Creus(Full Book)

Part 16

He woke up. Underneath the grey sky. He uncapped the oilskin and drank water. David sat for a while on the ground, thinking, resting, then he hurried over to the rock wall. Gripping the rock, trying to put one leg onto a ledge, a cave above, one leg after another. His foot gave way to nothing, his hands slipped, he stumbled backward. Onto the ground, he went, colliding with moss, acting as a cushion. His arms fell, he collapsed. David let out a long exhale. His eyes dimmed.

Later then.... Now, later, .... He would do it. Later on. He could do it .... Away from the Nalrath.... Away from.... He didn't need to go.... Later.... Now.... Now... No, he needed to climb it! Away from the demon that haunted the cliff, and up the sides of the cave.

He stood up, aching, wobbling. He steadied himself upon the wall, and he readied himself. Looking at double images, spinning with him. His arms grabbed the ledge and he hauled himself up. His legs tried to reach another ledge. But they spun along with him, trying to reach a ledge. He climbed further upward. Hauling himself up again, his legs swung forward, then again, and again, until he reached a cave.

He looked below, higher up, with the wind brushing his ears. He turned to look into the cave, full of blue, going higher. He stepped forward, up the slope, hiking up. It led further, into the light.

He moved forward, stumbling a bit, but steady for the entirety. The light turned red, he squinted and hauled himself up. Onto the top of the slope, he turned to look around, red and blue shining in every direction.

Projecting his shadow onto the ceiling. He turned to face forward, and saw the scales, shining, gleaming, like a snake. But a hole, circular, going through the snake, and into red, with flesh and scars, the stomach, red and rotting.

Creatures in it, scrabbling, tearing at the flesh, and eating. He looked away, and ran back down, dashing through the stone, nearing the entrance of the cave.

He looked up, through the mist. No light, all dark for him, his eyes were shrouded with darkness. It emptied his eyes of light and filled it with Abysian darkness.

He walked back into the cave. Then crouched and hid in the shadows. The bag opened and then closed. The vial opened. He circled the rim of it with his finger, then he drank. It burned his throat, and he coughed when he finished. But in the end, this didn't matter. It'd fade away . Not now, but later...

His eyes shut, and the light faded away, the darkness replaced it. He relaxed his head and his arms. They lay back while he slept. His head buzzed while his mind lulled him into sleep. His heart thumped amidst the silence. Thump.... Thump.... Thump.... Thump....He waited for his dreams to arrive.

Light beamed into his eyes. Blurs of color, and sound, then into his dreamscapes.

Bernard, Darrell, Rickman, and Osmond. In the desert. Moving past them. His chariot turned, it shook, then swerved. They rode past cacti and trees, past rivers and reeds. The chariot went onto Pnoaphales. Their horses galloped faster until the top shone brightly. Casting white into his eyes, beams of light. Blue, red, and gold onto his eyes.

His legs stretched forward, onto the rock, out into the light. He stretched outward. He stood, then out of the pit he went. Into the light, out of the grey, out into the sun. He glowed under the sun, golden from its rays. He let it engulf him. He felt the heat rise and the sun expand. It covered the sky with orange and yellow. His legs swung forward, one by one. He strode, miles and miles, all passing by in seconds. Onto the top, he stood, resisting the wind, facing the sun.

Into the temple, he walked. Each step was an echo. His mind ached. His eyes stung. His legs weakened. Ahead of him, the Prophet, again and again, still standing, still watching what was outside. Still near the window, standing. Now, the Prophet shifted, then split, his body ribbed with cracks, then splitting his neck, over his eyes, splitting still. Into the air, beams of light, everywhere. Purple light, the result of gold, blue, and red combining.

With that, red expanded and divided into tiny circles. They expanded across his vision like a fractal zoom. They went further until it went into infinity and the colors began to blur. He tried to open his eyes, but he lay pinned underneath thousands of eyes. They blinked around one massive eye that overshadowed the rest and floated above them all. David tried to back away. He couldn't. All he managed to do was move his eyes. They swiveled and rotated into his eyelids, but they were pulled up by an unknown force.

His face froze, he lay frozen, not numb, but life had emptied from him. He stared at the giant eye instead, that looked at him, with a central pupil increasing in jagged crystals. The creature widened its eyes, blinked. Eyes floated around him. The sounds of blinking echoed through the... Where did he lie?... and continued like ocean waves smashing against the sea.

He tried to shut his eyes and get away, but he saw thousands of arms appear holding a thousand eyes. They crowded around each other, trying to see him as a crowd around a Magi. They leered at him, with a horrible, hateful stare that penetrated past his skin, and reached his mind. Red filled his vision with streaks of white but faded away afterward.

A thousand eyes smothered him, covering him, and he almost gasped out, but nothing occurred. Two arms pulled his eyes out of their sockets. They placed them in an eternal view of the Abyss. His eyes balanced above crumbling pillars. One eye dropped, another fell the separate way. David saw everything double, but then those images intersected and faded into one as his eyes collided once and bounced away again.

Then, a thing arrived, walking on fleshy legs, and eyes replacing the heads. Salgon again. They stomped over him, covering him in mud, burying him. He saw nothing, but the continuous red, and saw himself sinking down and down. He imagined boulders, mountains, great things, but only dirt packing, constricting, squeezing his eyes, and...