"Welcome to the midnight, it's time"

~dsilverz

~ Bartender, get us the most surreal drink you can possibly have. It's time.

It's night. I have no wristwatch nor clocks around, but I guess it's 11pm, somehow I feel it. I'm walking indefinitely through this place. How could I describe this place? It's not exactly a city, but it's urban... There's no one around. There are things scattered on the ground. The only light is the dim moonlight, but I can see many different things, things that are broken and thrown out, such as soda cans, discarded wrappings, broken electronics and metal parts. A pollution signaling previous humane activity.

I'm not sure if this is real, because semi-abandoned buildings keep popping in and out of existence as I look around. I can't enter them, because their doorways and windows disappear as soon as I approach, and if I turn back and forth again, it vanishes right behind me, as if I hallucinated them.

There's this dark fog, not so far away from me, limiting what I can see, maybe it's something to do with this phenomenon, so things can surreptitiously pop in and out of existence, right in front of my eyes, in a more natural way, seemingly not violating the rules of physics.

It's not exactly silence. I hear a humming sound, like a loud noise from power line transformers. Sometimes I hear a subtle sound of wind gusts, but I'm not feeling it. It's mildly cold, not so chilly cold, but yeah, it's fresh, I can walk for dozens of miles without sweating or breathing heavily. I've been walking for so long I forgot how much I walked. I forgot when and where I started walking, seems like I've been walking since I popped up into existence. I don't remember the daylight either. Perpetual night, although it's now 11pm, precisely 11:33pm, I feel strangely sure of it. Indeed, thinking about it, the precision gets deeper, suddenly I feel like it's 11:33:33.333pm at GMT-3, as if the time was perpetually frozen at this very specific moment.

Wait. I'm hearing people. I'm hearing clapping and cheering somewhere not so far away from here. The shape of the sound, whatever this means, suggests some kind of arena, circus ring or theater with an open ceiling. Actually, it sounds like a really, really big crowd, maybe thousands or millions of people, all gathered together for some kind of... spectacle?

As I try to approach, I can see the place popping into existence around me, as if I already were inside it, and now I'm standing on this enormous grandstand with comfy black velvet armchairs, and I see the stage, an open-air stage, enormous and circular with a black and scarlet velvet carpet, and... Wow, I can hear a deafening cheering crowd around me, but I see no one, like if they were ghosts. A ghostly loud crowd with millions of invisible people.

I can see someone, standing in the center of the stage down there. Seems like a man but feels beyond human. He's the only one I can see. He's slim and tall, wearing this formal attire, black and red suit and tie, a velvet black cape, a black fedora hat, golden Venetian mask, and he's holding a shiny golden scepter with black leather gloves. He seems to be patiently waiting to speak. As he slowly wanders around the stage back and forth, he's often staring in my direction, as if he's looking directly at me, and every time he does this, I feel strangely lightheaded as if I'm going to faint.

Also... Remember that humming sound I talked about earlier? Yeah, it's louder now. It suddenly became the loudest sound I can hear, only competing with the cheering from the crowd. The invisible crowd seems even more excited about this show, as the cheering and whistling and clapping got even louder and crazier.

The stage man stopped walking and raised his scepter. And all of a sudden, the humming and the crowd both became quiet, absolute silence. These seconds of silence seem macabre, yet comfy... I can feel like he's going to speak.

"Ladies and gentlemen, EVERYBODY", he shouted. His voice is extremely low-pitched, loud and deep, like a million thunder, I feel the rumbling and the vibration reaching me and punching me from everywhere as he speaks.

"This night, IT'S THIS NIGHT!", and his speech, overflowed with an eerie enthusiasm, was followed by a couple of seconds of cheering from the invisible crowd again.

"EVERYTHING will NEVER be the same after THIS NIGHT, for THIS NIGHT is the night WE WILL FINALLY BE!" and a word I couldn't understand, due to both a fast-paced speech as well as another interruption from the crowd going crazy again.

"SO... let's get commenced", and he started walking towards the velvet scarlet curtains from a backstage which just popped into existence right behind his figure. His cape powerfully waves like a flag as he walks.

Then, he vanished behind the curtains. The dark fog got immediately thicker and things began to vanish. Out of nowhere, the stage vanished, and the entire auditorium vanished right around me. The moon vanished, the sky became the darkest otherworldly veil ever, yet it seems like there's a really faint shine coming from somewhere... somehow, it's a faint dark shine inside matter itself, as if coming from... atomic nuclei, I guess? It's so strange to explain.

I'm standing on this invisible ground... Okay, I know there's a ground because I can feel it under me, and it's solid, but I can see absolutely nothing. I mean, it's not that it's all dark because it isn't, but things just seem... I can't explain it. The ground visually seems like a black goo... but my feet don't touch it... I'm kinda hovering yet touching a ground. It feels surreal. There's nothing around me.

But now I feel something... Something behind me. I'm frenetically turning my head and my body around but I can see nothing there... Suddenly, I now feel a really heavy hand over my left shoulder, and it scared me. I turned around and I faced him, the stage man, so close to me. His Venetian mask seems to be menacingly grinning at me, a couple millimeters from my face. "Welcome to the midnight. It's time", he said to me, before suddenly vanishing with a loud wind rumbling sound which pushed me strongly. I'm dying, I can feel it... I feel like he's right inside me, as if he assimilated my soul.

I don't know exactly who he is, yet I strangely feel like he's someone I've known for a long, long time... from aeons ago, since the dawn of time and space continuum itself. Now I don't know who I am... or where I am right now... or how, or why? It's all I know: it's time. It's midnight.