I felt my sanity slip away as I stared into that deep purple nebula. The ebb and flow of those gases in space were too tantalizing to look away from. I knew they were light years away, but I felt as if those clouds were shifting in front of me. It had been hours of me using this telescope, my body was beginning to grow weak. I needed to set coffee—that way, I could return and monitor my new discovery for even longer.
I could tell I was sleep deprived when I first pulled my eye away from the lens. Shadows twisted around and my eyes strained under the light change. I believed I was hallucinating at this point, that strange purple mist from the nebula cloud filling the corners of my observatory. I dismissed them for now due to their fleeting beauty. I sat up from the telescope for what seemed like the first time in days. I stumbled towards a cupboard on my wall to take out some coffee and maybe some food.
As I got there though the shelf seemed oddly dusty, but I simply brushed that fact aside as I pulled down what I needed. As the coffee cooked I realized those purple hallucinations were not fading—they continued to ebb and flow through the two windows and solitary door. They twisted and swirled as they danced around the room. A momentary flash of light like a shooting star would form in the mist as it was at its closest to me.
When the pot finished, I brought it and a cup back to my telescope. As I sat down, an immense fear took me over and I feared I would lose my new discovery. I had not yet recorded the coordinates or how to find this nebula again. What meaning would be left in my singular life if I lost this enchanting sight? In my haste I knocked over a lamp which stood nearby—I didn’t care for it and went straight for the telescope lens.
As I peered through I once again witnessed its magnificence and splendor. I felt as if I could see even more details reflecting from those gases, and I studied every inch I could. I’m not sure how many hours again passed but I never grew tired of staring into that purple abyss. As time passed, though, I felt something had changed. I began to see an aberration in the gases.
The visible gases were all of a lighter shade and occasionally in dense spots it would become darker. In those fantastical waves, though, there was something physical, something casting shadows or causing pressure changes. I had no idea what it could be but I knew that further examination could only help the situation. So there I sat for another period of time, learning all I could from this distant prophet.
I regained consciousness against the hard wooden floor of the observatory; I must have passed out while enraptured by my work. I needed sleep; this work was slowly killing my body but something kept me going. I always felt as if I was on the edge of unraveling some great secret. I hadn’t even thought about reporting these findings yet to the local astronomers’ society. To be honest, I can’t remember leaving this single room since I found that nebula or how long ago that was. As I got up the thick purple gas clouds clung to the ceiling and floor. Where these images real or a result of the laborious and foolish concentration I had given the nebula?
All of this was so wrong. Something was driving me to wear myself down slowly with this work and I felt as if I couldn’t escape its influence. I needed fresh air, an escape from this isolated cell. I started heading to the door, but as I did, the purple mists pushed through the cracks in the door, soon overwhelming that part of the room in a hazy cloud. I knew where the door was though and stormed forward blindly, feeling for the knob.
I knew the door was only five feet ahead of me when I entered the massive gas cloud. I kept walking, expecting to feel a wall but never finding one. After walking thirty to fifty feet forward, I began to panic: What fresh hell had I discovered? In my fear I took a step back and tripped. I was hyperventilating now, but as I hit the ground I fell just outside of the cloud; I thought I had walked a much farther distance but it seems I never made it farther than a foot into the mist.
I crawled back away from this nefarious illusion, but as I did, the mist continued to only grow and take up more of the observatory. The walls began to disappear behind the haze, and one by one the room was being taken over and replaced by this unbreakable veil. Even by this point the telescope and final window were overtaken and I was left alone in the center of this miasma. I screamed as loud as I could for help and tried prying up the floorboards but there was no reply and I could no longer find a single seam for the boards beneath that purple haze.
I came to the conclusion that this must simply be a nightmare, that recent exhaustion due to scientific study had rendered me ill. I decided to lay down and force myself to sleep, possibly ending this hellish nightmare. Surprisingly, it was not difficult to sleep as my body had been weakened to an extreme level. As I drifted off, though, I felt the horrid mists only encapsulating me further.
In that dream, I saw many things which I had never conceived possible, let alone knew about. I saw grand cities that towered above the sky, vast labyrinthian cave systems under the city I resided in, and a nearly indiscernible sensation I could not shake from my mind that at its farthest I would attempt to describe as the gnashing of millions of teeth. I awoke, or at least felt my own body again, back in the isolation of the purple mists.
Voices began to pierce the veil though and whenever I heard one I could perfectly envision who was speaking to me. I saw doctors, politicians, soldiers, and even children as they spoke out from the infinite void. Thousands of voices overlapped nearly simultaneously in their message “You… You have seen… and now… You are seen”. I tried several more times to escape this prison, to run through the mists until I reach the other side, but I never found it. I always returned to the eye of the storm, without knowing what to do next.
Deep from that abyss I heard something growing louder, echoing as it got closer. It was the sound of trumpets blaring but deeply muffled, as if buried under a mile of dirt. It slowly rose in pitch and volume as these dreaded moments passed by. As it continues I see massive shadows cast upon the nearby gas encircling and surrounding me. The sound has now reached near-deafening levels—it was no longer like instruments blaring but now like sheets of metal grinding against each other.
I fall to the ground weeping as the noise is accompanied with thoughts of duress and dread mixed with images of those I knew in unspeakable conditions. I attempt to scream out with total abandon, but as I do, two things happen. Not only does the great deafening sound halt but my own scream makes no noise. I realize in this moment of hysterical loss I must scream but have no mouth. I sit there in silence, no longer able to weep, and something in the mist approaches.
As the shape comes closer to me it begins to take the outline of a person, even a familiar one at that. Something, I am not sure what, but something appearing as me emerges from those purple gases, the gases oddly continue to cling and twist at the creature’s limbs. As that creature’s eyes meet mine I can see they were only a deep paralyzing shade of purple, drawing me in as heavily as the nebula. I want to beg for what little release from this horror I could have, but I cannot make any noise.
I sit there, staring into the eyes of that creature for what seemed like eons. It made no motions but simply stared back at me in silence. I don’t know what happened but eventually the entire scene faded away. I find myself on my knees in front of the telescope, a purple glare of light reflecting from the lens. The mists have completely vanished from the observatory and the dust and wear on the room is also gone. Besides the telescope on the table sits a journal of mine; its last entry reads “Discovered a strange light source in the north eastern sky that seems to move rapidly across the sky. I will try to pinpoint the coordinates and see if I can find it on the telescope."
I can barely remember a time before I stared deeply into that abyss, but it still seems to be the same day as that entry. I left and conversed with people around the town. They told me how I was a local astronomer and called me a name I could not recognize. I returned to my home empty, as nearly a shell of whoever I had been. I had people knock on my door later that night, asking about my condition as reports had said I was raving in the streets earlier in the day about a “Great Abyssal One”—worse yet, I don’t remember when I left the house, or that I ever mentioned that name.
I don’t know if I have gone insane or if any of this is real, but I know the truth is there… in that lens. I am writing down this experience and leaving it with other individuals who can accurately know what is happening. I have to go back though… I have to look through that telescope…. Just one more time…. I have seen it… and it will always see me now.