Wave.
By Nikraria
She looked at me.
My watch still ticks, but I no longer believe in hours. My hand is writing this, but I am not telling it what to say. Somewhere below, the child in the yellow coat is laughing. The mushroom is still in my pocket—or rather, my pocket is now a mushroom. The distinction no longer matters. Delirium -Nikraria-
When a mirror looks at you, you do not see yourself. You see every self you have ever failed to become.
I am writing this from a room at the end of a pier in the city of Nikraria, where the sea smells of rust and old prayers. Three days ago, I was a cartographer. Now, I am a cartographer of the inside of my own skull.
If you come to Nikraria, do not look for the catacombs. Do not ask for the map. When the white fog rolls in, do not breathe. My hand is writing this, but I am not telling it what to say
And then, in the hollow silence, something new grows.
“You have the Delirium,” he said.
The first thing you lose is the clock. Not your watch—that still ticks, a tiny brass heart against your wrist. No, you lose the sense of it. The difference between a minute and an hour dissolves like a sugar cube in hot tea. The distinction no longer matters
That was Day One of Delirium. By Day Three, the walls of Nikraria began to breathe. Not metaphorically. I pressed my palm to the plaster, and I felt a slow, wet inhalation. The city, I realized, was a single organism. The canals were its veins. The bell towers were its teeth. The people? We were just fleas dancing on a hot skillet.
The true delirium arrived at midnight, riding the fourth chime of the Drowned Bell.
A child in a yellow coat handed me a mushroom growing from a brick. “Eat it,” she said. “It remembers the before-time.” I put it in my pocket. Later, I found the pocket sewn shut. I had never owned a needle.