Saturnalia
Chapter Prologue :: One :: Two :: Three :: Four :: Five :: Epilogue
There was no sky, only an empty void. The stars, sun, and the moon had been swallowed whole and there was neither night nor day. Where there should have been no light, however, there was a ghastly luminescence that was as pervasive as the air that smelt of decay. No warmth lingered in the not-darkness.
Life could not exist in this reality, and in the face of the consuming void it willingly gave up its existence in order to escape the horror that would break the mind.
At the center of the void and missing pieces of reality, kneeling in the oozing sludge that slid over remnants of reality and staining them with grunge, a twisted figure bent over a cold body. Blood pooled under both, a dark, vicious slime that gleamed an unnatural red in the pervasive light while gore lay splattered and smeared. The creature looked as if it were once human, now so twisted from its dark environment that it was a mockery of humanity and the form. Its skin was stretched thin over elongated bones, dark blood rushing through the starved veins and capillaries. Sight of it brought revulsion, and the mind would wail at the image of it smeared with the glistening blood of the prey that it knelt over. Both gnarled hands were plunged into the visceral cavity, teeth and nails rending the flesh to shreds.
The sight of the perversion was accompanied by a horrid stench, of rot and things long forgotten and left to be decayed by the elements. Every pore seemed to emit the noxious smell, turning the air thick and practically tangible. Capable of suffocating anything living if there was any. The presence of blood only made the smell worse where it touched the thing's flesh, and the internal structures of the corpse had their own stench.
As the abomination dug deeper into the wet cavity, it opened a gaping and slashed mouth filled with broke teeth, letting out a keening wail that made the air vibrate and the void fluctuate like ripples on the surface of a pond. It was a sound that froze the blood in the heart with its terrifyingly inhuman aural quality, but it was filled with such grief and agony that it made the body sick that such a creature could make so human a noise.
When the cry faded its eyes, large, wet, black orbs of flesh sunk into a hideous skull, filled with such rage the keening cry it made seem surreal. Silently, it ripped into the body with vicious intent, hatred flowing off the body in waves as thick as its smell. The corpse could bleed no more, and this only made its urge to defile the body greater, burying teeth into the cold flesh and tearing.
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Domani thrashed in the sheets soaked through with cold sweat, the creature's bloody shriek still ringing in his ears even as the dream faded into an unsettling haze. He shook as he stumbled from the bed and to the bathroom, gagging over the sink. Traces of the dream clung to the brain, and his stomach continued to upset long after there was nothing left within.
With trembling hands the man methodically rinsed out the sink and his mouth, avoiding a glance in the mirror but still catching sight of eyes shot with red and set in a pale, frightened face. The same dream had plagued his sleep for over a month now, returning in some form or another but always leaving his body drained and shaking with an unnamable dread and fear. A look at the clock spoke the time was 3 AM.
As Domani had done many nights before, he stripped the sheets off the mattress and left them in a damp pile on the floor. Huddling in a chair to stare at the darkness and wait for the dawn, praying to God that it would come and his dreams would be warded off for at least another day.