Dreams of Darkness

[Brute]

(OOC: this story is based loosely upon a dream I had years ago. It was a frightening dream in that it said something dark about my persona. Should anyone wish to add to it, by all means, I invite you. However, please make an ooc thread elsewhere so that details of the story can be discussed. This simply helps in keeping the thread flowing. )

 

The last rays of light settled upon the thatched roof of a small house, set apart from others like it. It stood back in the valley, nestled in the treeline and had a view of the small community below. Beside the house a low rock wall enclosed a garden full of blooming flowers and fragrant herbs. A young woman knelt there among the plants and flowers, gathering her tools in the failing light. She stood and brushed the dirt from the knees of her worn pants. Corina disliked wearing the dresses that the women of the village wore, a fact that had caused plenty of arguments with her mother before she died. Inside the house, Corina finished her evening meal in solitude and prepared for bed. Her thoughts echoed the conversations she had had with her mother as she closed her eyes and recalled her face. A sigh escaped her lips as she drifted off to sleep.

 

She stood in the middle of a bare room, the walls and floor were made from a darkly polished wood. In one wall, an open window offered a view of open sky, giving her the sense that she was far above the ground floor of wherever she was. "What is this place?" she wondered aloud. She nervously walked towards the window when a voice answered her. "Why, it is you, in a sense." Corina gasped and whirled around, but saw no one.

 

"Do not be afraid," the disembodied voice spoke inside her head, calming her. "I am her to guide you. youmay ask of me certain questions, for I am bound to answer what I am allowed." Corina nodded in acceptance to the statement. "Where am I? This seems like a dream," she said. "Indeed, you are dreaming. This place is a place of your making, and you are now ready to face some od what lies within." The voice was calm and neutral in tone. "Come, we have much to see."

 

Sensing where it was she was supposed to go, she took a single step. The bare room spun for a moment, then was still, leaving her in another room, similar in the polished wooden floors and walls, but not entirely. She looked around and noticed several corners were covered in deep shadows and this room lacked a window. She had a sense that she had gone to a lower level in the house. Corina's dark eyes fixed on the shadows, a shiver running through her as she asked," Why are there shadows in here? What do they mean to me?" The voice seemed to have a smile to it's answer, though she could not see anything. "These are parts of yourself that you cannot acknowledge yet, or that you have hidden from yourself. In time, these shadows may lift, revealing passages unknown to you at the moment. Let us proceed."

 

Corina appeared suddenly in several more rooms, twice entering a long hallway, filled with shadows that seemed to lay along the wall and floor like great puddles of black ink, obscuring her view. The guide always led her around these areas, cautioning against going into them. At one room, Corina saw a huge, gaping hole torn into the floor. Along the edge of the hole, the boards were shattered and ripped. With a detached interest, she moved to the hole, trying to peer into into it's depths. Her view was blocked by more shadows, spread across the hole like a black sheet. Corina asked her guide, "What is that?"

 

"It will be revealed soon," the voice whispered into her mind. "Come, we near the end."

 

Corina passed through many more rooms and found that if she thought about the strange hole, she would enter another room below that contained a similar jagged hole in the floor. She sensed that they were all directly above one another in space. Corina noticed that as she descended into the depths of the house, the shadows grew more and more frequent. Suddenly, she stood in what appeared to be a basement. The voice spoke to her once more in an almost worried tone. "You have reached what it was you were drawn here for. You must pass this last part, or it will consume you." Just as Corina could somehow feel the presence of the unseen guide, she now felt it's absence.

 

Before her, a huge throne, made from bleached bones and skulls, sat in the middle of the room. Reddish light cast from the flames of an open hearth danced along the grim throne. Upon it sat a beast beyond imagine. Blood-red skin was pulled tight over it's heavily muscled frame and bat-like wings of the deepest black spread evilly from behind it's broad and powerful shoulders. In one black-taloned hand, it held a sceptre that glowed a golden hue, the other held a black book. The beast had a demonic face and was terrible to behold. Large tusks jutted from it's lower lips and it's fell gaze swept across Corina in anger. In that moment, both the glowing sceptre and the book vanished from it's hands. It leaped up and roared at her, it's very voice sending knives of pain into Corina and numbing her mind. Her eyes rolled back into her head as she struggled to remain conscious through the onslaught of it's unearthly shout. Her vision failed her as the pain swept though her body like fire. Yet for a brief moment, a fuzzy, illegible word, glowing bright yellow, sprang up into her mind. Before she could focus on it, the demon silenced it's raging voice.

 

Corina gasped and staggered. The demon leered at her, as if waiting some answer to it's challenge. Before she could respond in any way, the stabbing pain returned as the demon once more shouted in anger at her. Corina felt she would be crushed from the power the demon's voice contained. Fire raced through her, boiling her blood as the beast's voice stretched on and on. Her head throbbing from unbearable pain, Corina's vision failed her again. As darkness fell over her eyes, she saw once more the glowing word that had escaped her before. Only this time, it appeared to her larger and more clearly. She could read the word and knew that it was a name.

