Dreams. Some say we always see dreams, it's just that we don't always remember them when we wake up. A temporary hibernation to put our mind to rest for a short while, releasing constant watch of sensory activity, muscle activity. Soothing pain for a time.
Some say we see past in dreams, some claim to see future. Long it had been suggested that dreams are exposing memory processing of our brain. Cooling it down for a short while, taking time to rearrange things accumulated throughout awakened state, sort them, put it all in orderly and connected pieces, fragmenting and assembling experiences.
But do we always just see what our memory had stored? Beyond those twisted, altered imagery and sensory expositions, sometimes impossible to trace them back to origin? Or is it possible that there can be something else, built from elements that isn't something we had seen before, smelled and felt. Something from outside source, perhaps? Could it be injected, subtly during our wake state, within a mere fracture of a moment. And then it rests in a corner of our memory, hibernating there while mind is fully awake, fully alert. But then we go to sleep, and in there it wakes up...
No strange voices, no vague forms and ominous silhouettes, no mystical appearances of any kind. No angels coming down from heavens, no devils to crawl out of a fiery chasm... ah, the labor of imagination built from murals imprinted in the old memory. Walking through grand halls of the cathedral at New Paris, standing there in awe of the beauty and scale. It seemed so amazing. But now so crude, limited and so... human. While out there is a beauty unimaginable, on a scale beyond these poor senses, this limited eyesight, this narrow hearing.
And those around him? They're blind and oblivious... unenlightened. They walk around, give and take orders, talking pointless gossip, living their little isolated and short lives until their physical manifestation, their little and fragile cages wither and then simply expire. And all of that awareness fading away and then gone, completely. Or perhaps someone else, like their own kind, makes them expire prematurely. But even if they could see as much - would their feeble minds able to comprehend? Would they able to understand? No, they'll just crawl back to the comfort of their established view of the world through a tiny pinhole, content to see only things they have "learned" to see, and turn their eyes away when it's not. And yet there is so much more to see, so much more to experience, struggling not only to expand the view but to comprehend as the world around becomes much more exposed, things previously unseen shred their veils and come out from hiding.
And now? No, there weren't any mystery or mysticism here. Just a simple knowledge of a place he knew. And awareness someone is waiting for him there, a servant sent by benefactors. Someone who'll aid him in his endavours and to help understand this transition, this metamorphosis, this... revelation?
Ansel Xavier sat up with a gasp, his body drenched in cold sweat. He had not been expecting a call at this hour. But those beings had little care for the concept of time, so it was hardly unexpected. An extremely potent vision, however...
He staggered over to the washroom and threw up. It took several minutes of him washing his face to gain a semblance of control and normalcy back again. Their gifts always came at a cost. A draining cost he found more difficult to afford with each passing day.
With control restored, he considered the vision. It was fairly straightforward, they wanted him to meet someone. Someone they thought could help him in his goal. Ignoring this was impossible, and he needed all the help he could get. Focusing carefully, he prepared for a brief message back to the source.