They were here, those demons - he could feel them peopling the edge of his consciousness.

Indeed he felt them gather; those demons invoked by that sorceress. The Queen of Waat. A person he didn't want to think about. In connection to who/what/whom, she really was in terms of the final reality of not just her existence.

He could think more about the Queen of Waat. In this corridor-obsession moving forward. These demons were invoked by her, after all; those he felt gathering at the edges of his consciousness, processing along this corridor further into a maze the borders between which and reality and his own mind. He couldn't decipher.

He merely processed, in a world that was pleasure fed directly into his brain; meaning too, rightness, of his being apt for it. Of it feeding what he needed. This entire space, a necessary component of Old Works. The dream beneath it, of course - that it was even fulfilling being here.

A necessary component of his own talent to create this. But he was here, feeling the things required of the dream, being in the dream; being a dreamunit - even as he was really here. It was him, Pheel, a dreamunit who had, the only one, he supposed, who had retained his particular outside identity in the dream.

Really here, and therefore there shouldn't be any of this, his consciousness shouldn't respond in this oneiric manner, yet it was.

Art was gone, but the pleasure and the meaning were here, transmitted into him in drip-fed fashion; tugging him along, deeper into the thing that fed; pleasure, after pleasure, continued pleasure, feeding him, drinking him too, as he processed further in it.

There was nothing but this pleasure even as the pressure increased. And the pressure increased with every step; as he moved further towards the point past which the demons he felt gathering intimately inside his consciousness, no longer merely at its edge, would become visible - invoked by her, those demons. And then -

He felt the weight and indeed the pleasure increase of their gathering as he moved further along a trapezoid corridor underscored by that mist, and the colours beneath, into the dark.

Further into the dark, into the subterranean realm itself, beneath the earth, beneath himself, into himself, a space playing explicitly with who he was and his consciousness. Lulling, always lulling his sensibility further. It was that he go further; ever further in. This was the temptation; this was the reason why. Even - even this feeling that he was a sorcerer now and could, that he knew how, to despatch them. That he had this ability already despite no proof or evidence, in the manner in which one merely knew - no getting around a fact connected to the very nature of reality itself - he had this skill and he -

in the manner that one did in dreams,

he knew.

He was even dressed like Art, he saw now, combat armour, black breeches, head free, face. He had the sword on his back, despite the fact he was a sorcerer; hand forward ready to cast - not in connection to demons, not by means of summoning their power but by means of a ceremony, the demons told him, that had inserted him into the nature of being.

He progressed along a corridor only the pathway of his own obsessions, plunging further into/into/into/into/into/into/into/into/

in.

So far in fact at this point they were here. There was a moment before and after. No transition between. A moment when they were gathering, and a moment when they were already there.

The demons invoked out the Queen of Waat, and

the first -

Had him, Pheel leapt back before the echoing presence, sensed in terms of a reaction to being in a space, with – with that was it, with, but in what form and where – with, the thing that was already there.

Incorporating itself into being one increment at a time. In relation to him.

He saw nothing new but the corridor.

It was there. He had to go forward; this was what he was here for; and with every step forward the thing that already existed, existed more. - More so that he could sense it, but only in terms of his relationship to himself, and what his meant, and that this changed as the demon... became.

More of it and less of of him. More of it, more.

Nothing-love/desperation for non-existence filled him. Incrementally as the demon became. He was entering the mental illness zone of permanent defeat. He'd thought. It would be there. It was to be there. It would be there; his understanding its being in relation to – the knowledge he had in dreams. He'd disintegrate it; he'd reverse its very existence out of itself; it would no longer exist.

That thing invoked by the Queen of Waat, out of hell-absence, the space you got these things, that space she'd allowed into her soul, obviously, otherwise, how?

He'd face it; knowing how, by means of that knowledge imparted...

in dream.

But it was in him.

Ridding him of himself.

The corridor: himself.

The demon: himself.

The further he went the deeper inside: himself.

He'd rip his own guts out trying - anything. This was the nature of his own existence he was combatting. - Fist-fucking himself in complete panic at non-existence -

But when he'd finished going where he was going, the further and the deeper in, that mist, and the turquoise beneath replaced in direct proportion by that throbbing; direct proportion to the invasion, entering him, how could he fight – how could he combat – how could he - do - any of it -

Yet he went in.