Just like every night before this, I ascended the steps as my eyes sealed.

Except, it wasn’t really like closing your eyes. It was more like when you step outside into the sun, and it takes a minute for your eyes to adjust. But suddenly you’re standing on your porch, or a bustling sidewalk, or in a field, or wherever that door normally takes you.

The door of my eyes, however, didn’t lead to any of those places. In fact, it was hard to tell if they lead anywhere at all. All I knew was that it was natural. It happened every night by a function of my mind.

Without thinking, I put one shoe in front of the other, up these marble steps. They clacked against the marble and the sound reverberated for minutes. I waited as long as it would take for the sound to dissipate before taking the next step, but not for my enjoyment of the sound. Rather, the steps were hard to take. It felt like pushing up these steps against the lead weight of sleep on my eyes.

‘Step. Echo. Echo.

Step. Echo. Echo.

Step-‘

And a clicking sound.

One I had never heard before.

It was like a winch being suddenly unlocked, allowing the gear to click as it spin rapidly, a massive cargo on the other side falling into the abyss.

The reptilian pitch lowered, and I slowly fought fatigue to raise my gaze from my shoes on the steps.

Four claws with four talons each gripped the stone archway above the steps. They belonged to a long, contorting creature, with eight giant spider eyes and a wide smile of needle teeth the color of obsidian. It was covered in a thick coat of fur that was a color I had never seen before.

Its expression said ‘sadistic parasite.’

Its mouth was frozen in that chilling grin.

Somehow a voice boomed, sounding as if it were behind me, but the creature’s gaze petrified me like stone, holding me there, hypnotized.

“Hello, child.”

I tried to respond, but I could only gasp for air.

“No need to speak, child. I can hear your thoughts like God may hear your prayers.”

It cackled, all of these words coming without it moving its mouth. Its voice was like a whisper so loud it could deafen you, coming from all angles. It was like a skull being ground into pavement. My head ached with every word, disorienting me and distorting my vision.

I tried to focus enough to put a sentence together:

“What are you?”

“I am The Ventriloquist. You may not rest until I leave.”

It became apparent to me that ‘The Ventriloquist’ had thick steel cables wrapped around its appendages, neck, and torso that extended up into the great sky, beyond any colors and clouds I could see.

“Why are you here?”

“I’m hungry.”

I had a sudden sinking feeling and a sharp pain in the crown of my skull.

The clicking sound returned, and the creatures fangs parted.

Suddenly, a tongue woven from the same steel cables shot out of its mouth and wrapped itself around my neck, binding tighter and tighter until my vision blacked out and all I could feel was the harsh grip of steel burning against my neck. The same deafening whisper slammed my head:

“Now that I have your attention, I must inform you that your psyche belongs to me.”

Like a blurry photo held under a pond, I could see my dreams. Not just the ones that occurred to me at night, but my big dreams too. My aspirations and goals:

Visions of me with a wife and family. Playing with the kids and our dogs. Lovely days in the yard behind our house. Our house. Completing my degree and finding work in a veterinary clinic. Living close to my friends and watching each other raise families, growing old in parallel. Laughter.

So many dreams that seemed impossible, and simultaneously so real now that I could see them in front of me. I loved my wife, she was beautiful, and though I had never met her, I could tell she loved me. Our children were growing up so fast right before my eyes. I got to help animals and families in my work.

And then The Ventriloquist appeared.

First in the end, in my living room, surrounded by my friends in our old age. It appeared as a reaper, taking our lives one by one. One talon touch to our shoulders sent a river of cancer into each of our bodies.

Then to my work, and my home. It set them both ablaze, and I watched as they burned to the ground. My gut wrenched, and I couldn’t do anything to fight it. Those thin, crooked teeth cracked apart letting out screams of the next scene.

My wife and our children kneeled around a pile of lifeless fur. A closer look revealed it was our dogs. They wept. And I wept too.

Then The Ventriloquist stepped closer to them, just out of their view. I knew what was to come. I wanted to scream, to warn them, to tell off this evil being. I opened my mouth, and my throat tensed, but no sound managed to come out.

I watched in horror as the Ventriloquist bit off the heads of my family, laughing in between at my distress. Tears streamed down my face and I struggled desperately to no avail.

The Ventriloquist then gluttonously devoured the bodies of my family. First the dogs. Then then children. And lastly my wife. The only colors left were the gory reds of their blood and the sharp, glossy black of those obsidian teeth. It savoured consuming the entire scene, and my vision filled with that color I had never seen before. Almost grey, or beige, but also somehow psychadelic.

“I’ll be back.”

~~~

I woke with a start, hyperventilating and sitting in a puddle of my own sweat. The clock on my nightstand read 10:36 PM.

How was that possible? I had gone to bed at 11 PM, like I do every night. I checked my phone, and the date was the same as before. March 14th, 2027. I hadn’t slept an entire day.

Regardless, the family from my dreams was still in my dreams, and so was the Ventriloquist.

At least for the Ventriloquist, I hope it stays that way.