Sparkle in the Sky

In the year 19xx, I visited Ali Abbas's apartment on Third Street, Manhattan, New York. He was a colleague of mine from the university. His passion for the mystical journey of the Assyrian Orka and the expeditions of Batutah was the main reason I sought him out.
His apartment wasn't large. It was modest-rather cramped, really-with golden skins hanging from a ceiling said to be made of red stars.
Don't ask me for further detail, for I had never truly seen it, and he never cared to explain. When I once inquired, he dodged the question.
Around one in the afternoon, after hours spent discussing and analyzing the symbols from Orka's mystical voyage, I tried steering our conversation back to those stars. I wasn't satisfied with mere speculation; I needed to know. I had to be brave enough to ask:
"If those stars bring you joy, they must mean something, right? Are they... preparing something?"
Ali paused his typing and allowed himself a faint smile. Then he looked up, met my eyes, and replied with a cryptic sentence I couldn't grasp:
"You've seen what lies behind meaning-you've seen it, clear as day, but you've never understood what it is."

By two o'clock, we agreed to take a short break. I took off my coat, leaned back in my chair, and stared at the golden skins hanging overhead. They shimmered as the light from the window played on them. When the breeze stirred them, they spun and danced-until, without warning, I was drawn into a waking dream.
I floated-no, I soared-through the blackness of space.
No, don't assume I had taken opium or morphine; I abhor those substances!
In that moment-whether imagined or truly felt-I touched the stars above, and they burst like bubbles.
I moved my arms and legs like a frog, shifting from point to point, my nerves crackling with strange sensations. I saw metal ornaments floating, sea mammals swimming through clouds of crimson dust like tidal waves. They shimmered near Aldebaran, distant and immense.
If only the interregnum storms had been within reach, I might have touched and shattered them like glass.
I didn't stay long. I don't know whether the edges of this place were broken or whole. A flash of light-about 20 light-years away-stunned me.
Its beauty outshone any painter's palette. My heart trembled. I shivered.
Then I heard it-the second minute:
A sound like thunder crashing directly above me, though it was far away. My skin crawled with unease. My eyes widened in unspeakable pain.
"My God! My God! Help me!" I cried. "I see it! I see it! Forgive me!"
But the madness had already crept in. It drew closer-closer than anything ever should.
"The Void-both of them saw me!" I sobbed, pain eclipsing sorrow.
But I was lucky.
Had Ali not quickly chanted his spells and pulled me back into my body,
-I would never have escaped that horrific place.
When I awoke, I was soaked through. My eyes were bloodshot. My limbs heavy with exhaustion.
Ali, realizing he had rescued me, stood and placed his book on the table. He looked at me as though I'd reached some final threshold-drained and broken, able only to move my lips and utter faint sounds.
He examined what he believed might be damaged: my lips, eyes, nose, the joints in my arms and legs, even the inside of my mouth.
And then, gathering what little strength I had left, I asked,
"How many others?" struggling to catch my breath.
Ali replied with a regretful tone:
"Roughly six... You're the seventh."
He pulled up a chair and sat beside me.
"That's why," he added, "I never answered all your questions about the stars-except for the last one. I meant to say: don't ask anymore. I thought I made that clear enough."
The golden skins were no longer in sight. I didn't dare look for them-I was too afraid.
"What did you see?" Ali asked, still examining my arms.
"I don't know," I whispered, shuddering at the memory of the dim blackness and formless insanity.
I glanced at his face-understanding, yes-but he caught my gaze and explained while massaging below my joints:
"It-the Crawling One-no one knows what it is, except those who do. And even they don't really know.
It has no name.
Some have tried giving it names and titles, but it remains nameless.
An entity we should never encounter-not even in dreams-except perhaps the face of a strange man."
He paused, and then continued with a weary smile:
"I've tried to banish it from my mind, but it lives-crawls-within me. These golden skins are proof. I hang them on the ceiling like ornaments... that was my greatest mistake.
And I don't know why it chose Irits, Boligya, Miss Derthi, Mr. Ponfie, Josephine, Guillermo... and now you, Louis."
A strange feeling overtook me.
I didn't know any of those people, yet their faces suddenly flashed before me as he said their names.
After that moment passed, Ali urged me to rest. I nodded, and he helped me to lie down in his bedroom.
"What if I dream of that chaos again?" I asked weakly.
"You won't," he said. "It never comes twice."

Then he left the room, the door slightly ajar.

But the moment I closed my eyes,
-the thunder returned.

I lost control.

My heart pounded.

And as the visions of stars, cosmos, and unnatural matter reappeared, dancing and churning in my head,
I knew-

It had come for me again.

[The body of Richard Louis was found in the pigpen behind Hugo Krauser's farm.]