Flowing Black

[Alex Holford]

Vhalar 1st 719

The dream seemed dark, it seemed the night of the real world entered in the dream as well. Though there seemed to be no dreamer inside the world, as if it was in a permanent state. The dream slowly formed around, a single room coalesced into existence. A desk rose from the floor, along with a chair on both sides. A creek of wood slowly pushed its way through breaking the silence of the dreamscape. There was a large window to the room, stained glass placed inside wrought iron liners. It was made into the pattern of a man, maybe an immortal. Though the skin of the figure seemed distorted, the color being an almost pure white.

Rain began to pelt the window, the moonlight that would come in began to waver. It seemed like the scene was creating itself to be found by someone. Though the dreamer who owned this dreamscape seemed to be no where to be found. Papers began to scatter themselves onto the desk. The top of the pile had a long note written in poor common. It was more like chicken scratch, though it could be read.

The fate of all Mortals
The desire of the Immortals
Time brings you closer
Since you live as a sinner

You mock the rulers
As you enter the world
You are the intruder
Your kind should be purged

Dance around on your stage
You will find the curtain call
To be around your age
As you take your fall

The poem seemed to be as poorly made as the writing upon it. The slowly light of a candle flickered into life, sitting atop of the desk. It seemed like a stage being set, but for whom is unknown.

[Sybil Malach]

I

Vhalar 1st 719

Sybil stepped into the dream.

It felt as though they were always here, to an extent. Though the world itself began to create itself, as though stagehands were setting things up for reasons unknown, their eyes slowly swept over their surroundings. A dull, throbbing headache began to numb their perceptions. A play, perhaps? Sybil slowly looked down at their hands, as they stretched out their fingers, trying to make sense of their surroundings. Completely barren of anything to focus on directly, when it came to people, their eyes glanced up from their hands and look towards the world around them.

A brilliant, stark, stained glass window stands imposingly upon the wall. The pale white painted sheets of glass reflecting the moonlight and muffling the pitter patter of rain adding to the ambiance of the room. It took more than a little while for the dreamer's dormant imagination to adapt to the surroundings. They had never seen such a work of art before-- Works of art were not common enough in Viden for their mind to casually think of such things in dreams.

The sound of rustling paper was what gave their attention a break from the painted glass. Head lurching to the side, as though expecting a person, Sybil's gaze scanned at the room, the only one that had formed withing the dark, stage-like abyss. Unnerved, just for a moment, they allowed the silence to settle, before approaching the papers. Eyes glancing across the ones directly upon the desk, they leaned over, eyes squinting, fingertips pressing against the wooden frame of the desk itself, trying to make sense of the chickenscratch.

There's a saying about something surrounding bad handwriting being its own language... And in the dreaming Sybil's mind, it was true. It took far longer than needed, for their eyes to parse through the poem. Head canting to the side, they tried to understand what was there. Having been uninterested in poems in the waking world, the dreaming mind of Sybil had issues... Understanding, just how to read it. While the message was clear, any attempt of it being pleasing to the ears or mind was lost upon them.

[Alex Holford]

The room had an occupant, though it was not the owner of the dreamscape. A mortal being had wondered into the room, from parts unknown to the dreamer. A black glassy eye slowly formed into the ceiling, it seemed to look at the intruder to this realm. An eyelid covered half in a sort of glee. Something slowly began to tap at the window, the glass not casting a shadow. Even when the intruder would look, the tapping would continue on. It seemed to be rising from below the stained glass. The sound reached to center mass of the glass man, before it stopped for a moment. Silence was allowed to enter the room once more, just before a loud crash. A stone was pierced through the glass man's heart, colliding with the wall on the other side.

The desk began to give the sound of scratching wood, and slowly slid closer to the intruder. It tore the wooden floorboards as it pressed forward. Inch by inch, it followed the intruder close, as the sound of scratching within got louder. Something seemed to want to escape the confines of the desk. Though the furniture seemed to be guiding the intruder to a corner, it would stop moving once it did so.

The tapping started again from the glass, though now it moved from wall to wall. Slowly creeping its way closer to the intruders location. A deep laugh could be heard slowly, as the tapping stopped once more. Light flashed from and then a crack of lightening. The broken window shown on the opposite wall, the white man's light reached for the intruder during the flash.

[Sybil Malach]

II

Vhalar 1st 719

Sybil's eyes went wide.

In a flash of sudden energy, the strange, somber room was turned into a living hell. The sound of laughter, of tapping, began to fill the room. Hairs stood on edge, Sybil felt as though they were being watched. Their breath quickened from the shock alone, but there was more than mere threats here. Their eyes traced the line from which the stone was thrown. Had they fallen into a trap? Was this what a Nightmare was? What in Idalos is going on?

Never had they experienced something so outwardly malicious. So... Gleefully aware of its own actions. No, this couldn't be a Nightmare. They weren't this aware! --Were they?

