{"id":382,"date":"2010-07-21T14:00:27","date_gmt":"2010-07-21T19:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/3.136.9.181\/?p=382"},"modified":"2010-07-21T14:00:27","modified_gmt":"2010-07-21T19:00:27","slug":"the-shadow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vaygh.com\/?p=382","title":{"rendered":"The Shadow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did I have a dream, or did the dream have me?<\/em><\/p>\n

– Rush, “Nocturne”<\/em><\/p>\n

Last night I had a nightmare.\u00a0I realized I was dreaming and forced myself back to consciousness.<\/p>\n

As I began to slide back to wakefulness, the dream-demon tried to swallow my mind. Refusing to let me awaken without a fight, he attacked me with a claw of burnt midnight sky. His ebon hands fumbled about my head and face. I fled his ferocious assault.<\/p>\n

Blackened flesh and sooty sinew melted away and the demon’s hands became rivers of inky darkness. The Shadow tried to drown me beneath waves of undulating, liquid hate. I tried to paddle away, but the crests were too high, and I’m a poor swimmer. Icy, coal-black water began pouring down my throat and ears. As my lungs filled, I began to panic. The terror of drowning erased rationality and sense, my most prized possessions.\u00a0Perhaps the dream-demon would finally have me.<\/p>\n

I coughed and spat as the waves crashed about my head. Suddenly, I caught sight of a tiny island – barely big enough for a single person to stand on – nearby. I struggled to reach it before the waters of demonic\u00a0rage could claim me.<\/p>\n

Spending the last of my strength on reaching the island, I collapsed on the white sands of the miniscule beach. I became aware of a thin, sharp sound in the distance. It grew stronger with each\u00a0wave lapping against my knees. I turned to see a tsunami of unearthly proportions rushing toward me.<\/p>\n

Seconds before I was to be consumed completely by the hateful sea, a face appeared in the colossal tide. The demon’s face – my face – laughed a loathsome, taunting laugh at me. Then the wave crashed down, and I was enveloped in the frigid, numbing waters.<\/p>\n

I awoke with a start, clutching my black-and-grey blanket to my face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did I have a dream, or did the dream have me? – Rush, “Nocturne” Last night I had a nightmare.\u00a0I realized I was dreaming and forced myself back to consciousness. As I began to slide back to wakefulness, the dream-demon tried to swallow my mind. Refusing to let me awaken without a fight, he attacked…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-randomness"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgg9VX-6a","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vaygh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vaygh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vaygh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vaygh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vaygh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vaygh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vaygh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vaygh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vaygh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}