Broken Glass - Taekook

DREAM #2

I open my eyes to destruction.

I'm standing in the middle of a destroyed forest, the dead stumps of countless trees littering the ground like ugly decorations on cloth. The sky is an unpleasant, smoky orange, and the sun is completely invisible, hidden behind clouds of ash and smoke. High above the ground, carrion birds circle, searching for scraps.

The silence feels loud, close to my ears, like a curse. Like my senses are muted. The world smells like smoke, like iron, like death. I can almost feel the ash on my skin.

At my feet lays a charred, dead deer, eyes still open and glassy, staring directly at me. I curse, back up, and trip on something soft. I turn, and there's its fawn, curled up as if asleep, fur burnt off its body, barbecued from the inside out. I look down, and my foot is in between its legs.

I jump away, disgusted, spin around on my heel, trying to find something living. Trying to see some proof that the world isn't completely decimated. But the only thing still standing is the ruin of an ancient tower, presiding over the area like a sentinel, staring out at the devastation of a dead forest through empty holes where windows once were.

It's tall, perhaps a hundred metres in height, but it seems hunched over, as if it's been hurt, and the top of the tower is missing. I look down, and an outcrop of stone sits at the bottom of the structure. It doesn't take much deduction to figure out that it was knocked from the highest part of the ruin, a long time ago.

But when I get closer to the tower, I see that the ground around it is bare, the earth tinted with red. The air is unnaturally still, as if the whole place is frozen in time, and there's a metallic tang to every breath I take, a smell in the air that reminds me of spoiled milk.

I kneel down, place a hand against the ground. It's warm, slightly damp, but there's something uncomfortable about the way the particles interact with each other, so much so that I pull my hand away, brush away the pieces of soil that remain, only to see that my hand is now tinted a faint red.

Whatever dyed the world red, it's now attached to me as well.

There's a faint rumble, like thunder in the distance, and I look up, only to see that the tower is shaking slightly. The longer I stare, the more intense it gets, the louder the rumble becomes, the more I feel like I'm in mortal danger. I try to step back, run away, but find that I'm paralysed with fear, can only watch as stone bricks twice the size of me come crashing down onto the ground with thuds that threaten to burst my ears due to sheer volume.

When the actual structure begins to fall, self preservation wins out, and I find myself suddenly able to back up, though I'm mesmerised by the destruction, somehow. It's like watching hundreds of years of strength crumble to its knees like an old fighter beaten by a youngster.

I stare up at the structure, as it collapses in on itself, and see something I hadn't noticed before: in one empty hole, where a window once was, a masked figure stands, staring out at me. Even from here, I can feel the apathy in those cold eyes, can sense the lack of concern felt by whoever waits there.

A hissing begins, a voice whispering quietly right beside my ear, but when I turn around I'm completely alone. The language they speak is guttural, unfamiliar, and the malevolence held within every word makes me turn cold. I may not understand what's going on, but I know hatred when I hear it. I may not remember who I am, or why I exist, but my instincts still exist, and I know danger when I hear it.

Before I can escape, however, there's a bright red flash, and then I find myself inside the tower, stuck underneath a ceiling that's caving in. Outside, the masked figure holds up a single hand, waves, and turns away, leaving me screaming for help as heavy stone falls onto my legs, onto my torso. My body is numb to the pain, but my brain registers the panic as more real than anything else.

A crow caws, a sharp, unpleasant sound that grates at my ears.

And then, as everything fades to black, a familiar voice whispers in my ear, the one that told me that I was the Saviour. The one that seems to be the voice of magic itself in Eithyr.

"Go to Shylrennor."