Dreamworlds

The Pact

I.

I wish to be lost among the stars, encapsulated by dreams and the cold embrace of icy tendrils extending ever far from the dark places in the universe. My mind aches for release. A tempo of beating cascades warily down my spine into my extremities willing me to escape into the shadows I see extending from my door. The world hidden in plain sight just beyond fingers touch calls to me. It whispers, it screams, it beckons. When my eyes close I can feel a presence ever looming, watching, waiting for my inevitable release from this plane. I wish to succumb to it. I wish to obey but the mortal coil is wound too tightly around my heart and soul. Greater measures must be taken to abide this new arbiter of the dark. A being of great power and knowledge that I wish to confer with. To bind with. To become one with.

Simply expiring will not do the trick, for when the soul is released, as I am told in old books, it shoots like lighting, and quicker still, towards its final destination on the astral plane. The being, in whispers, has told me that it is not powerful enough to stop this from transpiring so my attempts at self-murder to become part of the darkness have been stopped. Until...until I have found a way to undo the binding.

The being has instructed me that there is a way to get the things I want. The knowledge I so yearn for the freedom I long for. I must uncoil the bond without dying. Un-tether myself without falling. Unhinge my mind without letting spill my sanity. Creep up to the edge, peer over and let weightlessness take over. There are a series of trials which I must complete to win my prize. Each harder than the last but each more worth the struggle. I will lose a part of myself, it says, but I will gain a part of it. My eyes widen, my heart explodes, and my tongue salivates at the thought. Untapped eldritch knowledge, ancient wisdom and power all for myself. I couldn't wait to get started.

The shadow beyond my door shimmered as if in laughter at my boyish excitement then it smoothed to a soft waving as if to calm me down. The whisper returned telling me that I must steel myself for the coming trials. That I will only succeed with a strong will, not just a strong enthusiasm. I returned to it with an affirmation that I was willing and ready to do anything necessary to achieve this goal. Anything dark, anything sinister, anything...unholy, in the face of god to become what I sought so. The shadow waited a moment to reply. In that moment I imagined with renewed fervor the being that I would become. The entity of immensity that would loom evermore across the shadowed places in the world. The daemon of arcane worlds that would be feared, whispered about in secret and hidden from in times of fear.

The shadow relented and took a form much like smoke and wafted towards me in my sheets. It snuffed out the candles flame still burning to create the shadows but the light was eerily still present as if the shadow swallowed the flame and let it burn inside. Forming the orange and yellow light into a deep purple shimmering sad spark of light. My heart exploded as the shadow encroached upon my sheets flowing like fog over ice up towards my face. My eyes expectant grew wide in anticipation. The whisper returned, saying this was the first step. With a rush the shadow engulfed my face and swam into my lungs. I felt the presence invade my form then settle like a man putting on a suit. I felt myself and I felt it as two separate beings until it settled and I felt it no longer. I also didn't feel myself as I had just moments before. I felt renewed, upgraded, rejuvenated. I heard the whisper, now a loud booming coming from deep inside me.

"Your first trial...take the blood of your blood and slake my thirst with it."

"Yes," I whispered to the dark, "I will." The light now dead in the room, I felt only the darkness. There was a vibration all around me as sleep finally took me that night. No more need for light, no more need for warmth. Only the dark. Only the trials.

II.

Awake from a nightmare. The landscape is barren. Only ash and dust and sand. Or is it ice? The light has faded, only an apparition, an afterthought of light remains. I can't discern the figures around me but I feel them. Shambling, vibrating, shifting in phase space. There are no beating hearts amongst the crowds as I sift through the forms. A low rumble cascades over the ground and up my boots, into my legs and around my body. Every few moments it returns making the coattails of the specters jostle and wave. The sensation tickles me but the feeling turns to dread as it disrupts the rhythm of my own hearts pounding. Like two waves meeting in a break causing both to explode and cease to exist creating something new. Yet it is not as simple as crashing waves, something more terrible is being created within me. My eyes mist over with terror as the dim light finally fades and all is drenched in darkness. The forms around me have a silver glow that illuminates after a time. I look at my hands; they also glow now. The rumblings increase in interval and I feel as if the sand beneath my feet is about to give way. My legs are turned to jelly and the warmth is whisked from my skin. I turn to find an exit from this hellscape of darkness and vibrations. Each pass my eyes make I only see the silvery forms shifting, coming closer, and closer. I long to scream, hoping the abrupt sound will shatter this mirage like a mirror and all that I know will return to my eyes. I hear a pinging, off in the distance, as the forms engulf me. I feel a weight upon my chest and I struggle to breathe. The pinging turns to a bell toll, then to a crashing of rocks down a cliff face. A knock, a terrible echoing knock.