Memories (Of Dreams and Demons)

A Slipping Facade

This is the first rough draft for A Slipping Facade - plot and action outline, needs polish and to paint the background scene.  

Everything happens in a blur. The final seconds of our short battle rush past my mind frame after frame almost faster than I can keep up. Something is different this time, as if a veil is slowly being lifted from the world around me. Only the light glow of Naoko's orb remains bobbing within the center of the clearing, as chaos unfolds around. Chaos that finally forces the truth of.. everything: none of this is real.

The silhouette of Naoko turns sharply as I fall, her hand reaches out as she calls my name. A figure blurred behind blood red mist, a girl I too try to reach out to in return. But she is too far away, pulled apart from me in the midst of battle. Even she fades into the background around her, shimmering on the edges of fantasy.

The slick tongue of the mutant boar splits apart into multiple slimy strands to wrap around me as it pulls me close. Bloodshot red crazy eyes latch on to mine as its face detracts, mutated flesh hanging loose between pristine white fangs. It stings where it wraps around my torso, my skin hissing as if burnt, the spit of the beast a toxic shock.

Latching on, it glides through the air as if it were a graceful swan rather than slobbering beast, before slamming face first into my chest. Jagged, rot-encrusted horns slide a moment against my rib-cage, before crunching bone, breaking my ribcage, and digging deep into my my internal organs. My whole body jolts in shock as the fangs follow the tusks.

My world shatters apart as I fall. A rush of breath can't leave fast enough from my punctured lungs at the force of the crash. On my back, my eyes rest on the thick forest beyond the chaos. The leaves sway so gently in a light breeze, but they are falling away, each piece peeling away as if flaking away from canvas. What happened to the coming storm?

A darkness drapes over my vision, splotches of red bloom over where I should see clearly, as if the blood vessels in my eyes have burst apart in agony. I can't feel anything but enormous waves of pain that come and go between an ocean of numbness. All I can do is lay helpless as an enormous weight crushes me.

This is it. This is.. really it.

At least we are victorious, if barely. I can still see a little beyond blood and darkness. Around me, the rabbits finish off the last of the boar-hounds. Covered head to toe in plate smeared with fur and gore, Chai looks a tank bathed in sacrificial blood, a mountain of death. He glares down at the twitching boar at his feet, strands of shadow twirling up and down his forearms as he stomps on its skull.

"This is for her," he hisses.

I lie on my side, reaching out to Naoko as she rushes to my side, the colour drained from her face. She looks a ghost, forgotten in the world she's left behind, fearful of being forgotten in this world too. So pale. So beautiful.. Her frantic dash towards me is like a dream, so slow, her hair gliding upwards as if gravity forgot to exist. She's fading before my eyes. I try to smile at her. I wonder if I manage.

Pain.

Do I die?

Darkness falls. The world goes black. The Realm ceases to be. I lie crippled on a bed of nothing. Even the weight of the boar has vanished. Yet pain remains. Such pain. I turn my head up; I want to gaze upon any last light before it flickers away forever.

The stranger stands over me. The one I met in the hallway. Red cloth covers his entire face, messy hair whips up frantically in every direction. The only features I can make out are his eyes, that jet black eye of death still there, piercing my soul. And a deep red scar that runs down his forehead towards that eye.

They lock upon me with such a force. His glare causes his eyes to tighten. I think he's frowning beneath the cloth that hides him. Disappointed, he shakes his head slightly, before glancing up. At what I can't see, there's nothing there but darkness.

'This matchup is a little unfair," he muses, sighs, "I suppose it can't be helped."