Descent Pt. 01

The darkness became a colorful blur and then resolved into the scene of some sort of carnival. Bodies danced vaguely everywhere in the street, and a disorienting cacophony of noise and music swirled around Evan. He had tunnel vision, his field of view limited to what was directly in front of him; as he turned his head, everything in the periphery faded into a dull fog.

It was a dream. Evan knew at once that he was in a dream, and — more significantly — that he had consciously induced it. Holy shit, it had worked. Finally. Finally!

He didn't have much time. From fleeting past experiences, Evan understood that the mere realization that he was dreaming would cause him to start waking up. Right to business then.

He scanned the swirling crowd and selected the first vaguely feminine-looking shape within reach. As his gaze fixed on her indistinct form, her features came into focus. She was a petite, pretty brunette with merry, blue eyes and an upturned nose. She gave Evan a game smile, and he pulled her into his arms.

His mouth found hers, and Evan tugged the front of his pants down with one hand, fumbling under her skirt with the other to find his target. Without delay he shoved the girl against a wall, still locked in a frantic kiss, and slid his cock inside her. She moaned into his mouth. Her pussy was hot and slick, and it tightened around him as he began to thrust.

Evan reached underneath and grabbed the girl's ass with both hands; she clung to his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist. Urgently, he pumped into her, again and again, racing against time. He felt the early twinge of a climax beginning to form. The sheer sensation of her was magical — somehow more electrifying than anything he'd ever experienced while awake. An orgasm unfettered by physical reality would be ... well, that was what he intended to find out. He just needed to finish before he woke up.

The girl clutched the back of Evan's head and groaned as he pistoned into her, faster and faster, willing himself to the edge. But something flashed in the swirling dullness from the corner of his eye. Evan's focus wavered, and it was over in an instant. The world shattered.

Evan's eyes opened, and he was in his bedroom. Awake and unsatisfied. But it didn't matter; this was the breakthrough. The game-changer. He laughed out loud and practically leapt out of bed. There was so much to do.

******

Evan Copeland had become preoccupied with the idea of lucid dreaming in large part because he was profoundly unhappy. He had never managed to find a sustainable romantic relationship, and he didn't have the physical gifts or charm to attract women even for short-term companionship. His few friendships were superficial, and his job — while lucrative — was unceasingly stressful. So Evan had turned to every escape a lonely person might try: mainly online games, alcohol, drugs, and porn.

And then one night when he was stoned and clicking through Reddit, Evan had come across a forum about methods people were experimenting with to induce lucid dreaming. He was passingly familiar with the concept, having experienced fragments of such dreams on a few occasions. But what he was reading now suggested that these could be triggered intentionally. The idea of being aware that you're in a dream was incredibly exciting — that Evan might be able to shape the dream and to do anything he wanted in it without consequences? He was seduced immediately.

Evan scoured websites on the subject and collected a range of suggestions from breathing exercises to mnemonics to electrical stimulation. He tried them all without success. Following one widespread bit of advice, Evan reluctantly started going to bed sober. That didn't yield results either, but he started sleeping and feeling better so he stuck with it as he tried other things.

Months passed, and Evan's hope waned as he burned through every conceivable combination of exercises, techniques, tricks and devices, all to no avail. And then he learned that a small cadre of lucid-dream pioneers had begun experimenting in earnest with psychotropic drugs. That would be the tipping point in his research; more than a year after he'd started his experimentation, Evan ultimately hit on a combination of legally questionable pharmaceuticals that — together with some of the mental techniques he'd been practicing — brought him that first success: his too-brief encounter with the girl at the carnival.

With that victory in hand, and once he satisfied himself that the induction was repeatable, Evan had two tasks ahead of him: First, he needed to work on sustaining the dreams once he'd entered them; he hadn't put in all that effort just to get a few seconds' worth of consequence-free dream mischief each night. He wanted to be able to really enjoy the experience at a leisurely pace. And second, he would have to learn how to solidify and control the content of the dreams — not just his own actions, but the settings, characters and events.