Backing away from the shrieking desk, Sybil's eyes widened. Something was wrong here. Everything was wrong here. Everything became wrong at once. Nearly tripping over their own feet, Sybil only barely managed to control their undying fear of this situation through carefully placed breaths. But it was still present. Their thoughts raced, their eyes quickly glanced to and fro. They were being pushed back into a corner. A trap, perhaps?

They reached down, hands shaking, as they gripped the rock in their hand. Brushing against the walls, they could feel the bile rising up in their throat. Eyes wide, shaking in place, they continued to follow where they were being shepherded. The chaos made things immensely hard to focus on one thing at a time, but with the stone in hand... They felt like they had at least some agency. Their heart wouldn't stop thumping.

The skirts of their robe billowed, as the sole of their shoe began to crunch the broken glass that littered the floor. There... Had to be something, anything, around here-- Something better than a mere stone! Their eyes glanced, wall to wall, trying to focus in the cacophony, still backing more and more towards the far wall...

[Alex Holford]

A rumbling shook the very room, shaking the floorboards from their resting place. They began to shake erratically. The light from the candle still flickered in the room, allowing the shadowy abyss under the floor to show. The floors began to jump higher and higher, the violence in the room just seemed to get worse. The boards began to jump higher and higher, as they flung themselves to the ceiling of the room. The deep blackness opening under the intruder's feet.

A howling came from the broken window, blowing out the weak candle. Like that, the world was completely black. The wooden boards began to fling themselves around the intruder, splintering as they hit the wall behind him. Though the room was black, it seemed the void in the floor absorbed the rest of the light. It was as if it swallowed everything. Slowly the void began to wiggle and writhe, waves formed on its surface. The only light came from the window, no matter how dim. Though it seemed a shadow slowly moved across the window, moving towards the heart of the broken man.

A tendril slowly pushed through the hole, its color was the same as the floor. As it gripped down on the glass, cracking and breaking could be heard, as the glass shattered. I great shake took a hold of the room once more, as the room began to turn. Forcing the intruder to fall onto their back, on the wall they were scooting towards. The mess of black was now standing, though it slowly flowed towards the intruder slowly. Oozing across the cracks of the wall first, slowly approaching the shoes of the soul inside the room.

[Sybil Malach]

III

Vhalar 1st 719

The distinct change in structural alignment took Sybil off balance.

Landing flat on their arse, their eyes widen, their hands claw against the ground, clambering up, scraping against the floor, as they backpedal further. Breathing hard, they were completely out of sorts. Their mind was reeling from the sudden change in orientation, their ears were screaming with the cracking and moaning of the wooden boards going from the floor to the ceiling.

Something squishes against their back. Something wet. Something inky, something that feels as though they had just backed into a freshly painted wall. The tarry substance was enough to make them finally scream. Shooting up to a stand, as much as they could in this strange, escher-like position, they quickly turned around, clothing bearing the greasy marks of the thing they just backed into-- Something that definitely wasn't some benevolent trickster.

Sybil did something that came instinctual to their mind. Pulling back with their right right arm, they grip the thing they were holding in their hand. The sharp bit of rock that was thrown through the window. Fingertips going white from how tightly they gripped it, Sybil tossed it forward, launching it over, and towards the slowly flowing mass. Their eyes twitched to the side, praying that it'd buy them some time.

Lurching forward, clumsily, against the desk, Sybil tries to scramble away from the creature that was growing in mass. Chills stabbed up their spine as though they were in some immediate danger. Pupils constricting, they searched for a way out. This couldn't be a nightmare. A door had to be close by. If it was a nightmare... In all likelihood, Sybil would not last long unless they found some means of escaping.

So they pressed forward. Hoping that they had enough time, and put enough distance between the two to try and gain their bearings of their surroundings for just a moment.

[Alex Holford]

A stone was thrown at the oozing mass, it collided with a thud. Slowly it sunk off the surface of the body, as it began to move closer to the invader. As they tried to run, searching for some way out of the room, the walls seemed to turn around the invader. A liquid ooze slid from the cracks in the walls, surrounding the room fully. Black tendrils began to creep around the figure. Slowly they began to start wrapping around the intruder. Gripping each limb one by one, lifting the being into the air. Dragging it closer to the mass in the center of the dream.

The black ooze began to shift and form. Objects began to seem to move under the surface of the black void. Several white orbs penetrated the surface, slowly they rotated revealing pupils with not irises. The black color bleeding into the white, as the eyes all turned to focus on the trapped intruder. The gaze seemed to come from all angles, as the walls started to spawn the eyes dropping to the floor. All falling and turning to the figure.

