A Little More Time...

THIRTEEN

Ryan forced himself up to his feet. Nightmares. What was his worst nightmare they had asked. Now it was his turn to ask that same question. What was their worst nightmare?

The flicker of a memory invaded Ryan's vision for an instant. The way Brendon had tossed and turned, screaming as pure hated fueled Ryan.

He had been able to hurt a demon. He could hurt humans.

"What's out there?" A voice carried out into the night air. It didn't sound afraid.

Ryan would change that.

It was almost like someone else was in control of his body. It moved forward, but he put no effort into the motions. He was about to round the corner of the barn when he suddenly found himself sitting on the dusty ground.

His body ached, and he could feel dirt caked on his skin. He blinked as his brows set in confusion. What happened? He looked around, seeing that he was sitting in the barn. He was practically smack dab in the middle of the building.

He reached up to push his fingers through his hair, trying to piece together what had just happened. There were no sounds anymore, not even a faint cricket off in the distance; there was only a deafening silence.

"Hello?" Ryan leaned forward, pressing his hand against the dirt around him. "Is anyone there?"

Out of the corner of his eye, a shadow shot from one pit of darkness to another. Ryan turned his head immediately to follow its movement, despite the throbbing pain that followed. He held his head, but didn't waver his gaze from where he had seen the shadows move.

"I know you're there." Ryan called out. He was torn over who he'd rather have step out of the shadows; Brendon, or any other creature of Hell.

Much to Ryan's surprise, however, a glowing sheet of paper flew out of the shadows towards him. He watched with wide eyes as it twirled through the air before coming to an arching swoop right above his head. The paper passed just in front of his face before smoothly landing on the ground in front of him. He stared at it, unsure what to make of it. It looked so familiar...

"Claim the souls you've reaped, Ryan Ross."

Ryan jumped at the empty voice that addressed him. His head shot up to see the Soul Keeper stepping out of the shadows. The blackness on his skin looked like it pulled at the shadows surrounding the creature, rising on his skin and darkening his outline.

"I-I didn't kill anyone." Ryan shook his head, "I was outside and then right here."

The Soul Keeper tilted his head. "You are as powerful as the nightmares you enduce."

"What?"

The Soul Keeper gestured to the glowing paper that rested on the ground just in front of Ryan. "Touch it to learn of what I speak."

The paper glowed in front of Ryan, further tempting him to do as the Soul Keeper said. Ryan reached out, but hesitated just short of touching the paper. His vision had began to grow fuzzy the closer his fingers came to touching it. He blinked a few times, but it didn't seem to help. He leaned forward, pressing his hand flat against the ground and letting his fingers brush against the rectangle of light.

Ryan gasped as the world went completely dark around him. He was sitting in nothingness.

"No, please!"

Ryan turned his head, looking for the source of the echoing voice. Whoever it was, they sounded terrified.

"Your fear will be your downfall, not me."

Ryan's eyes widened. That was his voice. He had no recollection of speaking those words. When the hell had he said that, and what did it mean?

As if something heard the question in his head, an image appeared before him. It was huge, so huge that Ryan had to lean back in order to view it in its entirety.

He saw the inside of the barn. The men inside, five of them, were drawing out a pentagram on the ground. Robes hung from a hook that came down from the ceiling. For now, they were just wearing normal clothes. If it weren't for the bright red pentagram being painted in the dirt in the middle of the barn, it might seem like some kind of farmer's gathering.

One of the men, a man with short, jet black hair, turned away from the satanic project. "Someone's out there."

The others echoed his words, making Ryan flinch at the memory it brought.

"No witnesses."

The man clicked his fingers, pointed at two of the other men, and pointed them towards the barn's door. The two men obeyed almost immediately, dropping what they were doing in order to hurry to the door. Before they had made it a few feet from the pentagram, however both men froze.

"I gave you instruction!" The man in charge boomed, the other two echoing his sentence, "Our emperor will not tolerate hesitation."

Despite this, the men didn't move. They stood, rooted to the spots they had stopped.

Ryan watched as one of the frozen men began to choke. His body convulsed before water began to seep out of his mouth. Then, it trinkled out of his nose and ears. It was all slow at first, but then the water began to pick up momentum. Ryan watched as the man's eyes popped out of his skull, forced out by a gush of water.

There was no blood. The man simply dropped, continuing to leak water.

The second frozen man started screaming. He didn't convulse like the first man; he stared ahead and just screamed at something that wasn't there.

"What is this?" The man in charge took a step forward, but was immediately sent flying backwards. He fell to the ground, where he appeared to be pinned by his struggle and failure to rise. "Who dares interrupt the preparation of a sacrifice to our emperor!?" He practically snarled. The others echoed, much softer.

A laugh cut through the air. A smug laugh. An already victorious laugh. Ryan's laugh?

"Where did the party go?" He heard himself ask with another laugh. He wasn't anywhere on the screen, which only confused Ryan even more as to what was happening. He was watching the scene unfold from a down looking angle, where was he? "I thought it would be harder than this." With those words, the head of the screaming man was suddenly jerked around by an invisible force. There was an eerie second of silence and stillness in the air before the body dropped to the ground with a thud.

"Show yourself!" The man on the ground demanded, turning his head from side to side. "Cowardly creature!"

That, the two still creating the pentagram didn't echo.

"Cowardly?" Ryan's voice was the one to echo the man, though it was filled with a rage that Ryan had never heard from himself.

Suddenly, the angle that Ryan was watching the scene through shifted. It dropped down from its high view, becoming level with the two men standing in the now complete pentagram. Their eyes were wide with fear.

"You intend to sacrifice a mother and unborn child." The two men in front of him stiffened. Their gaze became far away as their eyes glazed over. "You kidnapped and murdered a random man from the streets, yet you call me cowardly?"

The view moved towards the still men. An arm reached out; Ryan's arm.

Ryan's jaw dropped; he was watching what happened through his own eyes.

"A watermelon seed growing in your stomach is a very childish nightmare." He heard himself taunt before flicking his finger towards one of the men.

The man in question, a middle aged and balding man, suddenly grabbed his gut. He didn't have a chance to scream before his stomach exploded. Watermelon pieces flew through the air and continued to spill out of the man's open gut. He fell to his knees as the light drained from his eyes. He didn't fully drop until it was completely gone.

Ryan then watched himself turn towards. The other man with glazed over eyes. "Mauled by a bear. Though unlikely, much more plausible."

Ryan was thankful that his past self turned away as the screaming began.

He instead watched as his past self looked down upon the man who was pinned to the ground by an invisible force. He felt a burning in his chest, just looking down at the man. "How cowardly am I, to look the man I intend to murder in the face as I take his life?"