Green and blue kissed as they touched upon the horizon, the endless sea of green that was the plains meeting the ocean of blue above. Pristine fields and cloudless skies surrounded you, with all that broke the continuity of the skies being the sun above. The sun, that beat down mercilessly upon you with relentless summer heat, that cast no shadows on those figures that inhabited this realm of dreams.
There had once been an army, yet that army was gone like the shadows that they did not cast. There had once been the scars of battle, yet the scars were gone, leaving nothing but featureless green plains stretching as far as the eye could see.
Relentless as the heat of the sun was you couldn't help but feel a chill.
You knew something was wrong, you knew that the dreamworld that had been your sanctuary for so long was crumbling, that the world of war that had been your refuge, had brought you hope was collapsing. The edges of the world where green kissed blue were slowly but surely losing colour and cracks were appearing in the sky.
A slow, shuddering breath escaped your lips as you watched grey creep slowly inward, colour fading, the border of land and sky blurring. The cracks that were appearing spread quickly, lacing out as if the sky were made of ice while the sky seemed to bleed through them.
Shimmering blue light sparkled through the cracks like light reflected by water, bathing the ground around you in that shifting pattern. Cracks in the sky and the edges of the world fading to grey. The world of your dreams was coming to and end and there was that familiar figure here once more with you, that figure that had haunted you in these recent dreams.
"
Anxiety..." came the voice of that figure in your arms as they reached up to you, a trembling hand pressing to your cheek, leaving sticky warmth where it touched. You could smell the unmistakable scent of blood from this figure, you could see it oozing from beneath the armour that clad him.
Was he dying?
"I used to... Think that you were my god, visiting me in my dreams, playing with me, preparing me to leave this world and to join you. I was prepared to die if it meant that I would be by your side... You are not my god though, are you?" You sighed, tracing your finger over the armoured cheek of the figure before you. His armour wouldn't permit itself to be removed this time, you couldn't understand why, though you knew it best not to question such too deeply in a dream.
"You called me Love, the name I was almost granted, the name I was too afraid to jump for joy over. I wanted to believe so badly that you were my god... That I would sit by your side forever more as your loyal subject." You sighed as the figure in your arms remained silent.
"I don't wish to die now. I have reason to live, I have hope and dreams for the first time in years. I am my own person, though I live in fear. I do not know why you did not kill me, as there is only one other person you could be if you are not my god..." You whispered, lifting your head once more as you looked away from the figure, as you turned your attention to the horizon.
As grey crept inward, at the very fringes of what you could see now, black consumed the borders of the world.
"Are you the Reaper of Dreams?" You asked, though the figure remained silent, no more than his heavy breathing betraying that he was still with you.
"
Are you the killer of immortals?"
Silence.
"If you are not my god, if you are not the one who can kill an immortal in their sleep, who are you?" You asked, though you felt that the question fell upon deaf ears. You looked up briefly as the world started to dim. The cracks had reached the sun and covered its surface, causing light to bleed from it for a moment before it shattered, before pieces of that sun rained down about you like a shower of sparks.
"
Seek the mighty tree that grows where fire dances by the river side," The figure's voice echoed in your ears, while chunks of what had been the sun settled about you, bathing you in a soft yellow glow.
"Do you fear the dark?" came the figures words once more, as they shifted slightly to look up at you, a sharp hiss escaping their lips as you felt the sensation of blood oozing from the joints of their armour. You could feel the sticky warmth of it soaking through your clothing as they lay on your lap.
"I do not fear the dark, I fear what is in the dark. I know that it is okay to be afraid, because-"
"Fear lets you know that you are alive. Without a rich tapestry of emotion you are nothing more than an automaton, nothing more than a shell of a person without the joys of life to hold onto."
"Are you afraid?" you swallowed as you asked that question, watching as colour faded from the world at an increasing rate, as you quickly became marooned on an island of colour in a sea of grey, as inky blackness slowly consumed that what had lost its colour.
"As long as I am afraid... I will be alive..."
With those words the figure in your arms went limp, the darkness that was consuming the dream world accelerating as it closed in with a deafening roar, engulfing you in a smothering, chilling black blanket.
As you opened your eyes you remained disorientated for a long moment, glancing about your room as you looked for cracks in the sky, for the colour fading and darkness rushing in. It took several sweeps of the room as you looked for tell tale signs that you were still dreaming before you realised that you were awake.
