Dyspnea of the World

Legends are told of a cataclysmic event. One such legend was mentioned, in passing, to a young beggar boy thousands of years ago. It was said the boy lived in a cavern near a village and would approach during the village's bazaar, which took place every few passings of the moon.

Who told the boy of the event no one knows, but the boy grew and became a devoted crier near the village. He would spend his days yelling truths, or half-truths, of the event. At first, the village people were humored by his extremist views on the end of the earth, but the more they listened, the more dire they felt.

As the boy became an old man, cataclysm did find the village, but it was nothing like what the old man had spent his life devoted to. As marauders approached the village, he went to work telling the approaching group of the event and the need to prepare. The attackers had other plans, however, and cut the old man down before raping and pillaging.

The old man gargled on his own blood yet continued to cry the event's significance. The words landed in the ears of one of the attackers, who, after a fitful night of Armageddon imagery, began his own attempt at spreading the news of the end of the world.

And so, it has been ever since. One man speaks while no one listens until that man moves past this life and into the void; his words echoing importance in at least one person for the next lifetime.

This is how I learned of the event, for the last person was an uncle of mine, and he recently died. On his deathbed, he pulled me close, looked me in the eyes with a stare that sent goosebumps through my entire body, and told me the end was near. Of course, like everyone else before me, I did not believe it. Thousands of years of nothing spoke louder to me than any one man. But that night, things changed.

I dreamed of the earth. Dust rose from the ground and fell in an almost breath-like state as if the world was struggling to breathe. Clouds covered every inch of the sky, and I could not find any people. The trees were withered and drooped to one side, taking on a melancholy stance. I stood alone.

In the dream, I was alone, but when I woke, I knew the time had not yet passed, and perhaps something could be done to stop it.

I left my home that day with a different agenda than any of the ones that came before me. I did not want to lose myself to the madness and begin to preach devastation to a deaf people; I wanted to save them.

My local library had many books on ancient myths and legends, but finding anything specific to this event was like searching for a very particular blade of grass in a field. So, I traced my ancestry. I learned as much as I could about my uncle. My grandparents are no longer living, but I was able to scour old picture books and family records and learned that my uncle is a normal person.

He was intelligent in school, consistently earning good grades and maintaining good attendance. He even studied a respectable career path through college. Eventually, he landed a job overseas, but upon his return, he had changed. The intelligent, clever man was gone and replaced by what many in my hometown called a lunatic.

I needed to know more, so I packed my bags and booked a flight to Europe. During the flight, the dreams came back.

The dust breathed again, rising, falling, struggling. This time, the clouds above did not cover the sky completely. Far in the distance, a break in the clouds appeared, and a dark red beam of light slipped through. As I squinted toward it, I realized something was pushing through the clouds. A shape. A finger. Long, bony, blackened with red streaks pulsing beneath the skin. My skull throbbed. My chest tightened. I woke in a violent sweat.

A woman beside me shook my arm. “Are you alright, dear?”

She meant kindness, but the look I gave her made her shrink back.

“We have to stop it,” I muttered.

Madness tugged at me like a hook in the back of my mind. I forced myself to breathe, to remain grounded. Not yet. Not yet.

The rest of the flight passed in a numb haze. When we landed, I found myself standing at the rental counter without remembering walking there. The clerk slid keys toward me with an expression I couldn’t place—fear, pity, or simple exhaustion.

I drove to the company where my uncle had once worked. The owner seemed relieved to speak of him, as if releasing a burden he had carried for years. He told me my uncle had taken holiday in the northern part of the country—a remote region reachable by train and a short drive. Something in his voice trembled when he said, “People don’t go there anymore.”

I boarded the train that evening. Exhaustion overtook me almost immediately, but I feared closing my eyes. When I finally drifted, it was only for a moment, and I woke with my heart pounding and nails digging into my palms. I could not remember the dream—only its weight, still pressing against my ribs.

Outside the window, the land grew emptier the farther we traveled. Fields gave way to forests, forests to barren stone. Even the sky felt thinner, as if stretched too far across the world.

When I arrived, a driver waited for me in a rusty car. He didn’t speak much. When we reached the outskirts of the forgotten town, he only said, “Don’t stay longer than you must.”

His eyes did not meet mine when he drove away.

There were only a few buildings left—weather-beaten structures sagging under the weight of years. The air felt hollow, as if the world itself had forgotten to inhabit this place. I stepped out of the car, and the wind carried the smell of damp stone and old wood.

I wandered toward the largest structure, a church in the loosest sense of the word. Its roof leaned to one side, and the front steps were half-swallowed by the earth. On the porch sat an elderly woman, still as a statue, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

She didn’t react when I approached. She simply began speaking, her voice dry and thin, as though unused for decades.

“You can sleep in the back room. No charge. Breakfast at daybreak. Dinner at night. One day only, no more.”

Before I could respond, a gust of cold wind swept down from the north. It coiled around my legs to the waist, lingered, and slid past me with a sound like distant whispering. Leaves scattered across the ground in a frantic dance.

I looked away only for a second. When I turned back, the woman was gone.

Her chair rocked gently, as if someone had only just risen from it.

A chill crawled across my spine, tighter than the wind itself. I stood there, staring at the empty chair, at the deep imprint of where she had sat. It felt wrong, like something had been erased rather than having departed.

As I went into the dilapidated church, echoes of worship and praise lifted from the floors, crashed into the ceiling, and disappeared. It was a strange feeling and one I was unsure how to interpret. I went into the back room, and there lay a book on my bed. A Bible, I assumed, but as I got closer, I could tell this was no Bible. The cover was solid black with red and black marbled edging.

I now sit on the edge of the bed, unable to reach for the book. I believe all of this has led me to this moment. The answer to how to stop this disaster has to be inside this book, but what if I’m wrong? What if opening the book is the catalyst to the apocalypse? I have to know. I must do what I can to stop it, and I can’t stop it if I don’t know what it is coming. I’m writing this in case I don’t make it, in case the end is near, or in case my mind finally snaps.