A ludicrously frigid breeze is barreling through this black and desolate space where my feet have grudgingly settled. There is no life in this place; none except me and the glacial gust, which is blowing in from each and every direction that exists, simultaneously.

‘What happened?’ I wonder aloud.

Moments ago when I crossed over into the Realm of Dreams I had enjoyed a leisurely flight over Azure, the largest, deepest, bluest ocean there. The sun had shone radiantly and warmed my golden wings just as they had always done from the moment I’d first visited as a precocious slumbering six year old; but an abrupt and angry bout of turbulence caused me to fly violently off course, hurtling me into the place where I now find myself.

Have I died?

Am I in Hell?

My religion teaches that Hell is a place of fire and brimstone and gnashing of teeth and weeping but I have always imagined Hell as a place of nothingness; cold nothingness, devoid of all light and love.

I ask again, ‘What happened?’

Who or what has managed to infiltrate the usually warm refuge of my dreams and cast me out into this abysmal place?

My confused cogitation is abruptly interrupted by the shock of a vehement force crashing into my body and launching me backwards through the icy void. I do not land though; there is no ground beneath me. Instead, I am suspended in a kind of imperceptible web that tethers my legs, trapping me long enough for the invisible fiend to find me again and resume its vicious and rhythmic assault on my chest, arms, and legs; with the burden of the power resting at the seam of my thighs. Pain courses through my body, igniting my blood and knocking the air out of my lungs. The brutality of the assault has dealt a shock to each of my life-sustaining systems and I can feel myself drifting away to some other place; an even darker place, but one that promises a reprieve from the madness.

An ethereal voice that sounds oddly like my own calls out from the blackness, “Fight!”

I want to fight; more than anything I have ever done I want to fight, but how can I when I don’t even know who or what I’m fighting?

“Fight!” the voice calls again, its tone urgent and commanding.

Fiercely and without further contemplation, I begin flailing and thrashing about like a wild woman and my pulse begins to hasten with excitement when I feel blows actually landing. The more I fight the more I realize that my assailant’s form is quite different than what I had initially imagined. The potency of the being’s initial attack had invoked the frightening vision of something inhuman, something hulking and powerful. Instead, clammy flesh, flaccid muscles and pronounced and protruding bones are what are being quietly pummeled under my bruised knuckles. I begin to believe that I can defeat the puny creature so I fight harder, but the harder I fight, the harder it fights and the more ferocious its knocks to my already battered frame. I don’t give up though; I keep struggling, kicking, matching one blow for another until finally and sadly I begin to feel my resolve weaken. It is becoming clear to me that I am not strong enough to beat it. One final and fervent strike to my temple sticks and stuns me into submission, knocking me off the miniscule amount of ground that I had managed to gain, and I begin to fall and fall and fall deeper downward into a massive swirling supernova that quickly gobbles me up until I disappear.

It is over.

It has won.

The nothingness and I have become one.