When I was a child, my friends and I would play a game at our sleepovers.
When all the laughter had died down, the movies had been watched, the snacks eaten, we would sit in the dark, waiting for the witching hour to arrive. When the clock struck three, we would all get into position, sitting in a circle upon a mattress, silently waiting for the right time to play. At exactly 3:33 AM, we would all close our eyes, and recite a chant that had been taught to us by generations of children past:
Three strikes of the bell of time
Here we sit to share this rhyme
We wish to fly to stars so bright
A somber trial in dead of night
So with these hallowed words to keep
We bid goodnight to those who sleep
As we said these words, a great, sweeping feeling would come across us, not exactly a pleasant one, but it was not of pain either. It was as though we were being lifted by something, higher, higher, higher until we could no longer sense the earth beneath us.
As we concluded our chant, we would slowly open our eyes and find ourselves somewhere new. We were still sat upon the mattress, yes, but we were no longer in a bedroom. We were suspended above a deep, dark void, speckled with stars and nebulae, and at the very edge of a mattress was a staircase which led up and onto a cold, mossy stone floor. This was the first level of the place which we called the Dungeon.
The Dungeon is a world separate from ours, something born out of the mind which has manifested with some level of physicality. It has an unknown number of levels, which seem to extend upward for miles and miles. The levels do not usually have a ceiling or walls, unless they are required for a trial, and it would seem every level above your current location is completely invisible until you reach it. Each level has some sort of puzzle or trial to complete in order to move on to the next. This could be a vast labyrinth filled with chests, levers, and beasts, it could be a logical puzzle that unlocks a door, or it could simply be a fearsome monster that must be slain. Every time we've visited The Dungeon, the trials have been different, though there are some characteristics that remain the same. It seems the same creatures still roam the halls of The Dungeon no matter what, the same artifacts and items can be found throughout it, and levels that have rooms or mazes are often non euclidean in nature.
From the time you arrive in The Dungeon, you will have until the sun rises on earth to get to the top, otherwise you will be torn away from whatever level you're on and wake up in your body on earth, exactly where you left it. Time does not work in The Dungeon like it does on earth, however, so a few hours within it could feel like days or weeks.
If you die in the dungeon, or fall off one of the levels and into the endless void below, you will immediately wake up, unscathed, in your body on earth.
We would advance through the levels of the dungeon, getting as high up as we possibly could, the goal being to see what was at the top. However, it didn't seem to matter how many levels we braved, challenges we completed, or monsters we had slain, for it kept going higher, higher, and higher without any sign of an ending point. We played this game often, taking notes about what we saw during our time in the dungeon and making strategies. It all seemed to be in good fun, until strange things began to happen in our earthly lives.
We would see figures out of the corners of our eyes, we would hear the cries of the beasts we had fought, and sometimes we could swear we felt the dungeon itself calling out to us.
This all culminated with the disappearance of Rosie, a close friend who we had taken on our last few visits. She kept telling us that there was a man in her closet, a man with hooks for hands. We did not believe her.
It was a closed casket funeral.
We have not played the Sky Game ever since, and I urge you, dear reader, not to meddle with The Dungeon either. There is no reward to be found there that is more valuable than the life of another.
tangentwithtanner
baratheonpilled
kianamaiart
2087
titsay
vaporwave
