Flames And Blades

Chapter Eight: In the Dark of The Night

It was a dream, I knew that for sure. Nothing else would be as, as absurd as the scene appearing before me. Only in this dream, I couldn't wake up. Any attempt to escape it or cry for help just brought me back to the same dark room. Again and again, my feet would run and pound the dank stone beneath me, but they never actually ran. Just escape beneath me back and forth, as if I was a toddler throwing a tantrum, each and every splash of water or whatever the cold puddle beneath my ever unable feet mocking my attempts.

I finally manage to tell myself to calm down and accept the fact that I am indeed trapped in a very dark, damp stone encased room. That this is only a dream, no not a dream, a nightmare isn't even a strong enough word to describe the fear it's starting to inflict in me, but it can't, it shouldn't be able to cause me harm. This is the unsure fact that allows me to get some of my shit together. A dripping sound echoes off the cold walls and makes me hush any excess thoughts and focus on my surroundings.

Somewhere in this place had to be the source of the dripping. Narrowing my eyes to the unsettling wet sound, I find its source; a floating sword glistening in a combination of what looks like freshly pulsating blood and old-school fountain pen ink. Almost Instantly my mind makes me lunge forward and investigate the impossible object before me. Only an almost practiced gush of wind pushes me back into the darkest parts of the room- something I'd almost think impossibly since it's pitch black everywhere, but then in the corners, it's darker than darkness itself. Like the shade of death and every monster I ever had under my bed went here for their vacation home. Hidden in the corners, I feel as if a mind trick of things puts a magnifying glass to my eyes and ears so as to gather every last bit of my surroundings. The air is louder to me, shadows of something my mind can't quite recognize are more visible, the room doesn't smell as mouldy and damp now, but like poorly brewed tea and burnt biscuits. The room is still more terrifying to me than almost anything I've seen in my life, only now I know the room. I am the room. The sword is my heart, blood and ink and all other vile materials it contains, I can feel it pulsing through me, the cold bricks my flesh, and every single drop is a thought I know is floating through my head, but never seem to find the energy to organize and think through.

With my senses heightened at this level, I can hear talking. Everywhere. With enough voices to make my conscious self fall over if it were here. Only there were no bodies or rather anything for that matter, for the voices to be coming from. All there was around me was the sword that both scared and calmed me at this point, as it was the only visible thing that I somehow knew was mine, and a force of rushing air. All the voices came from different pitches and areas. All of which was too loud and overlapping for me to gather any sort of concept of, even though I pushed out such a ridiculous attempt at finding the meaning of any voice, enough that my knees caved beneath my and the room tripled in transparency, I still came up empty-handed. My exhaustion leads me to collapse ever so dramatically unto the wall I was pushed close to earlier, there, I decide to rest my head no the bricks that feel like a frozen corpse for some odd reason, and allow my body weight to drag me down.

That's when I start to pinpoint the voices. The walls. From there, I can catch every last voice swirling around the room crystal clear. There's four of them. One person very deep-voiced but soft spoken enough to not startle the three very small, child-like voice surrounding them. The tone in all four of their voices implies a much darker aspect at play, but I can't quite catch on to it.

"The poor kids don't even know about their own legend." The small whisper echoes off my mind and confuses me.

"There should have been at least one half of that damn spell that warned them about the hell they'll be living." This voice comes small but filled with rage, as if it were a parent of the two kids they're talking about.

"Those two halves aren't supposed to know. That's the whole point of it all. The punishment of the soul splitting was that whichever pair of twins it decides to inhabit next will be damned for all eternity." This one, the deepest voice, lights a spark in the sword, and its ink catches in a fire that never goes outside of its shadow. The flames themselves warm the place and comfort me into a sleep-like state. Strange, since it is a dream I'm in, so I shouldn't be able to be in such a dazed state.

"But I still don't understand why the poor twins have to go through such loneliness to set the tale in place. Can't they just get a small bit of happiness and then a whole lotta hell?" The weakest of all voices breakthrough and I imagine a little school-girl fiddling with her braided pigtails accompanying it.

"What does any of it matter? Mother Author is sick of this draft anyway! She's just going to delete us in the end anyways without a care given! We're all going to die so just shut the hell up already!" The deepest of all voices booms loud enough to have me jump up to notice that the flames of the sword have retreated outside of their shadows and are reverberating to each syllable brought out by the strange and loud voice.

"Woah, slow your roll there, Mr. Almighty." I sigh out with a small, sarcastic surrender wave. The second my lovely commentary echoes in the room. The air freezes and everything stops.

Then it all starts again, extremely differently than before.

The voices turn into echoes. Angry, dishevelled echoes. Swirling in winds all around me, creating unintelligible Latin phrases with each and every harsh and untimed breeze. The more that come, the faster they are, the brighter the colour they bring off is, and the louder they are. Soon, they become too fast for me to see my surroundings properly. I no longer feel safe and dazed, no, now I feel overwhelmed and drowning in air. The only things my eyes can capture properly are the swords flames and its dripping substances.

Specifically, the blood beginning to act like gasoline. The flames ignite and engulf the entire room, including me, only I feel none of it as if I was never there. Soon the flames disappear altogether, leaving me alone in a dark cave, weaponless and without any sense of anything.

At least when I was left alone I could wake up, in a cold, breathless panic. Instantly, now that I am able to move freely, I shoot up, grab an old eyeliner from the pocket o the jeans I let lying on the floor I don't know how long ago, I sketch the last mark the sword had pumped out before it left me.