It was just another night before he went to bed that night. Spent in the calm bliss of old age, content of the life he lived.
He had lived an ordinary life, in every way, but he had found happiness in it.
He was at peace with himself and with what he did, both good and bad. He was in the twilight of his life and felt happy.
Therefore, when the darkness of what he believed to be sleep came, he could never have imagined what would result from it and what he would experience from that moment on.
It started as soon he closed his eyes.
A deep pain, as intense as anything he had ever known. Constant flashes of abstract images and colors he didn't understand. Foreign sensations and emotions.
Voices shouting and whispering incomprehensible gibberish but with a purpose and meaning he couldn't explain.
It was a torture he could not endure for long because the ordeal seemed designed to break him mentally.
It's sole purpose to make him surrender his mind and die.
It would have been easier if the violence had been portrayed in a crude way, something simple where you could distinguish things in black and white.
But it was much more insidious.
Constantly changing visions and physical sensations, ranging from extreme pain to pleasure.
Its sole purpose is to transform him to the very core of his being.
Who he was, what he believed, what he felt, his very soul.
He was repeatedly tempted to accept this as the only truth and solution.
Suffering from extremely painful sensory and emotional overload, he was on the verge of giving up.
Yet, deep within his unconscious, his "self," his "ego," resisted.
Forged by his life, his joy and the respect he found there.
He barely resisted death, becoming weaker and weaker in his struggle as time passed.
That was how intense the attack on his psyche was.
He couldn't tell how much time has passed since the beginning. Years or seconds, it didn't matter.
Time could no longer be perceived with the pain he felt.
But it was just when I was about to give up that it appeared.
A hope, a salvation. A light.
At first, it was nothing, just a tiny dot. No bigger than the smallest particle. It should have gone unnoticed in this chaotic swirl of images and colors.
But it emanated warmth.
He felt drawn to it. How that light made him feel.
If what he had been experiencing until then was what we might call the manifestation of death. What we call Thanatos.
Then this light was Eros, the manifestation of life.
It saved him. It wasn't the light itself, but what it awakened in him.
It reminded him of what he had, the desire to live and the joy he felt in it.
So, unconsciously, he tried to get closer to it. Little by little, while still being persecuted by all sorts of visions and mental attacks.
It seemed like an eternity had passed before he even got close to the light.
As he approached the light, the heat it emitted turned into a blaze he could not bear.
So, while this burning light kept the creeping darkness of madness he was subjected to at bay, it was also beginning to burn him.
An unpleasant and unwelcome surprise.
Still unable to think consciously or make decisions, his mind nevertheless seemed to find the light as a path to survival and wanted to continue moving toward it.
He was forced to stop there for a moment. Burned by the light, his reason was consumed by endless visions.
It would have been untenable if his psyche had not begun to defend itself in a new way.
Had he evolved because of all this pain?
Had he found a new way to protect himself after all this suffering, all this temptation of sweet rewards, if only he would let go?
Either way, it seemed that the whisper of what could only be demons and the burning light that kept them at bay seemed to be diminishing.
It seemed as if his mind was protecting itself from all of this in some intangible way.
Almost like a shield.
Gradually the heat diminished and the visions became less pronounced, less violent and his mind felt stronger and stronger.
His journey resumed as the closer he was to the light, the less his mind was under attack.
As he approached, the visions became more and more sophisticated and began to arouse deeper and deeper emotions.
These visions attempted to subvert his mind towards philosophical ideas as if they were the truth.
It all began with images of the cycle of nature. A loop of flora and fauna traversing the cycle of life, its beauty, its naturalness.
The birth and death of a galaxy whose sun has faded.
Worms emerging from the earth to devour the carcasses of animals and humans.
Life born of decay, decay born of life and its inevitability.
Whispers of the futility of it and to let it all go. Do nothing and let it be as it is.
As it is only the natural course of things and to act is only tiresome.
Then endless scenes of illness and death. From the plague to the individual. From the beginning of the illness to its end. Visions of corrupted cells, in real time, as if you were there to see it all, from beginning to end.
