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Haunted 9: SkullDarkness Absolute nothingness surrounded him, as the Wile felt like he was slowly dissolving in a pool of black gold. Such is the fate of souls that get usurped by the man-of-war monster.. As if that wasn't hellish enough, swarms of piranha-like teeth were gnashing him from head to foot. No wounds were shed, no bruises nor blood. The very core of his spirit was under attack instead, the pain of which exceeds that of any other. Aiden genuinely wished for anything to put an end to this, the madness he was slowly sinking into seemed inescapable. The evil spirits had made good on their promise to make his suffering slow and merciless... The Wile was unable to ignite his flame no matter how much he yearned for it to burn, for the body of the collective spirit had completely enveloped him, just enough to not crush him. He had long since gone past the panic stage.. overwhelmed, defeated.. he was too tired to even turn a head. He was forced into a state of isolation within his annihilation, frozen.. without hope… 'What are you doing, lad?!' A strong, yet unfamiliar voice echoed in his brain, which snapped him straight out of his trance. 'You have to keep fighting!' "I... I can't!" Aiden whimpered in his mind. 'Yes you can!' The voice shouted. 'You've done it before! If not for yourself, then do it for--' Just then the Wile heard a nauseating scream. He followed the sound to the best of his ability against the intense pressure of his entire surroundings, when he saw that at least two of the foul spirits had ganged up on something that gave off a faint, minuscule light. Aiden could not understand why, but he had the sudden urge to squirm with everything he had. Pushing and thrashing his way towards the scene, the Phoebe Wile's internal ferocity was starting to build up, and with it the drive to slash his nails, loosening his hand just enough to reach out and grab the foul spirit that had just consumed the speck. With a quick squeeze, ignited with the heat of his mystical fire, the wisp-like blob let out a chilling shriek as the Wile ripped out its very core, revealing the weak essence of what appeared to be a glowing firefly from within. In their combined fury, the surrounding community of the single minded demons pressed down onto the Wile even harder, this time compressing his body to the point that it became difficult to breathe, let alone stay on the surface of the ever increasing black pool. But with a bit of good timing, Aiden was able to slip his arm pass the pressure point. Despite the numbingly intense pins and needles that snagged onto his loose appendage, he managed to grab the hapless firefly and absorb its essence into his body. And with it securely tucked away, and his main source of energy still exposed in the open, the Wile had just enough power needed to start wreaking havoc with his inferno. With his ferality no longer in check, the Wile set out a tremendous scream as he began to set himself ablaze. Aiden's renewed adrenaline gave him the perfect opportunity to push against the mass of blobs for just one second, which was all the time he needed to let loose all the chaotic energy that would make the kings of gehenna proud. ....... The chill in the air intensified as the entire yard became lit with a soft, yet unsettling white glow. Jac had kicked off her shoes and was walking towards her two dumbfounded friends. With each step she took, the grass would grow wildly around her bare feet- every blade of which taking on a dusty white color that gave them the appearance of marble. Her hair had turned a similar shade, and the light from her eyes had made her pupils a disturbing bleach. "Jac... what's happened to you...?" Richard spoke barely a peep. "Don't touch her!!" Jillian screamed. "Please," The witch and Jac's voice said simultaneously. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am called The Witch of the Dawn and I was once the goddess of the land you are standing on. Jac made a contract with me, and has become my host. She is sleeping now, but she will awaken and reunite with you soon enough." Richard had drowned out every word as he held Jac close and rubbed his cheek against her; tears ran down along his face, which had softened the glow of her hair somewhat as it made contact. He didn't care that touching her left his hands numb and caused his skin to crack, he just wanted his best friend back dammit! "Jac... This happened before, so I know you can snap out of it again! Please! I beg of you! Wake up~!!" Richard kept up his tight embrace all while Jac remained largely emotionless. A hint of reflection was spotted in her eyes, but it disappeared just as quickly as it came. She saw the damage done and the visible shaking of the giant's hands, which triggered a reaction that was likely from the possessed herself that caused her to jerk away and jump off onto the grass below. "The elf is right. It's best that you don't touch me while I am active." The witch said. With a renewed burst of rage, Jillian stomped on the ground. "What are you plotting, Witch? What is the purpose of all of this?!" "I came to reclaim what is mine." The witch proclaimed. "Where my long time enemy sought to reap what was left of this land, I choose to make it beautiful once more. I will do away with the industrialized cities that have encroached in my domain for far too long, and