Trails of Intertwined Stars: Chapter 74

~Chapter 86: The Mournful Bride~

Had Jiu known that many nights he would experience some uncanny sensation of a dream with great meaning, perhaps it wouldn't have been so much of a shock. Perhaps he would have anticipated a warning from the beyond. Yet, in his preoccupied mind, he hadn't. The first odd dream, which he'd had in the month of September, just after he'd seen a headline about Annie Chapman's death to the killer going around Whitechapel. This dream, at the time, had nothing to do with such an affair, but he thought that perhaps his unrest of mind following the murder had caused it to spiral. The dream consisted as followed:

Jiu stood in a large masquerade hall; it wasn't the manor's, it was some other room it seemed. He stood in the centre of the room as the many elegantly masked figures flit and spun around him; quite like how shadows move from candlelight. They all wore sombre outfits, as if mourning some inevitable loss. Their masks were all grim; some light, some dark in colour, but the tone was morbid. Some sobbing. Some grimacing. The odd mask screaming in agony, tears pooling at its base. It was a disturbingly grim dance, and laughter seemed to fill the hall. It wasn't a happy laugh either. It was malicious and cruel, as if taunting him about something. Jiu noticed he, himself, wasn't wearing his usual clothes. His hair was loose, and rolled down his chest. He wore a mask, and this mask was arguably the most grim of them all. Tears sculpted to roll down its cheeks, set in a mournful express with a mouth cut off revealing his own. He felt his face, only to find his flesh damp. Tears. Like the mask, he too was crying. He was in a dark sequin suit, that flickered like stars in the sky under the flame light of the chandeliers. He stared up at the chandeliers, marvelling at how they'd been painting a dark black tone. It was then he realised the chandelier wasn't all it seemed. It was a cage. No, a chandelier? Perhaps both. The flames of candle light surrounded it, and the cruel dark cage of the chandelier enclosed a figure.

She sat there, wearing the only pale outfit in the entire masquerade hall. It looked to be a...wedding dress? A European one at that, anyway. The white fabric was long, and drooped down from the chandelier gaps; ragged and looked as though it had been pulled apart. Blood stained. The veil covered her face, but it could not conceal the heavy noise of sobs. Mournful sobs. Desperate sobs. The figure grasped at the bars of the chandelier, and it started to slowly spin around with the dancers; mocking the person inside. It was a slow spin, but it was cruel, as if showing off the pitiful sight of the bride in her cage. Jiu couldn't help but watch as she let out mournful weeps, grasping at the bars; the flames flickering around as it spun tauntingly. The cries seemed to grow louder. Jiu went to cover his ears, but found his hands glued to his side. From the dress, blood dripped down. Jiu recoiled, scared he'd be hit by the droplet; only to find it was not in fact blood. A rose petal. His breath hitched, grasping it and running his fingers gently over the velvety fabric. More of these petals fluttered down from her dress, and intertwined with the dancers as they made their rounds across the hall. Sweeping and swooning. The petal in his grasp wrinkled and rotted, a horrid smell escaping it. Flesh. Jiu gasped, dropping it; squishing it with his boot as to hope to get rid of it. Blood pooled under his boot. He gently lifted it to reveal something he was not quite expecting.

A dagger. It looked like an ornate type. A gold handle, and a red ruby in the centre, with flicks of other colours surrounding it. The silver blade covered in a sheen of blood that made his stomach drop at the sight. Jiu couldn't take his eyes off it, as if haunted by it in some shape or form. The bride sobbed hysterically, starting to thrash and tug at the bars now; like she was pleading. He could only make out the faint attempts at a prayer to god, pleading for forgiveness; hysterically. The petals faded to blood, and it rained over the dancers, whose laughter turned into screams of agony, washing their outfits in the bride's misery. The candles around the chandelier grew larger and more ferocious, as if trying to lick up the cage whole. The bride lay in the cage, sobbing, as if offering herself whole to the infernal blaze. Jiu sniffed. Smoke.

With a gasp, he sat upright in bed; relieved to find it was just a dream. He sighed in relief, glancing around the room to make sure everything was the same as normal. Nothing seemed out of place. The rose in the vase by the side made his heart lurch for a moment, but then he recalled the maid Susan putting it in the vase for him a few days ago. He sniffed the air. The faint scent of smoke. That wasn't good. He ran downstairs in an instant, to the servants kitchen. It seemed one of them had left something flammable on the stove top with the hob on. He cursed, turning it off and swiftly thrusting the burning thing into a bucket of water a servant had left in the sink. He watched the flames extinguish in a puff and hiss of smoke; revealing the limp sheet of paper. The newspaper about the recent Jack the Ripper Victim. The ghost general watched as the crisp paper sunk slowly to the bottom, only leaving behind the words: Killed.