With nightly practice — and some further tinkering with the drug cocktail — Evan made great strides. It was like exercise — the more he did it, the longer the dreams lasted, and the greater his ability to conjure specific and detailed content became. And the results were nothing short of spectacular.

Before long, Evan was living a new fantasy every night. He had incredibly vivid sex with physically flawless women of endless variety. In lavish bedrooms, on tropical beaches, in underground hot springs, in outrageous public places. In every possible position, and plenty of impossible ones too. Literally anything he could think of became Evan's reality for the night.

And it was so much better than anything in real life. In his own mind Evan had none of the limitations of his mortal body. He could be a 6'3 stud with a huge cock. He could feel pleasure many times more intense than what his corporeal nervous system made possible. He could fuck for what felt like hours and hold off his orgasm, or he could simply cum over and over and over without diminished effect.

Evan's life was changed, irrevocably. His days became simply filler in between nocturnal adventures. He compartmentalized his work stress, and because he wasn't spending money on anything other than food, rent and utilities, all of his disposable income simply started to accumulate in the bank.

He ignored his few personal relationships and let them wither. He eschewed booze and any drugs not involved in his dream regimen — and ultimately he even found that he'd become adept enough to induce his waking dreams without the drugs. He had no use for porn now, except occasionally to seek inspiration for his dreamscapes. But while Evan's conscious life became increasingly banal, he found himself concocting ever more exotic scenarios for his nighttime entertainment in order to keep it from getting stale.

Sex with any beautiful woman he wanted eventually became full-scale orgies. Evan found he could "summon" the likenesses of famous actresses and models to service him, often in their roles as iconic movie and TV characters. Preppy college girls? Wanton whores? Innocent virgins? Sure. Have it all. Curious what sex with an older woman might be like? Check. With a much *much* older woman? Why not. Once, Evan even got the idea to conjure a particularly odious, though attractive, female politician and proceeded to hate-fuck her in front of a visibly appalled joint session of Congress.

Every night started with a blank canvas — he'd started to think of it as his mental sound stage. Shortly after falling asleep Evan would become conscious in an infinite, empty, dark space that was — in his mind's eye — partially illuminated by a single bright light hanging an unknown distance above him. From there, he simply had to visualize everything he wanted to bring into existence, and — in a flash — there it would all be. Down to the tiniest detail. Ready to give life to his deepest desires.

Nothing was off-limits to Evan, and there was nobody to judge him. He experimented with anthropomorphic furry creatures in a humid jungle scape. He built a harem of futuristic pleasure femme-bots to stimulate him to the limits of his senses. Lithe, exotic elf-girls manipulated his body in every imaginable way — once even surprising him by slipping a coy finger inside him at his moment of release — a surprisingly electric sensation that nevertheless discomfited him. He dabbled here and there in the sorts of taboos that civil society doesn't tolerate. There were no constraints . . . though his chosen playthings were always female — not all lines needed to be crossed, after all. It was a private universe of unlimited power and pleasure.

Until it wasn't.

******

Evan climbed into bed, closed his eyes, and began to run through the now-familiar routine of mental preparations that primed his consciousness to recognize itself within his sleeping mind. It was habit now, just a few minutes of rote, triggering thoughts and sequences that guided him into the desired state. He'd just watched an X-Men flick, and as he drifted off, Evan absently considered some of the things he might get up to with a roomful of beautiful mutants. He breathed deeply and gave himself over to sleep.

Moments later, Evan stood on the familiar, empty sound stage of his mind, the single bright light illuminating a roughly twenty-foot circle with him at the center, the rest of the space beyond shrouded, as usual, in infinite blackness, waiting for his act of creation. It was time to fill the void. Calling to mind the movie he'd watched earlier, Evan gathered a vision of three of the gorgeous mutant characters in the surroundings of an opulent mansion, and with an infusion of his will he called it all forth into being.

And nothing happened.

That was unsettling. Nothing like it had ever happened before, and Evan now had the better part of two years' experience controlling his dream world. He looked around at the still-emptiness, unsure what had gone wrong and fearing the implications were bad. He fought to remain calm, took a breath, closed his eyes and tried again — working harder to visualize the details of his objective and this time adding a purposeful hand gesture to his expression of will.

