and put the cube behind us and started making our way home. As Dave manned the helm I had the urge to take a few more pictures of the structure. I went around and froze at what I saw. Back at the cube, or where the cube should have been, was a large vertical wall of ocean that spanned across my entire vision. Dave called back to me that we were about to go through some fog but I paid it no mind. If i arched my neck and looked as far up as I could I could see something just on the rim of the ocean what was becoming clearer the further we traveled.

It was the coast line. As we sailed through the fog a realization hit me. We were someone now on the cube itself and I was staring back at the actual ocean. We were sailing upward, at a near 90 degree angle in defiance of everything I knew. And that fog. That was a cloud.

I yelled to get Dave to stop which he promptly reduce the speed to idle. We both peered around us in amazement. How did we get onto this structure without even getting close? We maintained our distance the entire time and besides, how can we even sail onto this? We would simply crash into it if we tried.

In front of us was now a star filled evening sky that appeared much darker than it should. I was starting to panic. This was insane. I couldn’t understand or comprehend what was going on. And more importantly how we are going to get back.

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Dave turned the ship around and started heading back from the direction they came. But even this provided full of complications. The sailing surface shifted along with all of the strange shapes and without adjusting our direction we were getting turned around time and time again. Even if we angled the ship directly towards the intersection of the ocean and the structure and sailed strait, in short time we would find ourselves looking at the stars once more.

I am unsure of how long this lasted however Dave did not give into the pressure as I had. I was borderline helpless as Dave tried his hardest to rescue us both. He seemed to sense this as he called for me to go back below deck and try to radio in again for help. I happily agreed and went back to calling mayday.

This carried on for quite some time. I was unclear how many times I had called out on the radio but eventually I heard David scream. I jumped up to run to him but paused as he yelled for me not to come out. He pleaded for me to stay where I was. I froze as I was conflicted to either help or heed his warnings. Within moments he went silent and I lost my restraint. I couldn't stay here while he needed my help, yet as I emerged from below deck he was gone. I quickly surveyed the deck but there was no trace of him. I glanced overboard but there was no disturbance in the water to indicate he had fallen either. As I started to scan the horizon I saw it.

At what I would assume to be the top of this structure a beast moved just enough over the horizon for me to catch a quick glimpse of. IT was a mangled mess of impossibilities and despair. A horrifyingly humanoid form crossed with creatures from the depths of the ocean with a touch of hell it shifted around only half in my vision. And just behind this monstrocity was a crack in space itself. It was as if the most clear window in the world was broken and only the area where the light reflected roughly could be seen. Last I could hear what I could only describe as an ancient language not spoken by a human mouth and not meant for mortal’s ears. I instinctively covered my ears yet it provided no relief.

Best I could tell the creature paid me no concern as it disappeared behind the horizon one more. Had it taken David? I do not know.

I rushed back to steer the ship and now found myself fighting the currents of the water that had not existed before. I once more focussed on the intersection of this watery structure and the ocean with a single goal in mind; survive. I grasped the wheel hard enough for my knuckles to whiten and my fingers ache but I paid it no heed. And kept fighting against whatever force was trying to keep me disoriented. I was cutting the wheel sharply to the left and the right as I refused to give in.

I grew closer and closer to the intersection however at around the quarter mile mark I found I could not get any closer. Once again, no matter had fast I travelled the intersection remained at a fixed distance in front of me. I turned the wheel and started sailing around the structure in an attempt to find some way off this unholy thing yet I appeared to remain fixed in space. I set the throttle wide open and just kept steering against the currents.

I fixated on this one goal and ignored all else around me.

That was until I heard the crash. I looked up and only then realized how fixated I had been as I looked around and realized somehow I had once again crossed the threshold. I was back in the ocean looking up at the collapsing tower of impossibility. It made not a single disturbance in the ocean waters as an ocean worth of water crashed downwards. I once again looked on in awe before being pulled to my senses and deciding to leave the area as quickly as possible. I put the falling structure behind me as I rushed back to the shore.

Upon docking the ship I once more scoured it for Dave but there was still no sign of him. I rushed home and found my pregnant wife returning from her afternoon of shopping. I stopped before approaching her however and collected myself. If I ran up to her yelling everything that I had seen and about Dave it would terrify her. Different than my patients, I understood how quickly this could escalate and my very sanity questioned. From their stories, the person they were with that disappeared no longer existed after their return so I could learn all I needed from asking simple questions that I could dismiss if brought up again. This was going to be tough as my heart felt like it was going to burst from my chest.

I approached her and asked how shopping was and she responded by showing me the loads of deals that she had come across. I feigned interest as best as I could before asking if she had gone with anyone while shopping. She looked at me as if I had asked a strange question before laughing that she had already told me that her and Linda were meeting up. I acted as if it had slipped my mind before asking how Linda was doing.

Katie laughed a little and said that Linda was more excited about us having a child than even we were. I nodded as this seemed typical of our friend, however what she said next broke my heart.

“Linda said you need to set her up on a date with one of your single friends. She hasn’t found any luck in the dating market recently.”

Dave was no more. Not even a memory. Later I had gone through all my photos and found he was missing from every one. I reached out to a few other mutual friends and none remembered him. I dismissed the follow up questions as if he was an old friend that I didn’t expect them to remember.

I am still unsure of what happened to him and will likely never have an answer.

In the following days though I noticed something peculiar. I started seeing light coming off of people as if they were incredibly thin strings. I myself had quite a few that seemed to radiate from my chest. In my familiarity with my patients, I was expecting something like this to happen but I didn’t know how it would manifest.

If i tried to grab or hold these strings my hand simply passed through them as if they were but wisps of smoke. They seemed truly intangible and after my wife saw me waving around in front of my chest I had to be more mindful of my actions. I noticed that many, ir not most of these strings were connected to other people. For example, the most prominent string connected me to my wife. The next brightest one was broken off only a few feet in front of me and aimlessly waved about. All in all, there were five such broken strings.

My theory is that these are somehow representations of the bonds between people. If someone was to go missing then the bond would be broken. I found that if I stare at one long and hard I can get a grasp of maybe who the person was. Out of all the broken bonds, the second one seemed to be Dave’s. When looking into it I could see a man about my age with features that matched my memory of him. It wasn’t much, and I could only hold the image only briefly, but it was enough to confirm what I had thought.

The brightest broken bond confused me to a great extent. There was a young boy in his teens. His features seemed very familiar but I could not place them. It wasn’t until I noticed the same broken string coming from my wife that I truly understood what we had lost, even though I will never know our first son.