The Sundown Town
Lucid Codex Entry 010
They weren’t supposed to stop there.
The map didn’t show a town. The GPS glitched. The road bent where it shouldn’t have, like it remembered being paved for something else. Something older.
She knew they were being watched before the first house appeared.
It looked like a postcard from the dead...dusty sidewalks, gas station signs half-lit and buzzing with flies, rusted trucks leaning into their own graves. No movement. No music. Just the hum of heat and history.
She felt it in her chest.
That tension...thick and invisible. The kind you only feel in old horror films, seconds before a stranger walks into the wrong bar and the door shuts behind them.
And she had the orb.
It wasn’t large. Grapefruit-sized, maybe. But it pulsed...soft, rhythmic, sentient. It didn’t glow. It breathed. Blue light shimmered beneath its surface like trapped galaxies.
She didn’t steal it.
It chose her.
She’d found it...or it had found her...in the woods, suspended in midair. Humming. Vibrating like it was laughing without sound. The moment her fingers touched it, her skull split with visions:
Stars folding inward.
People screaming in reverse.
A voice inside her blood whispering one word:
“Run.”
So she ran.
Now she was here. In a town that smelled like bleach and meat.
Men stood on porches. Cowboy hats. Work boots. Eyes too still. Too empty. They weren’t blinking. Weren’t breathing. Just waiting for a signal only monsters understood.
She tried to pass through. Quietly.
But the tires blew.
All four. At once.
The first man approached. Limping. Dragging something.
At first, she thought it was a coat.
Then she saw the fingers.
It was skin. Peeled. Human. Still wet.
He smiled. The kind of smile that doesn’t need teeth.
“We don’t take kindly to thieves.”
She ran.
Orb clutched tight to her chest. It felt like part of her now. Like a second heart.
Gunfire cracked the air. She darted into an alley. Sirens screamed in opposite directions. A voice bellowed, raw and furious...
“SHE’S GOT IT!”
She ran past a church with its crucifix inverted and weeping.
Past a school where the swings moved, but no wind stirred.
Past a crying child with no face.
The orb vibrated stronger the closer she got to the edge of town. Like it was guiding her. Or warning her.
Then she saw it.
A tunnel.
It wasn’t built. It was born.
No bricks. No rebar. Just smooth, warm walls that shimmered like skin. Light pulsed from within...amber, then violet, then black.
It opened like a mouth.
And swallowed her.
Inside was silence. Not the kind you hear. The kind that consumes.
When she emerged, she wasn’t in the town anymore.
She was in a prison made of glass.
No corners. No doors. Just shifting walls that pulsed like lungs. Every surface reflected her...but slightly wrong. Her face blurred. Her eyes inverted. Her teeth moved out of sync with her thoughts.
A man waited there.
White suit. No shadow. Eyes like old film...flickering, skipping frames.
“Give us the orb,” he said.
She didn’t answer.
He smiled. Not with his mouth. With his eyes.
She knelt and pressed the orb to the floor.
It hissed...melted through the glass like acid through memory.
“That’s not yours,” the man said.
She looked up.
“It is now.”
The lights snapped off.
The glass cracked...slowly, like ice remembering how to shatter.
And then...
Darkness.
When she opened her eyes, she was outside again.
The town was gone. The orb was gone.
But her hands still glowed blue.
And this time…She remembered everything.
-
Dream 8/30/24
I found something that was baby sky blue. It was something important, weird looking, alive and pulsating, but not human or anything from Earth. No face or eyes. It had a handle, an opening, but it was vibrating and floating, and people were after me.I was trying to escape and drove through a sundown town. I saw these men ripping the skin off people. They were in cowboy boots and hats...small-town country guys. Somehow, they knew I had the blue stuff.
I had my son with me, and getting caught was not an option. I had to evade the cops in that small town because they were racist. As soon as I passed the line, I was in a normal big city, but the good ole boys were following me.
I got stuck in traffic on a highway and had to fight to get out. I managed to get the attention of city cops, and there was a shootout because one of the guys bashed in someone's head to death.
These other men came and were able to apprehend the attackers and arrest them. The jail looked like a mining tunnel. It was below ground but high-tech. The walls were glass.
I walked up to them and they kept saying, "We will get it."
It was the blue stuff I found.
Me and my son were safe...but what was it that I found.
