You hear it don't you? Those one far off and rare cracks you hear outside have slowly, but steadily become not so distant and all too common. It reminds you of your childhood when they were common. You always thought they were fireworks. That's what everyone said they were. But no. They were too clean. One crack with a short tail, or for the unfortunate amongst us, the two cracks with a much too short tail.
Is this how the illusion fades for us all? A steadily rising tide of chaos, the abyss. An abyss that will destroy many and torment the rest. You know it won't be today, or tomorrow, but you know it will be soon. You know its going to be awesome and terrible and you will be snuffed out or lead a wretched and short existence, and yet you don't scream. You don't delay. You continue with your days like they aren't getting faster and faster and faster. You welcome this fate because you know in your heart that anything is better than this.
You look at your hands, black from the cigarette you slowly choked out on the pavement. You tell yourself, I don't have to do this, I can just leave, I can start walking. I could walk home. I could sleep. But you don't. You do it. And after you get home, a soulless husk you fill yourself with whatever you can to make you feel like you're real.
You try to remember that you're a person who's problems are real. But you can't. You've been locked out. Your hands are not your hands. Your feet are not your feet. Your brain has been expertly and surgically neutered giving you access to your eyes and ears. But nothing else. You do not get to proof read your word or actions before they happen, it simply happens in front of you, like you've been glued to the passenger seat.
You don't know when this happened. You think, "have I been this way for a week? A month?" You simply don't know.
A faceless entity is the one who took the scalpel to your mind. It came for you in your sleep one night and worked it's ways into your shadow, seeping into the very fabric of your soul, turning your very muscles and veins into tar. But your skin, it keeps clean. It dulls your eyes, blunts your hearing, and grinds your voice. But only a little. You notice it. No one else seems to. You try to talk about with those around you but when you're with them the thought never even comes to your mind.
You know this. Your world is collapsing. This world is collapsing. It's not going to get better. The age of empires is about to crumble. For most it will happen suddenly. But to you, you know its your fault. You spawned this evil into to world and it has gone past your worst nightmares.
You pray.
You pray again.
You go to sleep.