The dream is always the same. You spend hours on end climbing the ridges of the valley in the blazing heat, and you find yourself at the threshold. Very plainly in the view of the public, almost too obvious, but no one seems to see it. In the threshold lies only darkness, run around it and it is only an empty arch. When you cross the threshold, the desert valley falls away. You are surrounded by a heat more potent than that of the desert in which you just dwelt. There's something different about the heat, it seems unnatural. It smells of death all around, and for a while, you see nothing. As you take a few steps, you find yourself in a small wooden room, surrounded by whispers. No one is around you. You notice a doorway in the wall opposite you, and walk through. You find yourself outside rickety tower, inclined on the molten slabs below. You find the only way down is through slanted ramps affixed to the outside walls of the structure.
As you descend, you look around, but you are too high up to discern anything. But once you reach the bottom, you enter Hell. Literally.
From there, you can see this large tower was not large at all, it barely topped two stories, but it seemed so tall before. You look around and find you are on a small island in a sea of fire. From there, the crumbling corpses of those who have burned before you find themselves impaled from the neck out through the mouth, on strange, lanky poles that simply jut out from the fiery lake. As you progress around this island, you are suddenly awashed in anguished screaming, though you are totally alone. After a few laps around the island, suddenly you find a strange dry dock has appeared. It is just as rickety as the tower you were just in, and despite appearing to be made of wood, the molten lake has no effect on the structure. The dock is broken off at a certain point, but you feel like you should walk on it anyway. As you near the edge more dry dock appears before you, and you continue on. After a few minutes of walking, you suddenly notice a strange fog is preventing you from seeing far ahead. You look to the sides and see smaller islands in the fog, their denizens watching you progress. Strange winged creatures dressed in suits and tall, crumpled humanoids covered in blood. You look back and notice the fog has totally obscured everything behind you, it's impossible to tell how far you have come from the tower.
A part of you wants to go back.
As you continue further, strange chanting is heard all around you. It's impossible to know if it's just gibberish or some language unknown to you. Finally, the dock ends. You find yourself in front of a towering gate. As your lumber towards it to examine it, it opens for you, and the fog clears. Here, you see a staircase leading to the peak of a mountain, which you naturally ascend.
You feel increasingly uneasy as you draw closer to the top.
There, you find a strange, skull-like structure, ordained with enormous horns. You enter the skull, and find someone facing the corner away from you. He looks human.
But each time, as you approach him, he turns around, and see who he really is. The mask, the suit, the strange tendrils that have suddenly appeared whipping about. He doesn't harm you, he doesn't move, he doesn't even say a word.
You just wake up.
Every. Fucking. Time.
"Same dream again, huh?" the guy next to me asks.
"Yep, same fuckin' dream. Maybe I'm losing it. Are we there yet?"
"Nah, still a couple klicks out, we should be there in..."
Suddenly there's a loud smash and the humvee starts shaking.
"...never mind, I think we better get our guns ready now."
Welcome to Gaza, I guess.
The room is dark, the door is shut, the light is off, all the windows are closed with the curtains drawn, except for one. As a single ray of sunlight just barely illuminates the room, all that can be heard is the slow ticking of the clock hung on the wall.
tck tok
tck tok
tck tok
"Want to talk?" a mysterious voice asks.
"Sure.", He replies.
He feels a little drowsy, I guess that ham sandwich had too much sugar in it, or fat, or whatever made him feel like this.
The Beast walks across the room and sits in the little chair across the room.
"So, what's going on? What would you like to talk about"
"I don't know, current events?"
"Well, you that...special, new guy to Israel?"
"Uh..."
He hesitates, "Yeah, that 'special' new guy...wait, why do you call him special?"
The Beast chuckles, "Because, he's mah boi"
Anger flaring, He stands up, slams the desk and screams, "No, he's my boy!"
Suddenly, the door flies open, lighting up the whole room blindingly. A blue suited man armed with a machine gun barrels in and looks around. The Beast is gone.
"...you okay in here sir? I thought I heard you scream"
There's a silence for a bit.
"Yeah, I'm fine I just...saw a spider. Freaked me out."
"Oh, okay. I'll just...go back outside then."
As the blue suited man walks out, and the door is closed behind him, He looks to the tiny chair and sees The Beast, mask lifted slightly, smoking a cigar.
"We have a lot more in common than you think, my dear."
"Yeah, I don't need another 'one in the same' speech from you. Why are you here, anyway?"
"Cuz I'm bored, you're bored, we're all fuckin bored..."
"Hm," He said sitting back down, "well be bored somewhere else, I don't have time for your shit."
"Hahaha, okay, that's fine. I have to go anyway, I'm...expecting guests. I'll leave you to jack off to furry porn like you do every Tuesday.", The Beast said slyly.
"Excuse me?!" He bellowed, "I don't...I mean I'd never...I MEAN..."
...
"ugh, how did you know?", He said.
"Like I said, we have a lot more in common than you think. Later."
And just like that, The Beast was gone.
There's screaming for a bit before someone is thrown through the doorway, dead.
"Alright man, nice job!"
Benaiah's comrade came out brandishing the head of an Arab man.
"Okay, let's keep...why are you naked?"
His comrade chuckled and said, "To pray on their fear...to move, to act, to be an animal!"
The whole place goes silent as it seems even the dead turn towards them to bat an eye.
"I still can't believe they haven't just fucking killed you yet, Kondri."
"THE NIGHT IS STILL YOUNG!", he cried as he leapt into the next room, cackling.
"Someone's going to have to talk to bedrock about him."
Three hours and thirty dead Sunni fundamentalists later, the operation was complete.
"So, what now?", Benaiah asked.
"Uh, I dunno. We're stationed here for another couple days...let's go sight seeing?
After sleeping on it, the troop decided to do what bedrock would've wanted, go to fucking Jerusalem.
After some hours of driving, they reached the great capital of Israel.
After some walking and misunderstood directions, the troop crossed into the Old City.
"Wow, Jerusalem. The birthplace of the great Western religions and one really mean one."
They decided to split up and meet back in a few hours. Benaiah decided to visit the Mount.
As He progressed through the Old City, he began to feel...comfortable? Just chill, basically, but a very tranquil chill. It felt...nice.
He decided to save the Mount for later, best not to spoil the whole thing.
After walking around for a while, around where his phone said he was south of "Mount Zion", Benaiah felt...odd.
Like he was being watched. I mean, there we people around, mostly tourists, but no one was looking at him specifically. He just felt like there all eyes around him.
He darted around with no real reason, just...scared.
Until, suddenly.
A threshold.
Had it been there before?
No one else seems to see it.
From here, oddly enough, training kicked in. 'Observe the threat, study it.'
The wooden frame seemed unremarkable enough. But the endless darkness, seemed too unnatural. The threshold stood in a clearing, so what could be within it? Observing from its backside, the darkness it previously housed was nowhere to be seen.
It feels like something is trying to draw you in.
Maybe...
...maybe...
...well, just stepping in for a moment would do no harm.
...