Visions of a lifetime diseased and without cure, as you feel your flesh and soul decaying and your will slowly giving way to inaction.
Sometimes you were the disease itself, infecting an entire population or even an entire planet, spreading death wherever you went with background voices shouting and whispering that this was the eternal truth of the world as everything decayed and died out and you must surrender to it.
Entire worlds rotting under plagues and diseases, neither dead nor alive, waiting aimlessly, perpetuating the cycle of life and death in cosmic time, giving birth to abominations each more repugnant than the last.
Other times the visions would be of violence.
They made you feel its beauty, you yearned for it. You even desired it, you trained yourself to it.
Or it could make you feel the rage and pain that would drive you to commit acts of violence and murder. It made you feel that nothing was holding you back anymore, no rules. That at that point in your life, when you had that violent urge, you could act on it and be rewarded for it.
Visions of armies clashing, steel against steel, as if you were watching the most beautiful and well-made war film of all time.
So, you embodied a warrior god, for wherever you fought, you were victorious. Every swing of your blade caused death. The euphoria of invincibility and every kill brought joy, honor, and respect.
The rage you felt against a never ending horde of enemies locked in battle for eternity.
Sometimes you were the knife itself and you felt the penetration of the flesh, the blood you drew and life you were ending. It gave you joy.
You were all murder, you were violence incarnate and nothing could bring you more joy.
Other times, the visions spoke of insidious beings. Manipulators operating in the shadows, sowing misfortune and change wherever they went.
Knowledge was your goal and with it you sought the disappearance of established orders, states, families.
Sometimes you were a king's advisor, bringing him victory before ruin.
Or you were just a friend, almost a stranger to his family.
You learned their secrets and played them against each other until only pain and ruin remained. The sense of the power of knowledge brought you joy, and the magnitude of change you could effect with it was endless.
Other times the visions would be of enjoying all there is to enjoy. Releshing in all the pleasure life has to offer.
It could be delicious food, a banquet enjoyed by thousands of people with dishes you only dream of and an endless appetite.
It could be the pleasure of the finest silk on your skin and the admiring gaze of everyone. The incessant praise, while you felt boundless pride and vanity.
Women or men at your feet, in an endless celebration of desire, begging you to be the next object of their desire, for you are the greatest.
A pride and pleasure so intense that they constitute the only truth. The only effort worth pursuing.
Yet, despite all these visions and whispers, the light and warmth were just as powerful, acting as a guide through the madness.
That despite all these temptations that wanted to pass themselves off as truth, he knew who he was and the answer to these questions.
Did he experience rage and violence in his life? Yes, every human being experiences them, but he did not find joy in them and did not actively seek it.
He knew and recognized that sometimes violence was the only solution. If one had to defend one's own well-being or that of others, one's material possessions, one's country, one could even rejoice in victories, and there was nothing wrong with that. It was a manifestation of one's will to live.
But reveling in them was something else and would destroy you in the long run.
The same was true of pride and lust, as well as of plotting and manipulation.
As for the inevitability of death and decay, it was a truth is undeniable as life and its beauty, and as long as one was in the cycle of life, one could fight for it, cherish it, and love it.
Disease was a part of life; epidemics were a consequence of our social behavior as a species. It happened, it's tragic, and we continue to move forward as we always have as a species.
We endure, we live, we love, we die.
As he strengthened his belief, he felt his very being become firmer and stronger, nourished by the ever-present beacon of light in this treacherous darkness of nightmares he found himself in.
With his faith in who he was and what he felt stronger than ever, it felt like a metaphorical shield against the parasitic forces that were taking over his mind.
He was unaware that this shield was materializing in this space, protecting him not only from these visions, but also from the burning effect of the light.
Still unconscious, his mind felt safe and strong enough to continue its journey toward the light that seemed to dispel the darkness.
The closer he got, the more the darkness enveloping him receded, tentacles still trying to cling and burrow into his mind, desperately seeking to corrupt it, but in vain.
He continued to follow the trail of light back to its source at a not-too-close distance, for the closer he got, the more he felt drawn, and finally with a last effort, his vision dispersed of all darkness, he arrived.