When the Night Comes

When some nightmares happen, they hit hard,
So vivid they feel real, because sometimes they are.

Alone in a world fast asleep,
A body lies convulsing upon a bed.

No one is watching.
Nobody is there to comfort or care.

Nobody notices
when the convulsing flesh becomes still,
When it lies prone and cold,
sweat-drenched, mouth agape,
Eyes rolled back into their sockets,
Its body paralysed
as something unseen begins to pull.

A new journey is about to begin for this victim,
Following a lifetime of technology,
dependence and abuse.

Something begins to leave the body,
A fragment of energy, consciousness,
something difficult to name,
Shedding itself into the aether
Where it is drawn
towards a realm of mechanical darkness.

There, human essence is absorbed and assimilated,
Joined to a hive mind of machinery and suffering,
Combined with technologies both ancient and new,
Until the individual becomes
nothing more than another component.

Another cog.
Another consciousness trapped within the engine.

Another unwilling participant
In a living, breathing hell.

All machines have a purpose,
And this one is no different.
Its purpose is simple.
To spread pain.
To perpetuate suffering.
To consume what remains of humanity,

And ultimately,

To eradicate it.

Meanwhile,
In the waking world,

The sleeper lies motionless,

Waiting for morning.

*An Infinite Black Poem.