A low rumble could be felt in the dream, as the ooze began to separate from itself. Rows of sharp teeth made of the splinters of the floorboards could be seen. Slowly it began to smile to the figure the wooden teeth scrapping together. "I have caught you my little intruder. " A rumbling voice came out, though it seemed to come from all around the bound figure. Eyes began to flow down the tendril attached to the figure, going into their clothing. Sliding with slime down their skin.

[Sybil Malach]

IV

Vhalar 1st 719

It all felt like a particularly bad dream. It was, but not in the way Sybil's mind screamed. The adrenaline rushing to their skull, blood pooling into their brain, it all made them feel as though time slowed, taking in the absolute absurdity of it all. This couldn't be true. This couldn't be possible. Their life was on the line-- And if they died here, they'd die in the waking world. It was a poor choice to purposefully sleep in a lucid dream, this night.

Struggling, now lifted up, Sybil's body did the only thing it could do. Flail. Arms and legs constantly thrashing, body shoving its insignificant weight all around. Their mind rushed with frantic fear. They hadn't been trained by their supposed 'Mentor' on how to handle these sorts of situations-- They were merely shown a trick with dreamscapes, but very little else. Their hands pull at the slippery, hellish tendrils, while their legs kick and kick.

One of these kicks lands squarely on one of the eyes. Heel of the boot grinding in, pushing in the squishy membrane with a somewhat shocking force from a creature this small. Though, it was more of a case of the adrenaline forcing their body to a desperate, if overall ineffective, attempt to try and defend their body from whatever's to come. Their boot grinds presses the eye further back into its socket, as Sybil lashes out, heart racing.

They were a small animal trapped in a corner at this point. The prospect of dying was something that they had dealt with before, but this was... This was horrifying. It was different than something mundane like wolves, or raids. This was hell.

[Alex Holford]

The small intruder continued to thrash about in the tendrils. It would be all but a fruitless attempt to escape. Waist of energy, time, now was the last chance they had to become a person of faith. So instead of accepting a slow painful death, they wanted to continue fighting. Why do mortals do such things, struggle like the fly in a spiders web. This is why they needed to be purged from the world, to wipe it clean for its true owners.

Soon the eyes that rolled down the intruder's cloths fell from the bottom of them. Piling up into white and black pearl pyramid. Though the creature seemed slightly confused, what did it learn under there? As the opening full of wooden teeth tried to split again. The intruder landed a kick upon on of the many eyes on the oozing body. The shock simply rippled through the body. They kept grinding into the eye, it simply pushed into the ooze farther. Soon the foot would sink into the surface of the blackness, replacing the eye.

With the foot stuck inside the main body of the ooze, it let go with its tendrils. As they moved around the intruder looking to be ready to strike like a tail of a scorpion. The seemed to compress, ripples down the gelatinous body of the appendages. The pile of eyes in the center of the room, slowly gelled into one mass. The eyes that once covered the black ooze, all flowed into the mass as it sloshed around. It started to take a familiar shape. Slowly the new figure walked, leaving its feet behind only to grow new ones. It approached the intruder trapped with the ooze, and opened two emerald eyes giving a wicked smile. The figures back was slightly twisted, frail frame, and a long braid of hair. Slowly to clammy hand of the figure touched the intruder's cheek. "First I take your soul, then your life mortal rodent."

[Sybil Malach]

V

Vhalar 1st 719

The figure began to take form.

Sybil began to enter a panicked state. Everything they'd tried had completely failed. Swears coursed through their veins as they struggled against the tarry tendrils. Eyes wide and utterly confused, horrified, and absolutely traumatized, the dreamer was anything but fine. They were, in every sense of the word, about to die. Their legs kicked out like a child, their arms flailed like some sort of chicken with its head cut off. They turned red at the face from effort, as though even in the face of overwhelming odds, not about to go limp and die. Just yet.

The world around was shifting. It was all an act. It was all a trap. Eyes gone wide as they're addressed as mortal. Eyelids on the verge of cutting at the seams from the strain of the flesh. It was becoming Sybil. A scream lined up in the back of their throat. It was a twisted, inky version of them. Like some sort of disgusting, disfigured corruption of life.

Utterly horrified, Sybil offered one last prayer to literally anything that would listen: Malicious, benign, or trickster. It didn't matter. It was the natural last ditch effort of someone who grew up surrounded by the sycophants of the Immortals. As the faux-Sybil grew closer and closer, Sybil's fear began to reach a peak. Divine inspiration flowed through their veins. An epiphany. A 'Hail Mary' shot in the dark.

Rearing back their leg, using what last strength they had, they lined up the kick to be right between the legs of the figure. Focusing their attention in awakening whatever dreamer this was--

--And... In that moment of utter confusion... Alex's control waned enough that they slipped through.

Ditching everything, the frantic Sybil bolted across the sea of inky black tar, and dove through the doorway.


They barreled through so quickly that they literally went from one dream, to the veil, and directly into another.

It'd take more than a few breaks to calm down from that, that much is certain.