The sky was scarlet as Mortal
blood; it was dying. His face looked even paler next to it than it already was
and his lips were dry and thin. His hair was rugged and black with white flecks
at the edges; it draped over his dull green eyes. His figure was slender and
his clothes fit close to his body. He wore black slacks, a pale white shirt,
and a red-lined black waistcoat. Out of the pocket of his waistcoat hung a
white chain, a silver key with a single mangled tooth dangling at the end of
it. All around him was dead brown grass that prickled at his bare feet; he
stood in a dying meadow; dead like everything else in that world. It was late
evening; almost Night's time.
Suddenly Night wriggled free
from his bonds beneath the ground and drew his dark cloak around him, his pale white
eyes glowing. He scurried hurriedly around the meadow, his feet scarcely
touching the grass, and with a great leap, he threw his cloak over the red sky
and the white sun lowered swiftly under the weight of black. Night hung in the
air as if suspended and a gentle cooing, like an infant, rung softly from his
lips. The moons faded into brightness and Night grinned; a harrowed grin. Now
he was free; free until Day raised the sun, her ever-glaring eye; now he only
wore a thin black robe around his slender and childish figure. He lowered himself
to the prickly grass and turned towards the young man who was standing alone in
the meadow; that grin seemed to stick eerily to his fair face.
“Use thy key, Night and Dream's
barren son, and fulfill thy nature.” Night said his voice as small as a child's.
He raised a finger towards the silver key.
“Wet thy arid tongue with mortal reason, my son, for He
hath decreed thy action choose thy essence.” Night leaned close to him.
“And the One of Shades has bound you in contract. With
thy key it was written.” Night said slowly, his grin falling into a single line.
The son looked at Night with widened eyes; widened in terror.
He
grasped the silver key and pulled back the collar of his shirt until a small
keyhole could be seen on his right breast; a single faint scar ran through it.
He swiftly thrust the key into the hole and his body rose up above the grass
slowly; he panted hard and coughed violently from the sudden pain as it spread
through his chest. Night grinned again, yet this time it was a grin full of
fear. He turned and darted off, swift as the swallowing darkness. White blood
dripped from the keyhole and when it touched the grass below, the grass
twitched eerily and began to shine with a dark glow.
A woman
figure walked the silence staunched air with gliding footsteps towards the one
with the key, holding a hollow vial made from sapphire shards. She wore a
flowing blue dress; her eyes were gold and they glistened in the moons’ light.
“My son,
one whose mother toys with Mortal reason and watches over every restful eye,
and whose father rules with false lights and reigns in darkness as a
delineation of that Shadow which binds us in contract, heed the word of Night,
thy father. Give to me thy curse, thy pale blood, so that I may carry out that
which the Shadow hath commanded, for I, with curséd wings, am his sometimes
messenger of dark tidings to draw man away from which good tidings the Creator
hath sent me forth with. To puzzle man’s will and reason; therein lies my dooméd
action.” Her voice was cool and smooth, calming to the ear, and as she said
this, she held out the vial towards her son, expectancy in her eyes.
“O curséd one,
thou who birthed me into thy pooled transgressions and who made darkness my
father, I shall heed thy words and thou shalt carry my paled essence, give life
to abhorred shades, and deliver fear, that great distraction from faith, to the
minds of Man.” Thus said her son and he leaned forward, letting his thick blood
pour into the vial. After the vial was filled, Dream smiled bitterly at her
son.
“I thank thee
for thy essence.” Was all she said and from the air she leapt through Night’s
cloak and into Man’s world. The son hovered there, weak from his loss of blood.
“O
thou, curséd of evening stars,” tiny voices squeaked; the very stars called
down to him from their fiery thrones in the cloak of Night.
“Thou who is
most feared, terror of Dream’s essence, we beseech thee to put thyself to rest and
forgetting, for we have heard of the world of Mortals, we have many brothers
and sisters who rule their skies; we have giv’n ear to their sufferings and
torments that thou inflicts upon them with thy essence.” They all began to
glisten and sparkle as the passion rose inside of their glowing hearts. The
whole of the stars began to move in a commotion of confusion.
“Would that I
could take back that hateful choice, those words now written in dooméd letters
upon that Shadow’s parchment. There is nothing left. Yet heed not my words for
my voice is puppeteer’d by Him who now rules me.” So he said with a haunting
glare at the twinkling lights.
