“One day you’ll wake up and find yourself hanging over the abyss,” the man at the streetlight told me.

He held a sign:

GIVE ME A BUCK OR THEY WILL COME FOR YOU.

​

I assumed it was some performance. Desperation in search of a gimmick. I walked past him.

​

And I forgot.

​

Until now.

​

I woke in bed. Restless. The room was still. I checked my phone. 3:00 A.M. Of course.

​

I swung my legs over the side—

​

But there was no floor.

​

At first I thought I hadn’t leaned far enough. I eased forward. Still nothing.

No resistance. No surface.

Just open space.

​

I froze. Reason slipped away. Dreaming? Sleep paralysis? Madness?

​

I turned on my phone’s flashlight. The beam disappeared into nothing.

No shadows—nothing.

​

I turned the light toward myself. It burned my eyes. The light worked. But the world around me didn’t.

​

No walls.

No ceiling.

No ground.

​

Only void.

​

Panic bloomed. My chest tightened. I could hear my heartbeat, loud and rapid, pulsing in my ears.

​

Was this the curse he mentioned?

Had I ignored a warning?

​

Sweat gathered on my brow and ran down my face. My hands trembled.

​

And then I felt motion.

A slow, sinking rotation.

The bed was moving—no; I was moving—drawn downward through something I couldn’t perceive, like spiraling into a drain in an ocean with no bottom.

​

Below me, subtle shades of black churned in impossible patterns.

​

I could feel my existence collapsing.

​

“To the abyss of your own making,” a voice said from nowhere.

​

I flinched. “Who’s there?”

​

“The time to open your eyes has passed,” it said. “The time to reclaim your humanity is gone.”

​

I knew that voice.

The man on the street.

​

“If this is about the dollar—I can make it right. I can give more. I didn’t know.”

​

A laugh filled the abyss.

​

“You were offered,” the voice said. “You turned away. And now the void takes what remains.”

​

A weight settled on the bed beside me.

​

A presence.

​

The hands of the void were upon me.

​

There was no scream. No struggle. Only understanding.

​

I was never alone.

And I was never exempt.

​

The void doesn’t punish. It corrects.