bring the forest back to its former glory! The way it was always meant to be!" "Your idea of paradise is a wild unchecked forest with weird looking white plants that don't even look edible and are already half dead. Got it." Jillian quipped. "Leave me out of it." "Talk down to me again elf, and I won't be so merciful next time!" The hair behind Jac began to rise ferociously, as it flowed eerily with the unsteady wind. Jillian remained firm but chose not to take it further, for any rash response could result in injury to Jac. Richard felt just as helpless, if not more so. He stared blankly at who he formally knew as his best friend, as she approached what was left of the cursed tree and began to spread her arms wide. "The time has come for me to reestablish my rightful place in this world! This will be the start of a new era! People will flock to my forest and worship me again...." Hints of tears began to fall from Jac's eyes, but it was unclear whether she or the witch had shed them. "Then my full power will be replenished and I will finally have enough strength to... bring him back to me..." The jewel in front of her chest began to float upward and took on a sinister red glow. The whirlwind then kicked up and surrounded her like a barrier which would have blown Jillian back if it wasn't for the giant hand that had caught her. The wild plants then exploded in size right where Jac stood, rapidly enveloping everything in her surroundings like an infestation of white, otherworldly weeds. "It's not safe here! We have to go!" Jillian shouted. "But... what about Jac?" The words that came out of Richard's mouth stung and the start of tears formed on Jillian's eyes as well. "I know! But we don't have a choice!" No matter what however, Richard wouldn't budge. It took a sudden lightning flash between them to break the Wile giant's fixation of his back-turned Link partner. The electrical current was situated at that very point in the sky before them- Jillian understood right away that this was far from any natural phenomenon, and her fears were confirmed when a ripple through space began to form just above the cursed snag. "Come hither spirits and lend me your power!!!" The Witch shouted with a fiery passion. “We shall take the night this All Hallows Eve!!” All of a sudden, just as the peak of the gusts were whipping, and the opening of the void had made a visible dent in the night sky, she heard a crack. And then another. And then... With a loud smash, the glass oval jewel shattered into a thousand tiny pieces. Immediately after, the storm had quieted and the disturbance had caused the magic to come to a complete halt. This left the Witch absolutely livid. "NO!!! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!! HOW IS THIS--" At that exact moment in time, something caused her to lose her voice, as she, and the others behind her, gave out a series of audible gasps. A set of bony fingers as intense as the surface of the sun appeared from the ripple in the sky. They began to pull it apart, tearing a hole in space just wide enough for it to go through. And out of it came the biggest and most horrifying giant that anyone had ever laid eyes on. A macro being engulfed by flames all over its body, with a torch that bloomed from the top of its skull-like head. Blotches of mass could be seen all over, which wailed individually, and yet all at once in sheer agony, in tandem to the enigma's earth shaking shrill. It sat its foot down, instantly igniting the path it treaded, swallowing up the last of the cursed tree as it made its way towards the haunted house. Jillian screamed as Richard finally broke from his petrified state to scoop her up and onto higher ground. But try as she might, Jac couldn't move. No matter how much the holy apparition screeched in her head, the jewel was no more and the ability to have control over her was destroyed along with it. Jac's natural fear of immense fire kept her firmly rooted in place, as the titanic monster was now just a few feet away. The beast locked eye sockets with the young woman and was about to reach out to grab her with a finishing hand. Against her better judgment, Jillian struggled to break free from Richard's grip and charged head on towards the fiery demon. Her personal safety was put on the sideline in a brief moment of adrenaline and sheer willpower. Just as the infernal being's finger was mere inches from the terror stricken witch's face, Jillian dived as close as she could just behind the wall of flames and began to scream at the top of her lungs. "DON'T HURT HER!!!" Much to everyone's surprise, the giant suddenly paused. "WHATEVER YOU DO! PLEASE!!! DON'T HURT JAC!!" After a moment of tense staring, the surrounding flames caused the girl to overheat and collapse. The hand immediately grabbed hold, but not before its fire was let out, revealing a sun-like glow to an otherwise normal giant hand. Against the ground, the being laid his hand gently over the fainted Jac. And with a light tap of a finger against her chest, a part of her spirit fell out from behind, along with that of the Witch of the Dawn. The Witch desperately tried to get away but it was no use, for the giant instantly snapped her up. With the foul spirit now in its clutches, the glowing giant then proceeded to crush inward while reigniting its hand. With a horrendous final cry, the witch was disintegrated into hundreds of glowing