The Living Shadow was hot on her tail, able to climb uphill by producing a rolling motion with the liquid at the front, like a front-wheeled vehicle of sorts. The noise generated by this convection cell was bone-chilling; almost like waves at a beach, but only just different, which made it all the worse. Rather than making a sound like massaging the land, as the waves did, the Darkness sounded as if it were crushing it and assaulting it. The pitch was lower and it sounded much more like a bottomless rumble. In addition, as Valkyrie dashed back through the dark corridors from whence she had come, she could hear pillars and handrails splintering as the merciless Abyss overtook them.
She managed to, by no shortage of effort, stay in front of the Black Ocean, and eventually she came to the door which lead from the suffocating black of those corridors to the energizing aura of the castle of Dreamvale. She burst out of that bitter land and entered the land of lollipops and rainbows at midday; a transition so disorienting that it made her feel rather faint. Even in that short time, she questioned deeply about what had come to pass. Had it all been a bad dream? Was this really happening? She might have stopped to pinch herself or pour cold water on herself had the wretched gurgling of the Nightmare Matter not snapped her out of it.
Something very peculiar happened to Valkyrie’s surroundings as the Darkness drew close. It almost seemed to be capable of stealing the joy right out of the air, for the bright pastels of the inner halls of the castle darkened into various, almost-black shades of red and purple whenever the Nightmare was about twenty yards away. This made Valkyrie’s escape from it horrifyingly vivid; for while the walls nearby were always black-red like the inside of a vast demon’s mouth, she could always see the bright pastels of the castle twenty yards off, teasing her with the prospect of salvation.
As to where she was escaping to, her destination was not the exit of the castle. The obvious reason for this was that she had temporarily forgotten where the exit was. But another reason stood within her, driving her to dash towards the room where the after-party of her coronation was. She wanted Morpheus, in a way that many daughters have experienced but that few of them ever understand. She would rather, as it were, die in his arms – for he had become like a father to her – than to live in a state of exile and loneliness as the Nightmare pursued her to the ends of the earth.
As she ran through the halls of the castle towards this destination, bits and pieces of the Black Ocean would fork off into different rooms to wreak even more havoc. Valkyrie’s heart palpitated viciously within her when first she heard the blood-curdling shriek of its first victim, which was quickly suffocated into a hair-raising gurgling noise – the victim having likely been drowned by the bottomless Ocean of the Damned. Valkyrie’s guilt was unbearable. “I just wanted an adventure…” she said, followed by an onslaught of self-criticism. And the shrieks grew ever in fear, volume, and number.
YOU ARE READING
Nightmares
Fantasy“C’mon,” Flip said to Valkyrie somewhat mischievously (a mood which was wholly inappropriate for the situation at hand), “Let’s open it.” He was referring, of course, to the imposing wooden door which stood before them, some three times Valkyrie’s...