As you came to your senses you experienced a sense of disgust as your entire body felt clammy, your night clothes plastered to you by cold sweat. If this was how that dream was going to have you awaken in future, you could happily do without it. A quick glance to the bed on the other side of the room betrayed that you were alone, telling you that the coast was clear to go and clean yourself up.
You grabbed fresh clothing as you hurried into the bathroom that this room lead into, making a mental note to thank whoever it was who had seen it fit to provide this place with running water. Especially hot running water. Half awake you started to draw a bath, turning to lock the doors leading into the shared bathroom. With that done you turned to the mirror, brushing firey red hair aside as you checked to see if you had visible rings under your eyes. Green eyes and a tired face stared back at you from the mirror, making you cringe as you looked terrible.
That bloody handprint on your face was going to have to go, too.
Bloody...
Oh god.
You were glad that Eurochkoles had awoken before you and gone off to study or whatever else it was that he was doing today, as it meant that you could soak in the bath, that you could relax. God did you need to relax, you had blood on your face from a dream and the order you were a part of-
That you had been a part of, was after you. You weren't a part of them anymore, you were your own person. Since your seperation from them your views had slowly changed, as the things that they told you were no longer reinforced by constant reminders, constant sermons. Brother Pride had always been very good at making you believe that as crazy as it all sounded, that it was right.
It was all crazy, it was all bizzare rituals and the consumption of tainted flesh to strengthen you, to embrace the taint and allow it to make you more than human. Eurochkoles was right when he had talked about how it was the fear of death that had as many people as they had in that order join them, as without the promise of eternal life you couldn't see yourself, let alone others having ever done any of that.
In a sense you felt sorrow for the immortal who had been there in the beginning, when things had made sense still. He had searched for a means to grant those that flocked to him the eternal life that he himself had grown tired of. You could remember how he had grown excited to find that he was able to do just that, that in doing so he would be able to bring his own life to an end.
At the time, Pride had made it seem like he was excited because he wished to make that sacrifice, yet now you thought about it, Pride had capitalised on this to become the power behind the Enlightened.
There were details that you were hazy on still, though that was something that you put down to the taint that ran through your body. You knew that the more you consumed those creatures, the more your mind became alien to you. You could feel thoughts that were not your own, you had memories that were not your own, you had power, that was not your own.
At the time you had been told you embrace it, and you had without fear.
Now, it terrified you, as you knew that deep down you were no longer wholly yourself.
Once you had cleansed yourself, dried yourself and made yourself feel presentable you stepped from the bathroom, running a comb through your hair as you put the finishing touches on your appearance before you froze.
Only now did you notice several of Eurochkoles guns missing from his rack.
It was perfectly reasonable to assume that he had taken them to tinker with them or practice firing with them. Settling down on the edge of your bed you wrinkled your nose, wondering if it was a better idea to see if you could find someone to play games with. You leaned back with a sigh, glancing down at the bedside table as something caught your attention. A piece of paper, a note no doubt.
You smiled slightly as you reached to pick it up, figuring it was Eurochkoles doing his best to be considerate and telling you not to worry and to stay safe while he ran around the city like an idiot, trying to find something that he believed was important that meant nothing to anybody but him. That, or he had gone to visit Red.
What you saw though had your heart sink and your chest tighten, he had gone to deal with the order, despite your repeated warnings that they wouldn't take kindly to his presence. You could feel an overwhelming sense of dread and you should have seen it coming. You had seen the cracks as they formed and you had been powerless to slow him down.
Why did you feel so guilty, when you had no power over him?
What were you going to do?Earth: 3 - (Long Distance Running)
Fire: 4 - (Sprinting)
Air: 4 - (Creature Lore)
Water: 3 - (Masking Deception)
Powers:
0 - Ageless.
With enlightenment came eternity.
2 (fm) - Pretender Immortal.
Few know the only methods capable of killing you. Fewer still are able to apply them.
4 (fmmv) - Tainted Flesh.
You rapidly recover from all manner of ills, though there are still substances that your body cannot process. A side effect is, that your bodily fluids are toxic to others.
2 (mv) - Voracious
You are what you eat, the more you eat the more you are.
1 (f) - Vulture
Alive at night, with perfect sight.
Points Pool: 0
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Topic: They told me I could be anything... (Read 79005 times)