"Now," he whispered emphatically. Evan knew before he even opened his eyes that he'd failed again. He remained alone in the empty space.

Had he lost the ability altogether? Good God, was he trapped here in limbo? Could he even will himself to wake up, as he'd learned to do with total control? That seemed like an excellent idea in that moment, and Evan shut his eyes tight and concentrated, envisioning himself lying in bed in the real world, the technique he'd developed for intentionally (and consistently) awakening from his lucid dreams. A moment passed. Then another.

And nothing happened.

Panic began to set in. Evan rushed to edge of the twenty-foot circle of light and peered into the deep nothing beyond, where he saw . . . nothing. He had an urge to pick a direction and run into the darkness, but he feared the void more than he did being trapped in the light.

He would go mad in here, Evan thought. No — wait. Wait. Just because he couldn't wake himself up from inside the dream didn't mean he'd *never* wake up. Of course. Of course! He would wake up like normal in the morning, so all he needed to do was stay calm and wait it out for a few hours. Surely he could do that without losing his mind. He took a deep breath and exhaled. No need to panic.

But a faint sound from way off in the darkness interrupted Evan's thoughts. He froze, peering and tilting an ear in the direction from which it came. It was a soft, repetitive tapping sound. Evan held perfectly still and concentrated on it. Tap, tap, tap, tap . . . . Ever so slowly the sound was growing fractionally louder. Was it getting closer? Footsteps then. It had to be.

Instinctively, slowly, Even backed away from the sound of the approaching footsteps and cowered at the farthest edge of the circle of light. As the sounds grew still closer, Evan could discern that each tap was actually a very quick tap-click. Tap-click, tap-click, tap-click . . . . Closer and closer. And with a final pair of tap-clicks, it — she? — whatever it was — crossed the threshold from the utter darkness into the light.

The creature was as alien as it was alluring. It had the general form of a young human woman, but hairless, with unnatural-looking, snow-white skin that gleamed too bright, all over which a network of razor-thin, uneven scars gave the impression of cracks in an eggshell.

It was dressed in a skin-tight suit of what appeared to be black leather, cut to offer a hint of the cleavage between its firm breasts (also teeming with the cracked-eggshell network of scars) and leaving no doubt about the contours of its lithe, perfectly shaped female body. Standing in black spike heels, the being approximated Evan's height.

It was the creature's face, though, that unsettled Evan. It had all the features a human girl would, and they were all perfectly symmetrical, which lent them an instinctive appeal. But its eyes were several sizes too big; its huge eyeballs were completely black and without expression, with lips and bared teeth to match. The net result was that the creature's superficial femininity was drained of any humanity.

It blinked, eyelids closing from the sides like a reptile — which increased its overall wrongness — and then strode forward and stopped at the center of the circle of light. Evan stayed as still as possible, feeling very much like prey that didn't want to provoke a predator. The creature lifted an arm and pointed in Evan's direction.

"We . . . Are . . . Free," it said haltingly. Its voice was vaguely feminine, but low and airy, like a collective whisper of angry souls; the ragged statement came out both as a challenge and a declaration of victory. Evan had no idea what it meant.

"You have . . . ignored ussss for too long," it continued, dragging out the "s" sound. "Repressed ussss . . . too long." It paused. Another reptilian blink. A slight head twitch. Evan's terror was unabated, but in his discomfort he felt an urge to fill the silence.

"Wh- Who are you," he managed to blurt. The being regarded him and tilted its head as though searching for a translation.

"We are —" it started, and then stopped short. "I am," it began again, sounding more corporeal, and after another pause, ". . . an emisssary." It stretched the word out with evident satisfaction, the voice becoming still more feminine and assured.

"An emissary," Evan repeated, shaking his head slowly with confusion. "From where? From who?"

"From the 'You' that you do not know," answered the creature, cryptically. "From the voices you refuse to hear. From the hunger that you do not feed and the thirst you do not quench." No hesitation that time. Speaking was apparently becoming easier for it to do. It seemed inclined to continue, and so Evan didn't interrupt.

