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Suggested listening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqTe-MgIAsA

I was living on a campus. Large, tall school buildings, dorms. Squares of grass with trees, long hallways. A math club is holding a competition outside, in the shade of one of the buildings. Solve the equations, get prizes! A surprisingly large crowd is drawn. Lot of people having fun. The contest ends- I win the day and the largest prize. My very own large room in the dorms, to myself. A worthy prize.

A group of chinese young men appear. They easily solve all the equations idly, getting everyone's attention. They ask to present their OWN equation for people to solve. The host is uncomfortable and tells them no, it's over, sorry. They are upset, and become creepy in a malevolent way. Staring, silently, as a group. Everyone begins to leave. I stay behind. I'm cocksure and full of myself for winning. I ask if I can give a shot at their equation. They share knowing smiles with each other.

They draw a bizzare, insane graph. Looping circles. It's art, more than it is lines. It's a representation of something. Something I'm not meant to understand. Just staring at the thing feels like I'm losing myself. I can't understand it. I'm not meant to. I don't want to lose- I say a random, bizzare, complicated equation- hoping to call their bluff and make them think I actually figured it out.

I'm wrong. There IS an equation. They know it. And I lose.

Their faces melt away into pure shadow with beady eyes of light. They are staring. Face shapes with eyes. No mouths. No ears. Nothing save for those beady glowing eyes. I pull myself away, going to run- but the whole world matches them now. Everything, everything is dark shadows and glowing light, seen through a grey, dim lens. I can't see myself. Small, complicated shapes no longer exist- the ground is just a plane of white; humans are gone. Trees are wretched forms of shadows, flickering, twisted things reaching to the sky. I whirl around- the men are gone. I am alone. There is no one here.

I stumble through the world, unsure of where I'm going. Space and time are stretched out here. Doors right next to each other have become stretched out with long hallways between them. I have the room I won in my head- a place to go to. My memories feel grey and fading. I feel thin and empty. I try to hold onto myself. The world shifts suddenly- light flashing, shadows growing. Dark sounds. Distant, deep drums. The sound of quiet moaning as if from a deep chasm. Is it me? Am I making that noise, or is something else doing that? I close my eyes, screaming.

The shift ends, but I am disquieted. I find the room- and I almost cry when I see that it is an empty square. No desks. No bookshelves. No books. However, there IS.. a bed. Thank god for small comforts. I curl up on it.

There is a window, but it's more like an open hole in this world. It's raining. The rain drops fall slow. Drops of light and shadow. Slivers, really. Fading as I watch them. I open my hand and try to catch one- a drop of light in my hand. But my hands are invisible, and I do not exist- it falls through where I imagine my hand to be. I spend hours outside in the slow-falling rain. It passes through me. It burns- but I don't care.

Time passes without me.

People say the dorm room I won is haunted after my mysterious dissapearance. Reports of things moving. Cold all the time. The sound of water coming from it, for brief instances. When people step inside they feel strange.

I don't explore too much. The world is too similiar to everything else. I could get lost very easily, I know this. I stay where it is familiar. Where I am safe. I do not need to eat. I do not need to sleep. I try- closing my eyes, in this world, acts similiar. The shifts frighten me, threaten me- but they never hurt me. Several times they occur when I am outside- and when they stop, I find that I am not where I was when they began. Sometime time and space bend; I am where I was going, or I am where I began. Or rarely, I am somewhere I have never been before, and shadows lurk around me.

I wonder how many others like me there could be here, trapped. Invisible. Unable to effect the world. Unable to live; unable to die. Alone.

A very long time I wait. It is a very, very long time. Eons. Unchanging. I sleep. The shifts awaken me, but this time-warped life eventually becomes unchanging itself.

The whispers become louder one eon. The shifts begin to occur more frequently. And most frighteningly of all, one shift puts me under the ground, in a grave. I am able to climb out through the dirt, passing through like a ghost, terrified that I am going the wrong way, pressing myself deeper into the earth. I find the surface at what seems hours, in darkness. A flat yard of light. I only vaguely recognize it.

