GEIST: PRELUDE

CHAPTER ONE

As with all such stories, it began with a nightmare.

Victor Roland's eyes rolled open to a haze of fog, feeling cool tiles against his flushed cheeks. He staggered up, head aching, knees trembling—wherever he was, it was cavernous and quiet. A chill ran down his spine, and Victor propped his trench coat's collar. The tattered thing was a lone shield between him and the unknown.

Regardless, he was reminded of infernal circles and dark woods of error.

His halting footsteps echoed throughout a hallway, and the mists lifted ever so slightly, revealing a nave of oaken pews and pillars—stained glass, stone, and steel. Beyond the altar Victor saw an organ, composed of bronze pipes and copper corpses, playing a dirge. The cathedral felt hollow, as if its holiness had faded long ago.

Upon the far threshold lay a door.

Something nagged at him. Victor was here for a reason. He was searching for—something. He passed by a baptismal fountain, staring into its still water. Dirty bangs drooped over his gray eyes, brow dotted with acne, a stubbled face wearing a solemn expression.

He sighed, continuing down the nave until he saw strange lights twinkling far above. Against them, he could see the constellations of thoughts, even with his eyes closed. Hopes and memories, twinkling and drifting, cast about by currents of want and fear. He knew their despair, how the lost and the damned swam up the ethereal streams, only to be siphoned away into a void blacker than death; and for what?

Above the door was a chiseled placard, reading,

ANIMI FIRMITAS

As he wandered, Victor saw other lights behind the windows, dancing in tune to the dirge. But the closer he came to the door, the darker everything else became. Staring beyond, he knew fear of the unknown, as something stirred in his own rising shadow—

At once, an otherworldly shriek echoed from behind as monstrous clouds wafted from the towering aberration, swallowing all. He tried to run, but collapsed under the weight of shock, caught in this roaring flood of fog. Tossed in its currents, the miasma drained all warmth, leaving him naked in darkness. Embraced by its chill, Victor felt memories slip away. He forgot the taste of food, his mother's touch, and the days of springtime.

He was nothing now.

Out of instinct Victor raised a trembling hand, his palm somehow shining in the mists. Cobalt light seared through the roiling clouds and Victor escaped the churning tide, bolting down the nave, another roar at his back. If his escape was a happy chance or a game on the shadow's part, Victor did not know, nor did he care. He burst through the gilded doors, exhausted and panicked, wits spiraling out of control, but his memory returned.

Then all went black.

***

Victor's eyes flew open. He rose from bed with a start, muttering profanity under his breath. Noise brought him back to the Waking World, a flat blur of the modern and urban. Regardless, the nightmare did not leave him for some time. Maybe he'd forgotten his medication, or maybe he'd just slept poorly. Sighing, he clicked a button on the radio, resuming the symphonies which had stopped sometime in his sleep.

Fantasie Impromptu...Chopin...Opus No. 66...bliss....

He swallowed a couple of antidepressants and scanned his dormitory room. It was a cluttered mess, with not a visible spot of plastered wall. Everything was either a bookshelf or a painting. It all smelled like yellowed pages and washed rinds, but Victor did not mind—Mr. Carroll was all the company he needed. The rabbit nestled in a small habitat on an oaken desk covered in draft upon draft of half-written dream journals, with Victor's laptop barely visible. He often sat there, trying to formulate ideas into notes, perhaps even a brief melody.