The Corruption

Chapter 10

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Have you ever felt awake in a dream?
Ever opened your eyes so wide while they kept themselves closed?
Once you became aware of your own unconscious state, you are given the opportunity to become a sort of omnipotent deity in the realm of your dreams.
You became capable of shaping every part of that illusion world, to change it as you plead, and to let it fall back into the darkest pit of your mind at your own volution.
But what happens when you cannot control it?
What happens when you cannot wake up?
Well, one could say that when such situation arrives that's when a conscient dream crosses the thin line to the most terrible nightmare...

A mess is what it is.
A hurricane of a destroyed dream.
Chaos.
And in the middle of that chaos stood Killian. Around him the personification of disorder and confusion. His senses were being filled to the brim, enough to leave an ordinary person in a state of utter terror and confusion. Screams and cries filled his ears. His nose was invaded by the metallic scent of blood and smoke, the same smoke that he would swear he could even taste. And through his eyes he could all the destruction. Houses falling apart. Fire and blood everywhere. People fighting. People dying.

Killian was not surprised. Trought all of this, his face remained in that same expressionless grin that never left his lips. He had seen this very same distorted horror show so many times before. He was also extremely aware that he was not in the physical world as no matter how real it all felt, the actual scene had been more horrifying than any dream could recreate. He knew it was a dream. He knew it very well. He knew a kid would run past him with a grotesque monster behind him. He knew the kid would fall in between the fire. He knew that another kid would shield the boy from the monster before sliding to the floor unconscious with his chest pierced. And then it would end with a scream, and he would wake up.

But it didn't end. Instead, it all just turned pitch black. Silent. Not a single sound.

Now he was confused, his left hand twitched slightly as he looked around in the darkness, trying and failing to find anything. . .

Suddenly a sharp pain shot through his back, like his own body was melting under a toxic substance. A shrieking sound got caught in his throat as the agony made him bend his back, the grin disappearing from his face for a split second. And just as he was able to overcome the surprise and suppress the pain to force his own body to stand back straight again, he saw a silhouette in front of him, back turned to him. "ᛁ×ᛗ ᛋᚩᚱᚱᛁ ᚾᚩᚳᛋ. . ." The silhouette said something, but he couldn't bring himself to focus on the sound, his whole body stood in place, as if he had just been turned into stone. His mouth moved in silent, mouthing a name he should had forgotten long ago. The pain had subsided by this point, he couldn't feel anything, being to focus on the silhouette. There was no grin in his face, no glint in his eyes, nothing but an inexplicable expression. His left hand twitched again as it started raising itself unconsciously, but soon enough he broke free from the daze, pulling his left hand back with his right one, ignoring the quivering. He stood straight, and ran a hand through his black locks, the usual smirk appearing once more on his face and narrowing his eyes, as much as he tried to cover it up there was a visible spark of irritation hiding behind his pale golden orbs. He looked around once more, this time noticing a glint of light just behind the silhouette, clearly a trap, yet at this point he didn't either care or had any other choice, so he advanced towards it. He halted his step for a mere fragment of a second has he came to a touching distance of the silhouette, but he didn't stop, passing right trough the mirage and watching at it dissolved in smoke covering up his field of vision. When the smoke fully disappeared the scenario had changed, there was no longer only an empty void surrounding him, there was also no absolute chaos and destruction, on the contrary, there was a peaceful image, so quiet that it felt like a painting, there were two small houses standing next to each other, muffled voices of laughter could still be heard through the doors, there were small plants and trees surrounding a small pond. The definition of lovely.