It has been a long time since I have had to exist. I am almost nothing. But I walk- I float- mouthless, eyeless, without heart. I find the dorms again as it begins to rain. It is raining fast now. Normally. I stare up at the sky and blink. Something is changing. SOmething is coming.

I spend my eons awake now, watching, waiting. I am right. Shadows of men. Faceless, with eyes of light. They are coming again. Preying. I crawl down from the dorm, out of sight. They are watching something I cannot see. A shift. The biggest shift I have ever been through. The world inverts, turns upside down. Reality itself is inverting. Things that should not be are dissapearing. And from nothing, everything.

I am real again. I have flesh. I am exactly as I was. I am alone in the courtyard. The chinese men are walking away- they have not seen me. There is a sign on the courtyard wall for a math contest later tonight. Hours. I have hours after eons. I just sit and breath for a while. Air in my lungs. Blood in my veins. Real arms. Real. I slowly walk to the cafeteria. Food. No one notices me. No one stops me. I am like a living ghost. Seen but unnoticed. I don't care. Food in my belly. Cold water. An hour, gone.

I walk back to my room. It is locked. Abandoned. I steal the keys to open it- it is dirty, filthy. Dusty. I clean it. The sheets are changed. The dust removed. The floor and walls wiped. An hour, gone. But my room is good again. My room is good. My home. I need to fill it. Books, or.. something. I leave.

People notice this. They stare as I leave home, look inside. I don't care. It's getting close to time. There are people starting to gather in the yard for the contest. I walk there, wait there. A girl makes small talk with me. She says she hasn't seen me around before, asks my name. I no longer know it. I look familiar, her friend says. My eyes are very beautiful and haunting, they think. Like light.

The contest begins. It is all happening again. There is a winner- the girl I was speaking to. Again, the men approach. They don't see me, or they don't recognize me, or they don't care. I don't. I am cold and growing warm. They ask to present their own challenge. The host says yes. I am startled. Yes? I am forced to think. They begin to draw a large graph. Everyone stares, entranced. There is a box for submitting answers. I am frightened, backing away. The girl notices this. Begins to sense something is wrong. She asks if I'm okay. Sees my staring at them and the equation. They see me. They see me. THEY SEE ME. THEY SEE ME. THEY SEE ME. THEY SEE ME. THEY SEE ME.

Everyone is going to be wrong. The world is going to shift. Everything. Everyone. They are grinning. Grinning. Their faces are melting. Everyone is screaming. Their screams are shifting. Turning to hollow moans. Distant, from deep chasms. The girl and her friend are grabbing each other. I grab her as well.

The shift ends. I am nothing again. So are they... but I can feel them. I am holding onto them. I can touch them like I can touch myself. I hold onto them, touching them, they are touching me back, frightened. I think they know it's me. I can't be sure. But they are not running away terrified. I gently guide them. We are moving. The whole crowd must be with us now. Invisible, each alone, or with whomever they were touchin, but unable to see them.

What would happen if we had let go and run? Would we ever find each other again? Or simply be alone, knowing somewhere out there was the only companion we could have had? They couldn't know what was to come. They couldn't know. Couldn't. They'd run.. they'd hide. They'd let go. They'd never find them again.

I guide them to the room. Shapes of light and dark. A bed. I sit them down on it. They are touching my face. Probably each other faces. Trying to make sure it's us. We touch heads. Comforting each other. Holding each other. They shudder. I feel they are crying. I feel for them. But most of all, I am happy.

I am not alone. And they will not be, either. We cannot speak.. cannot see. There will be challenges.. they have never undergone a shift. It is certain in time we will be seperated by them. Time and space bending us apart. But they understand. This room is home. We can strive to find it, always. We can touch each other. There is comfort, pleasure to be had from that.

As the distant hollow chasms begin to moan, they cuddle close with me. Warmth. It begins to rain. My invisible, mouthless face smiles. I am happy.

We are not alone. We are Home.