Delirium — -nikraria-

My watch still ticks, but I no longer believe in hours. My hand is writing this, but I am not telling it what to say. Somewhere below, the child in the yellow coat is laughing. The mushroom is still in my pocket—or rather, my pocket is now a mushroom. The distinction no longer matters.

I looked out the window. The canal was a spine. The cathedral was a skull. The fog was the exhalation of a sleeping god. Delirium -Nikraria-

By Nikraria

That was Day One of Delirium. By Day Three, the walls of Nikraria began to breathe. Not metaphorically. I pressed my palm to the plaster, and I felt a slow, wet inhalation. The city, I realized, was a single organism. The canals were its veins. The bell towers were its teeth. The people? We were just fleas dancing on a hot skillet. My watch still ticks, but I no longer believe in hours

She looked at me.

And then, in the hollow silence, something new grows. The mushroom is still in my pocket—or rather,

And the mirror-woman? She was standing behind me. Smiling with a thousand cracked lips. I am back in my room now. The pier. The rust-smelling sea.