Spookyness

Indigo Dream

*Credit to AP Matt*

A man stands upright with arms outstretched and secured with thin, gossamer strands of silky spiderweb. Both of his arms are tied and pulled by the wrists, gently at first but with ever increasing effort. One pulls one way and his body sways to the left. The other pulls him to the right. Every once in a while the man is pulled by both at once and he screams in pain, his arms stretching and his skin tearing and tearing. Finally both sides tug with such terrible aggression that the man is split in half evenly down the middle, from the top of his skull to the middle of his torso. Both torn halves drop loosely to his sides, where blood and bone and twisted flesh sit heavy and wet. Out from the hot, dripping mess - from between the skin and the muscle, between the bone and the guts - hundreds and thousands of black spiders crawl their way out and scurry away into the shadowy corners of the room, leaving little red pinpricks of blood with each thorny step.

Bernard wakes up to see a small spider clinging to his ceiling. He throws his bedside journal at the tiny thing... but it is gone. Bernard is left wondering if the spider had actually been there and had fallen and vanished behind the dresser - or if he'd imagined it. Given the nature of his dream, he didn't like either prospect.

*P.2*

A man sits in a darkened prison cell, arms wrapped around his knees, rocking back and forth to the rhythm of waves crashing. Moonlight fills the room with columns of pale blue. He closes his eyes and can see what the dead have forgotten. The water, the waves, the salty taste of tears and the sea... His eyes snap open and he crawls to the nearest wall, all the while chewing open his fingertips until blood rolls down his palms and his teeth are red. He drags his raw, open fingertips across the rough brick walls, drawing lines and spirals and twisted shapes with his blood - decorating the wall of his prison cell with the strangest of arcane symbols.

He smiles his crimson, bloody grin and slowly backs away, nodding his head to the rhythm of waves crashing - always crashing, always crashing. He sits back and wraps his arms around his knees, admiring his drying red artwork. No other words make sense to him anymore. He closes his eyes, closes them tight and resolute, and says the one word left to say: Yes.

Water bursts in through the window, the sea rushing in to greet him. The salty flood of the cold ocean water envelops him, encircles him, embraces him. The man spreads his lips and the water washes the blood from his teeth; he smiles as the water enters his lungs and he begins to drown. The room is full, floor to ceiling, with the icy cold water of the sea. Pale columns of moonlight shimmer through the ebb and flow of the water and a thin, blurry silhouette enters through the bars of the window. A fish swims slowly and patiently into the room, a fish with silver, shining scales and eyes that glow as pale as the full moon's light.

Bernard wakes up and, for a moment, vibrates with terror to feel himself soaking wet. Wiping the drops from his brow, he takes a deep breath then realizes it is sweat and not sea water. He flips through his journal with wet fingers and fumbles around his nightstand for a pen. This has been his third dream this week about a silver fish with pale yellow eyes.

*P.3*The Bog*

A pair of tall, thin figures in black robes walk through a swamp, the moon barely a sliver in the sky. Dried mud is caked on the bottoms of their robes and the edges of their sleeves. Their slender hands filthy with years of unwashed grime and dirt. They drag a beautiful young woman behind them, two nooses around her neck, one held by each of the hooded figures. The three arrive at a large pool of tarry black mud, bubbling and steaming in peculiar ways. A tall spike of black stone juts out from the center of the bog, the roots of surrounding trees wrapping around the sides of the monolith like veins. 

The black-robed figures violently turn on the young girl, stripping her clothes off so that her fair, unblemished virgin skin is bare and naked to the world. She tries to cower and cover herself but the two figures walk around opposite sides of the bog, holding the ropes tight, forcing the girl forward with every step they take. She tries to scream and keep herself out of the filth, but the bubbling, churning tar clings to her bare feet. 

The hooded figures watch as the girl struggles and sinks and screams and sobs into the muck. Black, gritty mud covers her breasts and after a few moments, overcomes her shoulders, her neck, her chin. Her last scream is cut in half by a gurgle and half a second later, her terrified eyes are gone beneath the mud. Silence falls.

The two hooded figures throw back their hoods and utter a solemn prayer to an unknown god. They are two old women, their wrinkled faces and frizzled hair covered with filth and dirt. They walk back to the front of the bog, dragging the ropes of the nooses as they walk to meet each other. A thick, slow bubble churns up from the depths where the girl has sunken. The roots of the trees uncurl from around the giant stone pillar and ---

Bernard sits awake to the sound of the shrill buzzing of his alarm clock. He swears to himself and takes a deep breath as he hits the snooze button. He cannot think of anything other than the girl in the mud, wondering what he would have seen had he not been roused from his dark, indigo dream.

*P.4*The Bog*p.2*

The place is familiar to him. The bog. The girl sinking beneath the dark, sticky tar. The two hooded figures turn down their hoods to reveal the faces of skeletal old women. He sees...

The two old crones grip their ropes and watch as the vines come to life and uncurl from the stone obelisk. They reach down into the black bog below and wriggle around, feeling for something. The old women brace themselves, waiting for the pull.

The thick, black tar begins to churn. Something below is thrashing and flailing about. The robed, gray-haired women set their feet and keep their grip on the rope. It is almost done.

The bubbling and churning stops. Silently, the vines slither up the sides of the black stone pillar, resuming their slimy, sticky place on the obelisk.

It is done.

The old women pull - pull at the ropes with all their might - and their feet dig into the soft shore of the tar-pit. The rope is stained black and dripping with tar of thd rotting bog. Inch by inch, foot by foot, they pull the young girl out of the depths.

She rises. Her body is limp and covered with tar. Her hair is matted to her face and the two ropes around her neck are tight. As she slides up the shore of the bog, the sight of her swollen stomach can be seen. The virgin girl is now huge with child and ready to burst.

The crones remove the sticky nooses from the girl's neck. Turned onto her side, the girl vomits up the bog's black slime and gasps for breath. The crones immediately begin to tend to her - the child is coming soon.

She screams. She tears open. She bleeds. The birth is over quickly and as her sobbing dies away, a strange bleating sound emerges. The dark child is born. The two old women smile and, together, they lift an infant goat from the girl's womb. 

-

Bernard wakes. He is standing in line at a café waiting to place his order. Shudders ripple up his spine for two reasons: the terrible birth he just witnessed and the fact that, for the first time, he had one of his special, indigo dreams while his was awake.

*P.5*

The world spins in reverse. An hourglass, the sand falling backward from bottom to top. An eye, its swollen eyelids sewn shut with coarse, blood-soaked thread. As the hourglass unfills itself, the eye becomes unsewn, the needle working its way in reverse until each inflamed, angry stitch is undone - the dark blood rolls back up the cheek to where the piercing needle is removed and the skin is left unharmed. The eyelids snaps open wide - three pupils on a single eyeball, each one alien and terrible, each one filled with madness and rage, each one fighting to roll the eye it's way so that it may see out into the world. The hourglass empties itself from bottom globe to top.

Bernard wakes up and scrambles for his journal, scribbling down what he can remember before the dream is lost to him.