Dreaming in Oil and Salt

DREAM LOG: SUBJECT 104-B

DATE: [REDACTED] // LOCATION: BLUE RIDGE MINE

[Found scrawled in charcoal on the wall of a collapsed mine shaft. The surface is slick with a black, iridescent substance.]

I didn't wake up today. Or maybe I did, but the sky was the color of a bruised lung and the clouds were made of teeth. The oil is rising in the mine again. It doesn't just pool; it whispers. It sounds like a billion tiny insects trying to recite a poem they only half-remember.

"We are the excremental shadow. We are the dream that dreamt itself into the meat. The Zero Point is here, and it tastes like copper and salt."

I saw the Dreaming Ones last night. They weren't giants. They were the spaces between the giants. They were the silence after a scream. I tried to scream too, but my mouth was full of black bile and wet feathers. I’m starting to like the taste. It’s better than the dry sandwiches they give us at the surface.

• The walls are breathing in 4/4 time.
• The shadows are longer than the light.
• I can hear John laughing in the static.

[THE FILTH DOES NOT FORGET. THE FILTH DOES NOT FORGIVE.]