Tom Matheson never believed in conspiracy theories.
But after the layoffs, after Dana stopped returning his calls, after the noise of the world grew too loud, his life dissolved into a numbing routine of late nights and endless scrolling through anonymous forums where digital prophets raved about lizard monarchs and chemicals that feminised male frogs.
He hadn’t left the apartment in days. Takeaway boxes filled the table. His phone buzzed with notifications from apps he didn’t remember installing.
The world didn’t make sense anymore, and part of him didn’t want it to. He wanted to be the one who uncovered an ugly truth.
It all started with a hyperlink and a single comment posted by Luciana Vasiliev. If you click this, it’s already too late.
The link led to a corrupted archive full of missing thumbnails and blinking errors. After refreshing the page, the screen stuttered. It loaded a webpage that didn’t feel like it belonged to the internet.
The header pulsed: Catechism of the Unseen.
Beneath it, a spinning symbol of a snake swallowing its tail.
His hand trembled over the mouse as he leaned closer to the screen.
The site loaded blueprints of cities upon cities, buildings with names attached. Tom scrolled, his eyes darting between the bizarre blueprints.
None of the structures made logical sense. Spirals within spirals. Corridors with no beginnings or ends. Buildings shaped like ligaments and teeth.
And there it was.
His neighbourhood, mapped out in detail. As he zoomed in, his heart stopped.
Tom Matheson.
His apartment.
Intimate details about his life.
He stared at the screen, unable to look away.
The tab lacked a favicon, and the URL bar was empty. The back button greyed out and became unclickable.
“How is this possible?”
His finger hovered over the mouse. He clicked on his apartment name, desperate for some explanation.
His mind raced. Could it be? The government. Has to be. Oh, this is big. But what if I’m losing my mind?
The display flickered, and a loading icon spun.
A new page opened.
At the top, in stark white letters, it read: Sending Entity.
A grainy photo appeared on the screen. A tall, pale man in a black coat and wide-brimmed hat stood in his living room.
He turned around. Empty.
He looked back at the screen.
The photo changed.
The man stood closer. A smoky static shimmered around his shoulders.
Another photo blinked in.
He turned around.
Still alone.
The air now reeked of burning plastic.
He looked back at the screen.
The man stood closer. His head bent at an unnatural angle as if sniffing the back of Tom’s neck.
The power cut and plunged the room into darkness.
A crackle began. Quiet like static on a broken radio. The sound twisted as the air tore apart.
A voice came from everywhere, filling the space. It was neither male nor female. It was something that lived beyond the boundaries of gender or form.
“Do not panic. You are safe. We are repositioning you.”
The walls peeled upward. What lay beneath was not wiring or insulation but a burning gold sky. Dark towers below swam like eels through its clouds.
As the room stretched and warped, gravity flipped twice. He felt his body split into two, then three, each version screaming at a different pitch.
“Be calm.”
His stomach churned as he spiralled downward through an ever-shifting void.
With a sudden jolt, he stopped.
The landscape stretched before him. Monolithic structures rose from the dirt, jagged and bent, like the skeletons of ancient beasts.
The entity stood before him. The figure blurred as if his eyes couldn’t decide what to look at. “We are here.”
“Where?” Tom fell to his knees.
“Reality.”
Tom’s mind reeled. Reality?
“There is a thread running through all existence, and you believed it was yours, that the reality you inhabited was real.”
“It is real. How can it not be real?”
“What is real to you? And who are you in the first place? The act of asking the question creates the illusion of separation, the illusion that you, this body, this mind, are somehow separate from the vastness around you. But reality doesn’t operate that way. It never has. The truth is, it never was real. Not the way you thought. You aren’t the dreamer. You are part of the dream.”
Tom stood, and the ground clung to his feet like thick tar.
“Imagine your reality as a sheet of paper. You see it as a whole, solid, unchanging. That’s one side. Flip it, and something else waits beneath. The world you trusted, the one you thought was real, was never separate from you. It was only a shape, a brief ripple in a larger sea of consciousness.”
Tom staggered back.
“Your destiny is to see it, to unravel the thread. This is not a punishment. It’s a rare gift. Only through this realization can you understand the whole. The one who wove this world sought to show you, to unmake the lie of your existence.”
The entity’s words flowed like a current, drawing Tom deeper into its grip.
“The universe, if you will,” it continued, “is not a thing that exists outside of you. No, it is you. It is all one, interconnected, a great dance of interwoven forces. You are not outside of this place, peering in. You are within it.”
“No,” Tom said, shaking his head. “That’s not... You’re wrong. I lived that life. I remember every moment. The sound of rain on my street. Dana’s kiss. You can’t tell me none of that was real. You can’t erase that.”
The entity tilted its head. “Reality doesn’t erase. It folds, is rewoven, and misunderstood.”
“My life. My memories are all real. My apartment, my job, my friends, they’re real. I felt them. Saw them. Touched them. You can’t tell me it’s all a lie.”
“Yes, you lived it. But your memories, your experiences, these are not separate from you. They are part of the dream you inhabit. You misunderstand the nature of truth. Reality is a game of illusion. An interplay of consciousness that plays with itself.”
Tom’s chest tightened. “Why me?”
The entity leaned closer. “The one who weaves the pattern gives you the gift of seeing through the veil. There is no truth in the way you thought. There is only the flow, the play of energy, of experience. The thread is neither good nor bad, neither true nor false. It simply is.”
“No—” Tom’s voice broke.
“Yes, I know. It’s a hard pill to swallow. You must understand, the mind is not the master here. The mind only shapes what is present, twisting it into understandable forms. But that understanding is limited. It’s like trying to describe the ocean with a drop of water.”
It paused, allowing Tom the space to breathe. “That which unravels also weaves. This is the paradox of becoming. It is the very essence of everything. As it unravels, as you fall into the vastness of what you call nothing, you are not losing yourself. You are returning to the whole. You are remembering who you are.”
Tom clenched his fists, trying to block the voice from his mind. “No, this isn’t real. It can’t be. I don’t want to know this. I want my life back. You can’t make me disappear.’
“No,” the entity said, “What doesn’t exist can’t disappear.”
Tom wanted to fight. To scream.
The light touched him, and something deep inside sighed in recognition.
“You are the same as everything you’ve ever known. The faces, the places, the moments, they were never separate from you. You were always part of it, and now you are returning. It is a return, not an end. The unravelling is the beginning.”
“So… this… this was all… a dream?”
“Yes, yes, but don’t fool yourself. What is a dream but a thread? And what is the waking world but another dream? The question isn’t whether it’s real. The question is: can you let go of the need to define it?”
The air around him shimmered and cracked.
The entity stepped forward. Its fingers elongated, thin as antennae, silvery-black and jointless, unravelling from its palms.
They reached for Tom.
One slid into his mouth. Another coiled through his nostril. A third threaded under his eyelid.
His limbs jerked as the wires raised him from the ground.
Its voice remained calm as it echoed in the vast silence. “Do not panic. You are safe. They are unstitching you from the thread.”
And then, all was still.
On a forgotten forum thread, under a post with no upvotes, a new comment appeared beneath the name Tom Matheson: If you click this, it’s already too late.
Bio:
Steven Bruce is a multiple award-winning author. His poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous international anthologies and magazines. In 2018, he graduated from Teesside University with a Master of Arts in Creative Writing. His work often explores themes of trauma and resilience. Born in England, Steven now resides and writes full-time in Poland.