The Academy of Darkness

Chapter 5 - An Impression To Uphold

 5. An Impression to Uphold

Whatever had taken place today on the cliffs, still I could not justify. Dream after gruesome dream of ravens turning to puffs of black smoke then twisting into shadows; wraiths encircling - gaining the upper hand, the ravens swooped at me - some were feasting on the rotting flesh of dead bodies. Some of the bodies still withered on the brink of death but not quite there yet. They were eaten alive.

 I watched from a distance as the mutants sucked a radiantly glowing white form out of a body. It looked like a ghost... and then it clicked; I knew I was right, they were sucking the soul out of someone, sucking the spirit and the very essence of the person itself right out of their body. It was obvious enough. I sneaked up to get a closer look. As I approached the body surrounded by wraiths and lent in to see whose soul they were devouring now, I screeched with horror. Looking back at me was my own face, ashen white and dead. My eyes no longer held any colour at all - all blue drained - they were empty, a dull whitish-grey iris remained. They were hollow. This was about the time I awoke screaming. Tossing and turning, I woke about seven times that night from the same nightmares.

Paranoia took over me. Paranoia was inevitable. I was consumed. It was early in the morning, way before dawn when the sky was still starry, I had heard the sounds of nails, claws, scratching the glass of my panes, or the sounds of wings beating hard against the window. Sometimes if I listened hard enough I would here a croaking noise outside my room and a beak tap a tap tapping against the wood rims. The Raven poem by Edgar Allan Poe popped into her head.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

'Surely,' said I, 'surely that is something at my window lattice;

Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -

'Tis the wind and nothing more!'

If only it were the wind and nothing more! I loved poetry and this particular poem was one of my favourites, but right at that moment it seemed eerily accurate.

With a lot of will power I managed to deceive myself into thinking it was just my imagination, or it was just a branch in the wind - though that deception didn't last long when even Claire complained in the morning about the noises coming from my room, the screeching echoes of birds. I was now convinced that they were out there and they were after me, for reasons I could not fathom. No, not convinced. I was certain.