“Put down thy
wakéd torment! Put out thy flame of hate! Dowse thine intent in repentance!” The
stars cried out in woe for man; then quiet. One by one they began to fall from Night’s
cloak like loosed buttons, streaking the black with soon fading lights. To the
ear, all was silent; yet to the eye, colors, light, and confusion all burst
into view as a symphony of silent despair fell upon the blackened skies, as the
stars bashed into each other in the confusion. Time then loosed her torrent call and
raised her fluctuating blade; Fate. The thick
silence fell heavily in the son’s ears and the lights flashed before his eyes
in an inundate blaze of white fire.
A sudden
shriek, in one voice of stars and the son, rose up from his lips, his face
twisting with pain. His body convulsed time and time again until only groans he
could utter through his dried lips and stinging body. Images, too fast to see
but slow enough to comprehend, choked his minds’ eye like thick fluid. He could
not look away or shut them out. Slowly his eyes began to glaze over with a nightmarish
gleam and his eyes rounded with fear. Time thrust Fate downward.
“And now will
nature be fulfilled!” he howled violently, his voice crowded with many others.
The son bent forward and shut his eyes as tightly as he could. His hands
clutched his head and his breathing grew rugged. The images wouldn’t stop
running through his head; images of darkness and horrors; perversions of the
mind of man. Flashing hellish grins, lifeless faces and bodies, and virulently
demonic eyes; all these were shown in these images, haunting, tormenting, and
testing the son’s sanity. As Night’s reign consummated Time’s, the abhorred
sights grew more ghastly and gory, filled with the scarlet blood of Man and all
those terrible perceptions of their growing knowledge of both good and evil.
The son shook and quaked, sweat falling from his brow as every picture haunted
his mind. He could hear the Mortal screams, feel their terror, and see what
they saw. Then it was gone and silence once again filled his possessed mind.
Peace, with
pale stare, and silent smile, danced the air towards the son’s wretched body, a
low hymn humming upon her lips; her white eyes unveiled a secret of which the
son already knew. Not a word said she but with only a touch she locked away
those lurid thoughts in the son’s
mind; but not from it. Night, with
heavy footsteps, raised himself into the air and stopped at his son’s body, now
hanging in the air loosely. Night bowed low to Peace and dared not look on her
tranquil countenance. And Peace only smiled and set a smooth hand on Night’s
head; and with a silent sigh, was gone. The son then awoke, and turned his now
pallid eyes towards his father.
“Time has
brought my reign to an end,” Night began, looking down at his son grimly.
“And so we shall rest until those
seeming hundred years pass Mornings petty glows to Evenings darkened
grandeurs.”
Night’s eyes
began to sink into their sockets and his youthly glow diminished, tarnished skin
replacing its old pale likeness. His childish voice grew deeper and he fell to
the ground weakly, pulling his son down with him; they groaned with the impact.
The moons dimmed into the growing light. And as Day began to raise the sun, her
heated passion, tearing down Night’s now tattered cloak, an act of spite
against her bothers control, Dream burst through the greying sky and alighted on
the softening grass next to Night and her son; Night writhed in agony of his
lost power.
“Night,
my love, I bless thee with sleep. Let it ease thy fear as thy moons fade and
Day’s glaring eye rises.” She touched his cheek gently and kissed his forehead.
He stared up at her with dull pale eyes, wonder and fear floundering in them,
then sleep slowly dimmed his mind until his breathing was smooth and all light
was taken from his sight.
“Now
down ye go to the under-earth chambers where darkness and silence shield thee
from harm.” Dream said and the earth swallowed his body entirely, leaving
nothing left. Dream turned to her son and upon seeing his eyes closed, turned
to leave.
“Farewell
to thee, mother. Blesséd may thy wakeful hours be, under Days glare or in the
beams of Night’s glowing eyes. May thy tidings bring gladness to Mortal ear of
the Creator, and may that Shadow not leap to wake me from my less than peaceful
slumber.” The son croaked in a raspy voice, his breathing growing shallow.
Dream
did not turn to her son but instead took his blessings silently and left to
fulfill his wish, the essence she had originally obtained from The Master. She
was gone.
Sunlight filled the once dead meadow and
now all things livid and dull were now brilliant and bright. Day tore down
Night’s cloak and it sunk behind the distant mountains. She danced in the
meadow, brining life as an end to deathly horrors. Her laugh was like singing
birds and in her face could joy and secrets be seen.
The
son stared eerily at the sun with a nightmarish gleam in his fear rounded eyes.
When will it end? The thought bobbed
in his mind. And so he took his rest on the small patch of still dead grass,
closing his eyes. A dreaded name on his lips was spoken by the fallen stars on
the wispy breath of the wind. Nightmare.
