Memories (Of Dreams and Demons)

A Picture Paints a Million Words

This is the first rough draft for Chapter 33 - A Picture Paints a Million Words - plot and action outline, needs polish and to paint the background scene.

This time it isn't like the time I fell asleep.

No. One moment I'm exploring the Realm with Naoko, rediscovering the path we took as children through the wild forest, setting another fire in a secluded clearing, and the next.. the next I'm standing in a darkness that extends in every direction.

A sound invades my mind: the sound water makes on your ears when you tune out in the shower, a harsh, deep crackling constantly beating at your eardrums, surreal, as if you stand within another world where sound is broken.

The ripples of a thousand falling waterdrops, pitter-pattering on a pool of water on a shower floor; the empty space when you run your fingers through the light emptiness of clear water.

I'm standing in a rain of fire. Burning, hot water drenches my clothes, flattens my hair. Smoke and steam fills the empty space around me, fog making it impossible to see further than a few meters. A chamber of coal, a black prison threatening to drown me should I not burn.

A man kneels before me, his head bowed, covered in shadows. Moving shadows, alive, of screaming faces and clawing hands, pouring forth from gaping holes in his ethereal body. It's him! Again! The man of shadow!

But he does not move, he does not glare hatred. Does he even know I'm here? Trapped in a space devoid of anything but burning water, I try not to cry out, to scream, even as I feel my skin tingle with the coming heat.

He seems so different unmoving, kneeling, beneath me. But my heart races, pounding louder than the water drumming in my eardrums. His shadows creep about, black vines crawling along the floor even here, and they find me.

I scream, but it's instantly cut off by shadows flooding into my mouth.

"Be quiet, boy," the man of shadow snarls without glancing up, "I cannot kill you just yet."

He looks up at me, faceless, expressionless, nothing but shadows droop and slide from where his face should be, his eyes ebon vortexes that drain what little light surrounds us.

"You're taking so much of what has happened in stride," he hisses, "a foolish child running away with his imagination."

The shadows that fall on the space between us is like spit he lets loose in disrespect at my mere presence.

"You know this is not normal, dont you?" He continues, "not real."

I say nothing, my mouth forced to silence by shadows thst lock me in place. I cannot move, cannot run, cannot scream.

"You know," he continues, "questioning your story at every turn, every moment of respite, yet then you take a breath and continue on, with Naoko at your side, as if it were the most natural thing in the world."

"And why do you think that is? Why do you continue? Why do you accept this as part of your tale?"

"You entertain it as a child might a fantastical tale found only in books.. eager to read its.. happy ..ending."

"But this is not a fairytale, child. The answer you seek, the ending you desire, it is not here. They will not be found."

"Here you will find only death," his cruel laugh echoes madness, "only death is real."

"I have your answer, child. I know your ending. But you will get nothing from me. You will find only death at my hands. You and your petulant nuisance, Naoko. You will both die. Completely. Forever."