A Touch Of Lightning (COMPLETED!)

Chapter 31 Raina and The Scar

       

Chapter 31 Raina and The Scar

Raina twisted in the sheets, her eyes clamped tightly shut. Clamped against an inner battle like the gates shut against a marching army of the undead. In her dreams she was running across a field littered with pale, colorless bodies. Bodies without features, like hyper-realistic mannequins, lying about the field like litter tossed by an earth-shaking storm.

It was a storm right behind her, threatening to drain all color out of her, to rip her features off and strip her down to just a hollow shell like the tens of thousands of empty bodies she now ran over.

Running, pouring everything she had into panicked motion, her heart shrieking in her chest, and terror crawling up and down her skin like a hundred slimly lizards with icy feet. Running onward, running. A strangled whimper thrashed around in her throat, but she didn't dare let it out, for to do so would be to give up.

She didn't dare look behind her. She knew what was hunting her, she knew that storm. It was a gray creature, a being that was made of nothing but shattered pieces of reality, with edges that could never fit together. It knew her too, she could hear its laughter, a sound like stones being ground to dust against unyielding steel. The laughter of the storm of chaos. She could sense its unholy glee, could sense it loved the thrill of the chase, she knew it was intentionally dragging it out.

Then, just behind her, she felt it. The beginning of the touch of its frigid tendrils. Tendrils that would burrow into her heart of hearts and begin to rip and rend. As the foul bands began to wrap around her, she abruptly stopped running. It was useless.

Deep within her, she felt something sudden, something blinding hot and huge, rise up. Molten rage boiling up, finally free. If she was to die, she would do everything in her power to take her killer with her!

She spun around and met its eyes, a surge of satisfaction rippling through her at its surprise. Her power was twisting about inside, utterly wild, a torrent of inner fire threatening to sweep away anything in its path. She was going to unleash it entirely at this creature that had dared to try to rend her mind, she would throw her power at it and watch it unravel and burn. But first she focused her mind as she had never before, needing to do one final thing before she unleashed the tidal wave of her power.

She made her power gather in her eyes, every last blazing element of it. Then, with a terrible smile across her lips, she looked the creature straight in the eyes. And the hunter became the hunted.

The wall of her power rose up beyond the limit of the sky, a twisting, churning tower with razor edges, and then in less than an instant it wrapped around the creature. And it began to howl. The sound of a mind unravelling, piece by wretched piece. And it was Raina's turn to laugh.

Her own laughter made her sit up in bed, chest heaving, little trails of chilly sweat streaking their way down her face. Exhilaration made her laugh for real as she jumped from bed, feeling so light and free that it felt like she could literally float. She had defeated her nightmare, she had used her power to rid herself of the dream creature that had been tormenting her ever since Callin had first come to the mansion! She couldn't wait to tell Ahleena!

Then, before she had even left the bedroom, she sensed that Ahleena was not in her room. Instead, standing out in the living room of the cabin, was the Ninja. A spear of focus so complete her mind itself was a weapon.

"Ahleena?" Raina whispered.

Ahleena had felt the Flayer as it had attacked Callin. She had also felt it reaching its power across the miles, trying to attack Raina, to sneak past her defenses and kill her in her sleep. Trying to kill their resident shield. It was a simple plan. Kill Riana first, then use its disabling psionic attack to paralyze all within the mansion lands, so it could kill them all uncontested.