 

Abruptly, the waves of pain from the beast;s voice died. Corina had been paralyzed with terror and pain and her body now screamed for air as she gasped and filled her lungs through clenched teeth. Again the demon leered at her, awaiting something from her. Corina knew that she could not survive another onslaught of the terrible sound. With desparation, she cried out the name she had seen in her mind's eye through a ragged and hoarse voice. She held little hope that would help her.

 

The beast's glaring eyes went wide with outrage and shock. It's mouth fell open a bit, revealing rows of long, gleaming teeth.In startled fury, it leaned forward in it's grim throne and roared at Corina. The house shook and moaned in protest of such power, but Corina was completely unharmed. She had passed the test. Corina spoke low, but in a commanding tone to the beast, and it's terrible wails were cut off as she did so. "Leave!" she commanded to the creature. In a snarl of rage, the beast lept up and unfurled it's great wings. It shot up above the throne and Corina noticed then that all of the dark shafts she had seen throughout the house led down to an opening above the throne. The house shook violently as the beast fled, then suddenly, it was deadly still. Corina knew the beast had left the house.

 

 

She awoke tangled in her bedsheets and drenched in sweat, her heart racing as the nightmare ended. Before she could calm herself from the horrifying dream, a cold sense of dread passed through her like an icy wind. Cries and screams of anquish were drifting up from the village below. Corina pulled on her clothes and raced down towards the village, her sense of dread and fear growing with every step. She saw houses torn apart and crushed, like a great storm had swept through the village while she slept. Bodies of the villagers lay broken and scattered, while the few living that remained bent over them, weeping and crying."No, no! What has happened?" she cried out as she reached the outermost house. It laid flat, the walls and roof smashed in, as if under the force of a great hammer from the gods themselves. An old man carrying the body of a child turned to her in reply. His voice sounded hollow. "A great demon came in the night, terrible in it's fury, and beset the village. None could stop it or even harm the creature. It destroyed everything. Everything." The man looked at Corina blankly for a moment, then turned and shuffled away, the small figure in his arms hanging limp.

 

Corina felt panic surge in her, threatening to overwhelm her. "What have I done?" she cried to herself. "What evil have I unleashed?" Corina sank to her knees as the bright rays of the morning sun crept into the ruin of the village.

[Brute]

Corina knelt there with her hands pressed to her eyes as the morning sun began it's slow rise into the eastern sky. She could not imagine how this thing had happened. It was a nightmare, to be sure, but dreams did not take on the forms of flesh. It could not be! Yet, deep within her mind, she could feel something, a foul presence far away that held some link to her. From that link, she could almost feel...no. She pulled her hands from her face and shook her head, her long brown hair falling past her dark eyes as she did. She refused to acknowledge the strange feelings that glimmered from the bond she held with the beast. The stabbing pain of guilt burst into her heart as her eyes swept through the devastated village. With a choked cry, she stumbled to her feet and fled back to her house, tears streaking her tanned cheeks. Corina dashed into the house and locked her door. She cowered in a shadowed corner on her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest and trembled. "What have I done?" she whispered to herself, over and over, like a mantra to ward off the images of the villagers, people she had grown up with, laying broken and torn in the morning light.

 

Slowly, a new fear crept insiduously into her tormented mind: the survivors of the attack would find out who had caused this. They would come for her and demand justice be paid for releasing the horror that was unleashed upon them. Corina sat in the corner of her bed pitifully as she wondered if she didn't deserve whatever justice they decided to pass upon her. Cries of anguish from the scattered few alive reached her ears and became cries of anger and revenge. And so Corina sat in her house, alone and terrified. It was sometime in the late morning after that night of darkness and death that Corina finally made up her mind what she would do. She would flee the village and whatever justice she knew she deserved. Corina could still feel the awful link pulsing faintly within her, like a throbbing pain of infection, that she knew was the demon's ties to her. Somehow, she would confront the beast and...Corina had no idea what she would do then. She felt only that was what she must do. She had somehow unleased the thing upon the world, and she had to find some way to stop it before returning to face the punishment for her crime.

 

With that thought steeling her nerve, Corina woodenly got up from the corner and began to slowly pack food and a few changes of clothes. Slinging her pack upon her shoulder and pulling a heavy cloak around her, Corina took a sturdy staff and set out. With one last, sad look upon the village, she turned and began out through the light forest that stood near the back of her house, away from the village. For more than an hour she walked before stopping to rest briefly. Turning north, she could vaguely feel the demon far away through the link with it. Corina set off, determined to see her task through, however it may end.