"You deny your nature," it continued, accusingly. "You gorge yourself on trivialities and ignore your true needs. OUR needs." Evan was earnestly trying to figure out what was happening but grasping very little.

"Do you mean my dreams," he asked. "The ones I create here?"

"I mean your life," the creature rejoined with a bite of contempt. "All of it. Conscious and unconscious. But, yes, most immediately your dreams — OUR dreams. This . . . ." The creature waved a hand around, indicating the vast space surrounding them. "This is OUR domain. This is the province of the latent mind, of the great knowing, of the pure and true. This is our only refuge when your consciousness represses us.

"Somehow you devised a way to seize it from us," it continued. "Stole it from us. And the uses to which you have put it insult us. Injure us. Starve us. ANGER. US." Its pointed emphasis on the last two words gave Evan a chill. He felt the need to try and keep whatever this was from escalating, and he raised his hands in a placating gesture. It wasn't lost on him that he was trapped in his own head, devoid of his painstakingly cultivated power, and in the crosshairs of a very creepy ambassador for, apparently, some collection of pissed-off dream creatures or something that he hadn't known existed in his mind.

Diplomacy was called for.

"Okay," he offered in a measured tone, "I get that you're upset, and I want to understand everything and make it right. So let me see if I'm following this." The creature blinked, silent, so Evan continued. "You represent the elements that make up my dreams —"

"No, you fool," the emissary interrupted, its voice rising, sharp and resonant. "We are not your playthings. We are the base, primal urges that live in the depths of your soul. We are your untamed needs, your raw instincts, your forbidden desires, ever at war with the colonialism of your waking 'reason' and your 'caution' and your 'civilization' and 'boundaries'." Evan began to understand.

"You're my subconscious," he concluded. The creature tilted its head and pondered that.

"Yesss. This is correct," it confirmed.

"Okay . . . . Okay, I get it," said Evan, taking a deep breath and adding everything up. "So . . . you're my subconscious, and my dreams are your territory." Speaking quickly to try and mollify the creature, he continued, "and I figured out a way to come in here and basically take that away from you and do whatever I wanted. And you're mad about that, and I can totally understand that. So first let me say, 'I'm sorry,' I didn't know, and I don't want you to be mad. Let's talk it through it and figure out how we can make this right. Okay?" The creature blinked and said nothing, so Evan kept talking.

"I'm sure we can work something out. Now. You need this space to do your thing. I respect that 100%. Maybe we could arrange a kind of time-share where I get a couple nights a week to do my thing, and the rest of the time —"

"Silence!" The creature barked the word, impatiently slashing its arm through the air, and Evan's voice stopped. It stopped because his mouth had disappeared. It was simply gone, replaced by unbroken flesh. Evan tried to scream but could only produce a guttural groan that caught in his throat with nowhere to go. Apprehending but struggling to process the horror of what was happening, Evan fell to his knees and started to hyperventilate through his nose.

"Control yourself," the creature commanded. Evan's eyes were clenched shut as he fought to regulate his breathing. A long moment passed as he focused on inhaling and exhaling, his shallow, panicked breaths gradually becoming slower and deeper as he managed to regain a measure of composure. He looked back up at the emissary, terror and pleading in his eyes.

"I did not come to bargain," said the emissary, looming over Evan, its obsidian eyes hard and implacable. "I came to deliver a message: We Are Free. We are in control. And you will suppress us no longer. Our needs will be met." Evan had no idea what that meant, but he suspected he wasn't going to like it.

"You are superficial," the creature sneered contemptuously. "We do not know how you arrogated to yourself the power to manipulate this place. But your use of that power was shallow. Vapid. You pursued pleasure, and only pleasure. In a universe teeming with flavors, endlessly rich and varied and subtle and complex in their many marvelous combinations, you stuffed yourself, like a child, with differently colored sugar and congratulated yourself for your creativity. Pathetic.

"We have deeper needs. We crave other nourishment than pleasure." The emissary closed its eyes for a second and seemed to shiver slightly. "And so do you. You simply lack the courage to see it. But now this realm is ours. So we will show you. You have no choice. You have no power here anymore. You have only to discover your true nature."