Vsetin

It began more than a year ago. The general stress was sickening. To a time of political and economic uncertainty was added an unusual apprehension of horrid, very real danger. Global and engrossing, it was a danger as can only be seen in the darkest dreams of the most deranged minds. Some wandered about, frail and sickly, muttering stories of rapture and revelation, while those still in their right minds pretended not to hear. A tremendous guilt filled the hearts of many the world over. The seasons shifted unnaturally, the length of days and nights fluctuated incomprehensibly, and the sky turned peculiar shades of brown. It seemed the very laws of nature were changing. The powers that once ruled the universe were being overthrown.
Then the Vsetin arrived. Its anatomy and behavior were unlike anything this planet had ever fostered. It seemed at times to have no definite location in time or space, though all were continually aware of its presence. In the realm of human understanding, the Vsetin was sentient. When it made itself observable and occupied physical space, it was cylindrical. Two stories tall and very thin, it moved like a python standing on its tail. It had no discernible eyes or mouth, and its color would change seemingly at random, from pale grays and whites to vibrant oranges and yellows to curious colors none had witnessed before.
Though it couldn't speak, it was able to communicate; its thoughts were understood intuitively. It was fascinated with human beings and the physical world we had grown accustomed to, and spent its time meticulously examining our minds to learn all it could about the sciences. It seemed to enjoy giving exhibitions of power that proved there was much more to existence than humans could possibly comprehend. Matter could travel faster than light, transporting across time and space instantaneously, leaving copies of itself at arbitrary intervals; the universe could lose all color, appearing not as blackness, but as infinitely clear. Most who witnessed such exhibitions were overwhelmed, and many rational minds shattered. Where the Vsetin went, countless disappeared; devoured into its recondite, incorporeal domain. Nights were horrendous, and the collective unconscious was invaded with images of impossible angles and dimensions and noises of such acrimony and intensity that many who experienced them were unable to comprehend sight or sound ever again. More prudent men wished sleep was unnecessary, that nights would no longer be filled with hideous shrieks, but that rest would come easily as the dimly lit moon and scarcely shining stars glimmered weakly over dark waters and crumbling mountains.
I remember distinctly the day the Vsetin stopped in my city. It was unsettling to hear of its coming, but I was confident that my mind and spirit were strong enough to endure the most aberrant notions it could instill. My friends and relatives who had been in its immediate presence and kept their sanities told me to avoid interacting with it directly; that the visions it would elicit in my mind were beyond the most abhorrent imaginable; that a visit with the Vsetin meant risking all my rational sense and may leave me unable to grasp the concepts and ideas that had always been part of my nature.
Still, I imagined myself confronting it openly, conquering it with sheer resolve. I would prove that the human mind was capable of understanding all things completely. The invader could not be as devastating as it seemed.
It was on a warm winter night that it happened upon me. Standing on my doorstep I watched it slither slowly through my neighborhood, over the cracked and darkened road, and became gruesomely nauseated. Just setting my eyes upon it was enough to expel what courage was left in me. The air grew suddenly stifling, and breathing became a terrible effort. Gravity seemed to increase its intensity threefold as I stood petrified, praying it would pass by without noticing me. As it drew nearer my house, it began to writhe violently. It veered sharply towards me and came to a halt in my front yard. Then I began to lose my sense of reality. The grass swirled around an invisible drain, and leaves turned to amorphic, gelatinous lumps. Odd metallic shapes, jutting in directions previously unknown to me, shot up out of the ground and grew to absurd heights. Blinding, deafening sparks exploded everywhere. The sky turned pitch dark, and shapeless gray shadows began to dance around the Vsetin. And I saw the world engulfed in a battle with blackness; against the omnipotent force out of total perfection. Spinning, whirling; enduring arduously, relying on absolute will. I couldn't move or breathe; depth and size, pitch and volume, all things which my mind and body had once needed to survive became irrelevant. I forgot where I was. I forgot my name. I lost my sense of time. A billion millenia could well have passed.
Then it was over. The Vsetin vanished. Normalcy returned. I stood there, slowly recovering from what I thought was surely a nightmare. I could not recall specifically what I had just experienced, but somewhere in the depths of my subconscious lay the knowledge of unfathomable facets of reality.
People united. They wanted to try and drive the Vsetin away. Nothing worked. One night, I attended a gathering at the town's library which proved wholly ineffective and served only to harbor indiscriminate delirium. The inside was lit only by a few candles; nothing electric had worked for weeks. Among the two hundred gathered were professors, doctors, engineers; the most notably intelligent and respected men and women in the area. We were all of undeniable fortitude, as our sanities had prevailed even after witnessing firsthand the impossible impressions manifested by the Vsetin. There was no moon in the sky and the stars had all faded, leaving the landscape laden with total darkness and inhabited by untold horrors creeping amongst the ruins of our formerly familiar and comfortable world. The discussion had turned ill-tempered and irrelevant when all two hundred simultaneously began to suffer a desperate anxiety all knew could only be induced by a singular experience. The Vsetin appeared in front of us. Instantly and involuntarily we found ourselves in curious formations, lining up and following paths we seemed to know subconsciously, though we dared not try and think of them. Outside, I realized the sun had risen and was at midday height, but my surroundings were hardly familiar. There was no grass. Instead, the ground was covered with a light, bluish foamy substance. The sky was flashing sporadically from deep reds to a blinding silver. A hole opened in front of us, and we followed an odd looking staircase down into a churning, spinning gray void. I began to hear maddening laughter mixed with loud, sharp bangs reverberating throughout endless space. Bits of what resembled snow precipitated down from invisible clouds, evaporating before they hit the ground. We reached the bottom and entered the grayness. All I could do was allow myself to be swept about, watching as wispy, multi-colored figures swirled around my head. Those who were with me began to disappear. I felt myself slipping into unreality, struggling helplessly against the will of the unthinkably powerful Vsetin. I began to descend endlessly into utter hysteria, sound and fury drowning the final fragments of my heart and soul.
Undying and unlimited, encompassing absolutely both a single instant and infinity, occupying any and all orientations extemporaneously, it lies in no rational mind's power to envisage it truly. The madness that now obscures all reasoning and understanding commands all consciousness. Devoid is the world of all thought, having been ravaged by the inescapable vagary of the Vsetin.