In Dreams I Lie

Chapter Eleven: Speaking the Language of the Dead

Author's Note: Dear Readers, just a heads up. This chapter is written in a slightly bizarre style. Some of it might be confusing and you may have to read it more than once. I started the stream of consciousness, then just decided to go for it. Sorry. (Not really)

His form flickers, like it did before. Rivulets of light pulse off his body, falling to the floor, dripping into pools of gossamer down his body. Puddles lie at his feet, sliver and dream like. Maybe they are like blood, maybe they are bits of the moon, chipped away and melted into pieces. Buzzing fills my ears, static and then some, whispers and screaming alternating so quiet I want to scream and so loud I want to cover my ears and let myself go into the current of noise and vibrations. Through this I cannot hear words, though I  know some how someone is speaking.

But yet what are words? Why do they call me? Are words nothing but sounds twisted to shapes in hope to bring such something as one could guess was sense. And yet. They live. Or do they? Life is gone, I know that much, whatever place here is doesn't have it. Life is warmth, combined with light. Everything here is cold, so cold, fringed with grey and silvers. It's all blurred at the edges, white mixing with black mixing with grey to make what, more grey of a different grey? I don't understand.

He's still there, hand outstretched. Where do I know him from? Why does he move like that? Like he wants something from me? The whispers are more solid now. Arcadiel, they sing. Arcadiel, Arcadiel, Arcadiel. Who is that? What do they want from me? Can they want from me? After all, I am nothingness, I am dissolving in they grey right along side the colors.

They scream at me. Arcadeil. Arcadiel. Arcadiel. I want to tell them that I don't know who they are talking about. I want to tell them, the whispers, the boy made of mist, I want to tell the to go, to leave me to never come back, to just leave me alone!

Can't they see that I can't remember? That I do not know what they want?

Please. The word. The whisper. It's different somehow. But I don't care. In front of me, shapes form, only to be blurred back and forth with a paint brush. A stone, littered with a word. The word they chant. Arcadiel. Back. A girl weeping, hair blowing in the wind by a hill. Back. The same girl embracing a boy, kissing him like there's nothing else. The boy, petting her hair. Back. The silver boy this time, being hit by the kissing girl. He falls. He stands in front of a black box, big enough for a person to lie in. Back. The kissing boy, grabbing her hand and pulling her down a corridor. Back  A girl falling, falling from a set of stairs, a different girl this time. She has a knife in her heart. I wonder why. I know her, I know something about her face. Stop. Foreward. Something rises from her, a silhouette, but she's shaky, blurred like everything here. She's being pulled away, air moving her rags around like her ghostly hair. That's what she is, a ghost. She's leaving, and I don't want her to go. It's like some part of me is being ripped away. I try to stand, to go after her, but I can't move, I can't cry out I can't.....I can't. She's almost to the end of the hall now, and I want to weep. I know that I cannot get her back.

The boy is getting closer to me know, almost walking towards me faster than the girl is leaving. His mouth moves. How funny to be able to move here, except nothing is funny because she is going and I can't get her back and I can't follow. He's moving so fast he must be begging me for something. It's in his eyes. I hope he gets what he wants. But he should know that nobody does.

He's looking at me. Arcadiel! The whispers scream. Arcadiel! We don't have much time! Hmm. That's new. Silly boy, silly whispers. There is no time here, only grey and smudges and buzzes and screams.

Arcadiel! Still calling. I what that is. Is it a name? I used to have one once. I wonder who's it is. Maybe it's the name of the girl I wish would stay. Maybe that's why the whispers call with such haste. It could be him, the whispers, his mouth is moving. That's whats needed to produce sound, isn't it? But he's not looking at her. He's looking at me. Everything is fading. Fading into paintmarks and blurs and grey. He's still holding out his hand. Pain cracks his voice as he disappears, the words going with him, he's almost gone and I understand what he wants.

He wants me.

I want to give myself to him, but I can't move. Only my eyes can. I see an arm, my arm. Except, I don't know what my arm looks like. I'm sure it's not this. It's brilliant, glowing, but shadows worm their way inside. I can tell though, that there is the same amount of dark as light. Suddenly, I don't want to be here any more I need to escape, I need to breath, I need to laugh, I need to feel something again.

It hurts. It hurts like fire is bringing my arm away, it is the first feeling here. I move it, inch by inch seeking his. As his fades I reach, my whole body alight with taht terrible, all consuming pain of being split between two worlds. I remember this feeling. It was almost constant, I must have not realized I had it until It was gone.

I think we aren't going to meet and despair shatter's its dark windows and wells inside me. He disappears completely. I have to reach him. I have to escape this place. There's a pull, a pull bellow my sternum and I'm lifting. The pain is worse, worse by hundreds and hundreds of fold. I can feel warmth though. I am heading towards it, and im my chest blooms a warmth I've forgotten. Could it be hope? But to quickly overwhelm it is the tearing, the burning of my soul, heart, and skin. It mounts, until there is nothing left but the agony, until my vision is blind and even my eyes cannot move, but then it's gone.

I float, air pushing past me in winds I forgot existed. Arcadiel. That was what he chanted. Arcadiel. That is my name. I move. I stand, feet solid on the ground. The sun is just rising over the trees. I stand there, marveling to be alive again. The air has never felt like this before. The pain is gone. In it's place lies a balance, a balance I have never known. My powers have stopped warring with each other. I stretch my hands up to the sky, to touch the sun. Something pulls at my back, and I realize that behind me stretch wings. Two beautiful, feathered wings, one shining and one in shadow, grow from my spine. I am ready.