[ONEIROS]

… During his millennial slumber, the Firstborn began to dream. He saw a new world, free of all taint. A still, white ocean surrounding a barren land, swept clean of civilization. Around his bed, a small group of starving children silently played with rocks and pebbles. Naked and blind, they would tirelessly re-enact the same scenes, over and over. Every time the Firstborn wished to speak, they would turn their faces to him and speak in his stead with one voice. Their features were bland and expressionless. They were him, the different aspects of his personality, his fragmented identity…

 

… When men awoke the Firstborn, his dreams perpetuated instead of dissipating. Everywhere he looked, the scenes from his dream contaminated reality, reshaping it according to his vision. For forty days and forty nights, the eyes of the Firstborn remained open. The skies were swarming with myriads of metal insects spreading the echoes of his dream. Slowly but surely, the dream epidemic was infecting the world around the Firstborn, altering its structure. The fabric of reality, twisted by the unique vision heralded by his locusts of steel, was woven into new forms.
The world fell into the grip of eternal winter, the stars died and their corpses were buried under thick ashen clouds. Thus night befell the Earth. Around the Firstborn, men silently fell, stricken by his blinding grace. The anointed soul had poisoned the ocean and irradiated the skies. Ancient cities were destroyed one by one. Carnivorous winds scoured the earth, chasing the last refugees.
Only those who had joined the catatonic herd, gathered under the earth by the Grey Walker were spared. They were four times four thousand. Thus retired from the world, hiding in the bowels of the subterranean metropolis, they fell asleep, never to wake again…

 

… Beneath the toxic clouds, the Firstborn closed his eyes, putting an end to his schizophrenic dissociation. He had become the world itself and his great dream had devoured reality.
The children of the Blank Day, who were part of the original dream, were born from the polluted womb of the last women. They all wore the mark of the Firstborn, for they were his reflections, the smothered echoes of his individuality. Naked and blind, they populated the ruins of the ancient cities. Plagued by anemia, they grew weaker with each generation. Poisoned by radiations, infected with the pathological glory of the messiah, they forgot who they were. They lived in ignorance and remained prostrated where they fell, as if awaiting death.
Like their forefather they began to dream, spawning their own identical offspring. Thus they grew and multiplied like cancerous cells, and the identity of the Firstborn was shared among them. They only existed through their collective dream, the fragmented vision of the Firstborn. Little by little, they spread to the subterranean regions, and scattered unchecked about the lethargic metropolis. There they learned to serve the great herd of the sleepers…

 

Translation : Matthieu de la Goule