With one final struggle, I climb up the cliffside. A sigh of relief escapes me before I turn back to face the horizon below. Dark purple clouds drift in every direction imaginable. I am proud that I’d managed the climb, especially with all those tentacles grabbing at me.

Turning around, I come face to face with my destination: an archway-like structure of jagged edges that shifts with every one of my eye movements. The stairs that make up the base materialize and dematerialize with every blink of my eyes. Pulsating tendril floors form as I begin moving forward. I turn back to face the cliff out of curiosity, only for my eyes to once again face the archway. 

There is no cliffside anymore. The inherent wrongness of the shifting realities before me makes what is left of my inner animal freak.

They are waiting for me. They know I have come this far and have rolled out the welcoming carpet. But I have not spent the equivalent of eons training in the dreamlands just to give in to old instinct and turn tail. They have something of mine.

Beyond the archway, I can see a whole other world. Curiously, I peeked behind the structure, but there is nothing but a void. The entryway—some kind of stable slip gate by the looks of it—called to me. 

I step through the gateway. In a blink of white light, I appear in a vast expanse of red stone and endlessly tall spires. Above me exists only a green void that stretches into forever. Even the spires have no end in sight, vanishing into fine points up above.

With a deep sigh of defeat, I decide to move ahead. They were really making sure this was as uncomfortable as possible.

Eons pass by as I move ahead. I can tell because every once in a while, the ground changes right under my feet. I see simple life growing, becoming complex and sentient. They begin to move around me as blurs, ignorant of my presence. But every once in awhile, one of the entities notices me. They lose track of all things around them and quickly get left behind by their peers. At that point, they do nothing but follow me like baby ducks, all the while withering and wasting until they turn to dust. 

Hundreds of thousands join me over the course of my travels, but their numbers gradually dwindle as they advance beyond their mortality. Eventually, they become one with the cosmos and become elder beings themselves.

After untold eons, I reach a new structure. It is as ancient as I am in this realm. The curvy hallways and slick stairs lead me up, down, sideways, and through pockets of reality where my body ceases being third dimensional altogether. At one point, I cease to exist physically, only to return younger. The centuries-long walk down the hallway does provide time enough to age back to my original state, but it is an experience I do not wish to repeat anytime soon.

At last, I reach them. Upon a throne of liquid-solid they sit, in a form that my unevolved self would have once found comforting. They had a smile on their thousands of lips, shrouded by a cloak of pure cosmic miasma. A million and one arms lay folded beside them, waiting for me. They know why I am here.

The first pause in eons. I stretch out a hand and point at them. With lips I had not used for untold lifetimes, I speak to them. 

“Did you take my sandwich?”

They laugh with their thousand mouths, their form shifting in and out of reality. Their speaking would have been lost on the ears of mere mortals, but translated, they reply: “Was it yours? I could have sworn I made it several universes ago. You sure you aren’t mistaken?”

I another step forward. “Give it back, or I swear I will trap you in the center of a black hole for the duration of two and a half universes!”

With a sigh, they give me back the sandwich. “Take it,” they say. “Root of T’char isn’t my favorite flavor anyway.” 

I snort at the lie and take a bite of the sandwich, chewing it nice and slowly. It only takes me four chews to realize the horrible truth: 

The sandwich is not mine.

The revelation drives me into madness. Pure, unfathomable madness. Man was not meant for such flavor.