The Sundown Effect

It certainly did seem like it was real. It had every hallmark of reality. There was pain. If that wasn’t real, reality needed a do over. It took time, but most everything does, even daydreams.

There were consequences. How can consequences come from something that isn’t real? If something isn’t real, it shouldn’t exist, therefore consequences are the last thing one would expect. This was another real indicator. Things were random and unexpected. And strange.

The Sundown

Strange is a broad description of this. Furthermore it goes beyond strange, and borders on insane. Insanity can be real, even if the trigger isn’t.

It happened at sundown. I may have mentioned the strange part. The sundown effect made it that much stranger. Somehow the absence of daylight, created a new opportunity for chaos.

The good kind of chaos, where nothing makes sense, and everything happens all at once. All of this was in the sundown effect, that particular day. It would be more accurate to think of that day as the last good day in this reality. Sad, but more accurate.

This story isn’t meant to be dark and foreboding. It’s not a story about the lasting effects, or the changes that happened after the sundown effect. It’s about the before. The after is documented in the halls of history. Everyone knows what happened after, but no one remembers the before.

Before all this, there was another reality. It is also documented, but unremembered.

Effect

It was sunny. That’s what was typical about the day. For weeks, every day had been bright and full of sunshine. No clouds, not even a hint of clouds, just sunshine from sun up, till sun down. Sky of blue, full of sunshine, nightfall, repeat. Typical day.

On the last day, or the beginning of the rest, (whichever suits) everything went down the same. Except the sun.

This is where things get unreal. Or they are real, and we are the unreal. Either way, this is a good time to listen closely. What follows is the only written accounting of the events that led to this place, to this reality. It’s not recorded anywhere else, even though it changed the entire world. No record of it exists, anywhere.