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//Author’s Notes: Written in 2016. I was playing too much Don’t Starve at the time, and I wondered what it must have felt like when the player character was taken from their world into the world of the game; I realized that the loading / world creation screen itself would be a delightful if terrifying introduction into the twisted realm of the game’s setting.
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I dreamt of a spinning world lit by a bright sun. On the surface I saw insects buzzing about and small mammals scurrying to and fro. Underneath all that, however, I heard — or perhaps felt — a rumbling, a clanking of gears and dark machinations.

My dream shifted. It was night, and arachnids emerged to hunt. The spinning sphere I held in my sight was bathed in moonlight, and evil things stirred in the shadows. The cranking gears were louder in the silence of the twilight.

There was a familiarity to this world. It was not unlike my own, only twisted into a different sort of environment. The rabbits and bees looked distinctly unique from anything in the waking world. The spiders and frogs were disturbingly more sinister in appearance and function within this sick parody of nature.

Then I awoke. The ground I was on was not my bed. Patches of brown dirt between glades of grass held barren saplings while trees dotted the distant landscape. The first living thing I saw was a tiny butterfly, floating to a flower. I blinked and witnessed a bee emerge from the same flower, making room for his insect friend.

The bee. It was large and had the same six eyed array as the ones in my dream. I was about to scream when I saw his shoes.

I followed the shoes up to immaculate pinstripe pants, a suit jacked complete with a rose in the lapel and collared shirt plus tie, all wrapped around a man smoking a cigar. I say ‘man’ because that’s what he appeared to me as, but I suspect he may well be the demon that dragged me here, as he addressed me before vanishing in a puff of smoke.

When I say he spoke, his words were not words, not like what I’m writing down for my own record now. No, his voice was like a deep reed organ, though I somehow understood exactly what he was ‘saying’.

“Say pal, you don’t look so good. You better find something to eat before night comes.”