The Holder of Dreams

In any city, in any country, go to any mental institution or halfway house in you can get yourself to. When you reach the front desk, ask to visit someone who calls himself "The Holder of Dreams". The person behind the desk shall stare at you with piercing eyes, tell you such person is not there. Ask him or her, where can you find him, and you'll be presented with a key, with a number attached to it.

Walk out from the building, into the street, and go north. If the street doesn't go either north or south, go east, then turn north once you notice a street at your left. Keep walking until you see a hotel. Maybe you've never heard of it, maybe you never realized it was there, but this is your destination. Enter the hotel, speak to no one, and answer no questions asked to you by the employee in the lobby or the guests. Look at the number attached to the key, and find the bedroom's door where the key belongs. Once you find it, open the door. Enter the hotel bedroom, and close the door.

You'll want to wait until at least sunset, when the first stars show up in the sky. Turn off any mobile phones, don't turn on the TV, and have no objects which can make sounds. Without changing clothes, lay down in the bed, and close your eyes. Even if you're not sleepy, your mind will drift away, and you'll be sleeping soon. Think of good things while waiting with your eyes shut, because if fear or bad thoughts emerge, it might be too late. They know you're there.

If all goes well, you'll wake up in the next morning. Leave the hotel with no explanations, return home, and resume your life, but be prepared. You completed, without knowing, a pact. Accepting this path has earned you horrible consequences.

Three people you know will die in the following days. They will die in horrible, disgusting ways you couldn't imagine were possible. React no more than what is normal to a human. Go to their funerals, mourn for them. Keep moving with your life. Do not attempt to return to the hotel or back to the asylum, or it will be all over, and you will wish you had died the same way your friends or loved ones did. It would have been less horrifying.

After one week -- seven complete days -- you will see the death of the 3rd person. There will be no way to avoid it. It will be the person you most care for, and no matter how much you'll try to stay alone that day, the person will still come to you, unaware of his or her fate. It doesn't matter how he or she appeared, the person will be there. When it happens, while you're unable to save the person, you cannot turn around or close your eyes, or you'll suffer the same fate. It will be as though the entire legion of Hell came to consume your friend into pain, agony and despair until their last breath.

You must not scream, or react. Just watch. When all is over, when there's nothing left but the mutilated corpse of your loved one, you'll feel a hand tap your shoulder. Do not turn around, or the boned hand will grasp your neck, and death will be slow and painful. The figure behind will ask "Did you enjoy that?"

Do not answer. Instead, ask "How can I protect my dear one?"

The hand patting your shoulder will rise and point at the corpse. Approach it, and you shall see a faint light coming from inside their now decomposing chest. Reach for it, and remove a small silvery trinket from their flesh. Do not fret if it looks different from what you heard, for it is never the same for anyone. Once you do this, you'll hear a pitched scream, and the ground under your feet will vanish. Keep holding the trinket tightly, and do not let it go, or you fall into the darkness.

You'll wake up in the hotel bedroom. Check the calendar. Those seven days were a dream. Nothing happened at all, and your friends and family are safe and sound. But you'll have the trinket in your hands.

The trinket is Object 84 of 538. Give it to the one you most care for - it might well be their only hope of salvation, even coming, as it may, at the price of your own salvation.