Into Their Wilderness

The First Dream.

He saw her strung there like meat in a butcher's shop. The chains dangling from the ceiling held her fast and yet, their purpose was dubious; she scarcely seemed alive. The blood seeped through her dress, onto the pallid tiles below. Like the Nile, it didn't stop flowing. The multiple gashes on her arms, legs, back and elsewhere glistened bright red, red as only fresh blood could be. He saw her and yet, he didn't know what he truly saw, for in his mind everything seemed surreal: her, this place, and these people...

The weather exuded serenity and tranquility, the calm after a storm that is content with the tumult it delivers. The air was misty, and slightly damp; edging towards a winter of tribulations. One could almost taste the dew outside while the wind whistled and the grass shifted. On a day worlds apart from this one, he could've indulged in the onrush of vista, freeing himself from the reformatory of his mind and embracing his environs in all its grandeur.

And just past what seemed to be the huge, glass windows of a warehouse, the fans of a windmill would occasionally pass by. They seemed far too patient in their journey of each glimpsing the onslaught happening inside the warehouse. Far too certain...far too deadly. And each turn of those fans exhibited the seconds of blood and torture seeping through the tiles and the clothing they adorned. Would it have hurt less if her apparel wasn't soaked with blood? If he hadn't seen it all happen...would it go away? He couldn't shake the image of their hands, just a pair of hands, roaming her body and the sick, callous things they'd done to her out of his head. They did, he was sure they did. It couldn't have actually been-and he saw a goat, he wasn't sure whether it was a goat precisely but it was cattle of sorts...

He was already succumbing he decided. Ailing. Sickening.

And how could he when he could still smell death in the air, enveloping her; those sweet, nauseating tendrils, claiming what shouldn't be theirs just yet.

Her head had dropped low and her hair masked her face. He was glad he couldn't see those eyes; he wasn't ready to be torn apart.

"Well then! That'll be enough sites seeing for the day, won't it?"

The man looked up at the atrocious figure; an embodiment of heinousness. There was no remorse in that face, not a hint of culpability in that smile. It reached his eyes. They reflected those of a man who believes he has broken another, the eyes of a man who has (in his own mind) achieved a pertinent goal. To him, it didn't matter whether that woman hung there as a grotesque work of art; it was all in the name of a vengeance exhibited in the most abysmal of manners.

A light drizzle trickled down the glass windows and the pitter-patter it made conveyed an air of finality. The weather was inadequately breaking in lieu with a will that had impressively lasted as long as his. He knew that the daisies at Tom's would be carried inside around this time and the market shutters would be drawn. Maria would pick up her sons and collect groceries for the next day. Billy and Charlie would hammer away at the garage until much later at night; of these instances he was certain. He hung onto these sheer recollections wishing to drive away his present situation. Because if he didn't comprehend his circumstances, then they surely were nonexistent; in his mind however...he was still succumbing to the images of a nightmare too horrifying to subsist even in the darkest of nights.

Regardless of the instances he tried recalling, all that he'd seen continued tantalizing him silently. The inhumanity of man had apparently escalated within the past minute.

The men held him fast, bent on one knee. The dried blood caked on his forehead began to itch and the one on his mouth tasted like rusted iron. He wasn't sure he had a voice anymore; his soul might as well have deserted his very being. She'd screamed enough for the both of them.

"Please", he managed to croak. The voice didn't sound like his at all, "Let her go, PLEASE!"

I awoke with a scream parallel to the man's. Shivering uncontrollably, I instantly took in my surroundings...a purple canopy, thick and feathery pillows, drapes that hung low and beautifully...my childhood fantasy dwellings, yes, I was at home.

And safe, it's what mattered most. Even then, I gulped startled.

I don't remember ever having seen that man before; they say you can't seem to recall certain dreams when you wake up, but this one was etched into my mind bright as day. Taking deep breaths, I sat up straighter in bed, and regretted it almost at once since my head started spinning. What was wrong with me, more importantly, what wasn't wrong with what happened to that man? Head full of blurred images regarding blood and glinting metallic objects, I fell into a troubled sleep accompanied by the screams of a former nightmare.

But sleep evaded me once again that night because I awoke not two hours past when I'd stumbled into this disturbed state. Rubbing my hands down my arms, I snuggled into my covers and contemplated. It was beyond strange; I should've been skimping lingerie and working on ways to mock the imbecility of a certain someone I was traveling to meet tomorrow. Instead, I lay awake thinking not of knights and white horses, but visions of blood and tears. After a certain while, I gave up entirely.

Slowly, I pulled the covers off of me, and turned on the bedside lamp. Reaching for the nightstand beside my bed, I pulled open the first drawer and drew out a token of sanity and comfort: Jane Eyre...Reading was a brilliant escape after all, and although I was no coward, I was also not prone to nightmares and their drastic after effects that were sure to consume a large part of my sanity and mind alike.

Tomorrow, I would travel.