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The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
page 20 of 176 (11%)

Gradually, as I became more accustomed to the idea, I realized that I
was looking out on to a vast plain, lit with the same gloomy twilight
that pervaded the room. The immensity of this plain scarcely can be
conceived. In no part could I perceive its confines. It seemed to
broaden and spread out, so that the eye failed to perceive any
limitations. Slowly, the details of the nearer portions began to grow
clear; then, in a moment almost, the light died away, and the vision--if
vision it were--faded and was gone.

Suddenly, I became conscious that I was no longer in the chair.
Instead, I seemed to be hovering above it, and looking down at a dim
something, huddled and silent. In a little while, a cold blast struck
me, and I was outside in the night, floating, like a bubble, up through
the darkness. As I moved, an icy coldness seemed to enfold me, so that
I shivered.

After a time, I looked to right and left, and saw the intolerable
blackness of the night, pierced by remote gleams of fire. Onward,
outward, I drove. Once, I glanced behind, and saw the earth, a small
crescent of blue light, receding away to my left. Further off, the sun,
a splash of white flame, burned vividly against the dark.

An indefinite period passed. Then, for the last time, I saw the
earth--an enduring globule of radiant blue, swimming in an eternity of
ether. And there I, a fragile flake of soul dust, flickered silently
across the void, from the distant blue, into the expanse of the unknown.

A great while seemed to pass over me, and now I could nowhere see
anything. I had passed beyond the fixed stars and plunged into the huge
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