Euphoria Ingress Elixir that’s what we called it. Morpheus’ Euphoria Ingress Elixir. Its everywhere and why shouldn’t it be? The stuff is every bit as blissful as it sounds. You drift off into a deep sleep about ten minutes after drinking it and wake up in the paradise of your own imagination. I learnt early on that visiting the bathroom beforehand was a sensible idea, and wearing a condom usually comes in handy too. The first time is a blur of ecstasy that is hard to describe. Suddenly everything that could go well does. This happens because the elixir triggers a release of happy hormones that can last for hours. Suddenly being awake seems pointless, sleeping is all that matters. The best thing is that you remember it all, it’s bizarre. Normally you’d be lucky to remember a handful of dreams from a lifetime. The elixir means you never feel like you’ve missed a moment. Sleep was once the time spent re-charging so you could keep going when awake. Now your waking life is a means of preparing for your next trip to paradise. As time passes waking-life loses its reality. It becomes a dreamy longing for sleep and then at last you know you’re addicted. The first doses of this cerebral stimulation will pass in a blur. Your mind will jump from one unfulfilled dream to the next, desperate to accomplish them all. This is the first stage of addiction and the most fleeting.
The second phase comes quickly, this is the period when you become a god in your own mind. Now you begin to take control of your dreams, to shape your own personal universe. I remember becoming aware, I was vaulting an obstacle course of buildings when I realised I could move them. I cut a path through the imaginary city as the buildings leapt out of my way. It was not long before I could fly above the cities of my world, fully imagined. That was another aspect of the elixirs perfection; dreams were not the misty, incomplete images as before but fully realised, detailed images so real you could reach out and touch them. It’s around this time that you start re-living all those shit moments from your life so you can make them work. The second time around I beat that bully senseless, out argued the arrogant teacher and losing my virginity was nothing short of divine. This is something most users go through. It could be considered a sub-stage. From there the experience diversifies depending on the individuals personality and imagination. I created a series of worlds that each served my many dreams. These worlds evolved, merged and divided as time passed. I lived the life of a god for roughly eight hours a week and spent the rest of the day making sure I could survive to continue the life of perfection. While awake I perfected the elixir, worked a part time job and sustained myself with a disgustingly healthy diet. My exercise was minimal and my muscles began to waste away. As my body weakened my mind grew in strength exponentially. The paradox of the elixir was made apparent. As I soaked up knowledge subconsciously once incomprehensible problems found obvious solutions. The paradox was that I would not waste time on these revelations unless they furthered my pursuit of blissful sleep. I did make arrangements however, I made contacts and increased production. It seemed like some child’s game but meanwhile I was assembling an empire. An empire that would go multinational given time. I barely noticed then. My mind was consumed with the rapid evolution of the conceptual world it had created. Except it was so much more than a concept, it was my life. The reality of the waking world was a distraction from its wonders, little more.
There are always sacrifices in the name of advancement. In the advancement of the elixir Kevin was the sacrifice, not willingly. Kevin had been there from the beginning. He was my best friend, the first person I told after I stumbled across the elixir. I was always good at biology, combining and dividing chemicals through various reactions to create entirely new chemicals. I’m not sure why I took it the first time. To stimulate happy hormones within the brain was the objective but the chances of success were minimal. For all this unlikelihood however my experiments, undertaken in my garden shed come laboratory, surpassed my wildest expectations. The compound I produced triggered the release of dopamine and oxytocin. The slow release of these two substances within the body creates a calm within the subject. When coupled with deep sleep and another substance that mimics the hallucinogenic effects of LSD; the hallucinogen I bought in from a friend who worked for the development branch of a major pharmaceutical company. The deep sleep was induced with tranquiliser. All that remained was to make the stuff taste nice. Without flavouring the elixirs taste is enough to make a pig vomit. Cola syrup makes it bearable though its best followed up by a glass of water. Back to Kevin, he was an important figure in the early days of elixir development and marketing. Kevin saw to the sale of the elixir and was my personal guinea pig. While trying to extend the length of sleep by switching the tranquiliser Kevin fell into a coma. At first this seemed bad for business. Potential customers saw reports of Kevin lying in a hospital bed with a sobbing mother crying into his lap. There is no such thing as bad publicity it seems. While sales slumped momentarily they rose more rapidly in the long term thanks to media hype. I was selfish, not wise when I refused to sell the formula for my elixir to the endless fat cat pharmaceutical executives. I chose to work with smaller businesses who in time became branches of my own conglomerate. By these means elixir production increased rapidly while the formula remained my secret. I had to memorise the formula after my would be rivals hired private investigators to search my facilities. Memorising such a complex formula was no longer a problem. My mind developed faster in my dream world than it ever could have in waking life. I matured swiftly, learning an old mans lessons before I was in my mid twenties.
Still I was under the spell of the elixir and was for years, elixir was my perpetual nightcap. Even perfection starts to grate eventually. The dreams though as vivid lost their reality. I had finally fallen out of love with my godly power. So began the final stage of addiction. It’s riddled with denial and gradual realisation that you need challenge again. You want to feel pain, sorrow, loss, anything that’s not a dream. You need the love of someone who will return that love readily because they need you, not the feeling of love from an image born of your desperate need. When I ceased taking the elixir however the world was still under its spell, or yet to discover its serenity. I saw to these needs and my own, furthering the businesses foreign expansion personally as many of my fist clients entered the final stage of addiction. These former clients became my new workmates, spreading the word of the wondrous elixir that their minds had inevitably rejected.
They shared my new view of the world. We were seeing it all again for the first time. Our capacity for appreciation was beyond explanation. I’ll say this though; I was stabbed this morning by two young men who wanted money to pay for my elixir. I can’t describe the pain but I’ll tell you that I’ve never felt more alive.
Yours
Angus ‘Morpheus’ Somnus
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