oneiromancy
Living along the coast, I am reticent to use 'the shore' since that term always seems inextricably applied to the state of New Jersey, I felt happier then again I wasn't myself. When I caught my reflection in a darkened storefront window I was shorter, clean-shaven with graying hair making me wonder if my closet was full of fifty versions of the outfit I was wearing on the boardwalk in the vain hope some vestige of my waking life self still persisted here.

Across the water, I don't know the direction, there was a tall island rising out of the surf which was studiously ignored by everyone. Atop the mesa were some tall buildings but overall it appeared to be overgrown as if abandoned for more than a century. The ocean was growing rough between the beach and the distant cliffs raising a haze scattering light and obscuring the enigma from plain sight. Did my attention arouse this self-defense mechanism?

Curiousity hounded me until I finally broke and hired a helicopter to cross the strait and explore that distant land. My pilot thought I was crazy asking to be flown to a point over open water but I insisted there was dry land at that point on the map. She demanded that I pay in advance before helping me begin my journey. Below us the waters still raged, whitecaps crashing against each other raising mist high in the air. Halfway across a wind began blowing towards the mainland. When the pilot began suggesting that we turn back I told her she's been paid in advance and is ethically bound to continue the job.

She shouted when a dark shadow came into view and solidified into the distant cliff face that I had been observing for quite some time. The craft pulled a tight turn then began to rise to the top of the island. Once I regained my composure I gave her an I told you so look. After searching for half an hour we landed upon an abandoned parking lot of terra incognita.

Fog wreathed the buildinsg and choked what remained of the streets. Dark, blunt office buildings rose into the washed out sky where the sun was simply a light source than a discernable disk. After some wandering I stumbled upon an area which wasn't completely overgrown and appeared to have been recently used or inhabited by someone. That's where I began to see the game.

A series of eight cubes appeared over a plaza. One was colored pale orange while the remainder were a watery gray like the omnipresent gloom. Each set of cubes was arranged in various shapes like an L or a square or an E among others. They fell from the sky and by thinking I was able to arrange the shapes so none of the orange squares were tangential to each other. The more I manipulated the shapes by thought the more I understood what was going on as if solving the game was language unto itself.

This city had once been part of the mainland. Populated by chromatophobes who went unseen in their ghost world atop the real world known to me and my fellow citizens. Eventually people like me became unbearable to these unseen folks and they sundered their world from our own but portions still touched our world acting as a bridge between our realms. Since I was from the world of color I swiftly lost the game since I didn't know there were subtle gradations of the gray which were as obvious to chromatophobes as red and green are to the mean of humanity.

Already the gloom was turning to murk alarming me because my sole means of escape may have already left me behind for their own sanity and safety. I tried to retrace my steps only to be distracted by bright colors. In a distant storefront window there was an OPEN sign in the window, electric blue letters surrounded by a vivid orange border. Squinting my eyes to reduce the contrast of the sign and the rest of this shadow world I could see silhouettes of people going about their business.

I ran for the helicopter finding it empty. The pilot didn't leave a note and the engines were off.

Now I was surrounded by the chromatophobes. They milled like cinematic zombies around myself and the vehicle. Within moments they were upon me, my throat was cut and my body was stuffed into the pilot's seat. I watched gagging in horror as the dim outlines of windows and buildings bounced up and down when these ghosts hoisted the helicopter over their shoulders. Eventually the bleeding stopped but my consciousness persisted despite the onset of death which meant I had no fear as the copter crashed in the water and licked the window.

I didn't sink. Currents drew myself and the vehicle down the waterways of the colored world where I watched the lights drown out the stars and swifly pass overhead with significantly more parallax than true stars.

Later I awoke, rolled over and went back to sleep. The chromatophobes had been victorious and condemned wholesome mankind to live in exceedingly tiny spaces no greater than ten yards lest they suffer the wrath of the cube game. I was among four humans living on a distant brown asteroid. We could walk on the surface despite the phyical effects of vacuum but were still susceptible to the bitter cold of three degrees kelvin and lack of oxygen. We'd clamber up our escape hatches and dash across the dusty surface towards clear tubes which led to the stores that sustained our dwindling population.