butterflies, each one burning with an intense flame which had made all but one disappear as it's embers went out. When that was over with, the enormous skeletal beast pulled back and looked upon Jac with great concern. In this very position it gradually faded away, and along with it the flames it had left in its wake had all gone out at once. In the giant's place, a multitude of faint white orbs began to float into the sky, as if they were being pulled into the moonlit night. This gorgeous scene was overshadowed by the young woman who lay still on the forest floor, in front of where the tree once stood. Richard wasted no time to return by Jac's side, and with tears anew, he held her limp body to her face, and pleaded. "Please wake up Jac.... please! Wake up....”The Three Marks of Delusion (Long Version)<img style="margin:auto;" height="400" width="400" src="https://i.postimg.cc/KcP5cJfY/shortcover-500r.jpg"><br><h2 style="margin:0;text-align:center;">The Three Marks of Delusion</h2><p style="text-align:center;">Written by Z.S.</p> <br><h3>contact(a): Sleep Start</h3> Half a restless night brings empty courage to fall asleep. Assisted into unconsciousness, something strikes in passing. An incomprehensible terror he foolishly hoped would leave him be. <p style="text-align:center;">* * *</p> In a blink dancing wheat and a brightly blackened sky greet his gaze from upon the ground. Their rhythmic sweeps bring an obscuring calm in their shade. He’d lie here forever to stare endlessly at the moon in this calm, bring them both to a standstill in their shared gravity, just enough to let time slip between in its meaningless flow. But though he had no recollection of where he came from in the moment, he knew he had elsewhere to be. Where was the question, however. The wheat certainly carried no answer in their stirring peace. The man only known as Captain feels around for his crumpled loose jacket amid the dirt, finding it covered in the same layer of fine dust as he. With a spry youth to his step he rises soon enough, pats the earthy particles off of his business attire, and combs his fingers through his mid-length hair before shouldering the jacket and moving through the gentle swaying stalks in their guidance. Across the endless sea of wheat a scattering of pale angles accompany Captain at a distance. They jut from the earth, a series of unspoken architecture frozen in a sense of hopeless reaching for the moon’s light. It proves hard to tell of their structures in passing, carrying a vagueness straddling an unfamiliar recollective the longer he looked. When the vagueness steers too closely to an echo of uncanniness Captain chooses not to look upon them any further. Instead, he looks ahead towards what lies across the horizon, a grand wall that stretches endlessly through the field. The stalks carry Captain closer to its bricked surface, eventually nearing the only pair of glass doors marking the entrance. A crowd of eyes across the very structure open upon his approach, small and curious in their witness except for one. High above the very entrance a grand gaze awakens. Upon its charge standing before the lone doors the polygonal iris rotates in thought. Captain counts seven angles total in their spinning, the second pointing down upon him as its eventual judgment. The grand eye closes, and the glass doors open for him to pass with a faint hiss. There’s a pause here. The eyes watch closely Captain holding his breath just before he steps through a shifting wave of sterility, into a sudden blur of white bolting across his view. It takes a few steps more to be welcomed by a quaint workplace filled with tiny moving bodies—figurines of ceramic formed in simple animal shapes. Captain towers amid the bustling crowd yet they move unimpeded by his presence, skittering through and around and every which way in their multitude of calculated tasks. They had no time to view this new stranger, only to work. Past the amusing sight of these delicate little things entertaining their office papers, it took a set of pronged horns planted between two long ears to catch his attention. Temptation beckons Captain to follow the lone jackalope lest he lose sight of it, but in his next steps the porcelain crowd begins to clatter around in a thicker flow, making the walk further awkward. Captain quickly loses his footing and catches the nearest structure of a computing machine, in his best effort to keep from falling over and crushing the busy figurines surrounding him. His very weight throws the machine off-kilter. It throws its weight into another nearby and knocks it off-balance in a repeat of his stumble, which then throws its weight over and knocks another structure off-balance, and then another. The chain of falling cabinets and equipment grows into a hail of obstacles, and with the heavy rain follows an explosive scattering of little porcelain bodies caught in the fray. Among the sudden mess Captain witnesses the jackalope weaving effortlessly through the crowd, until it’s easily knocked aside by a coworker interrupted in its path and falls into the open maw of a trash compactor. Captain runs over soon after, but by then the jackalope had disappeared into its endless depth. It seems to reach towards the lower levels. Captain frantically looks for a means to follow behind, and finds one just by another explosion of bodies. He takes to the open elevator lift in mere moments, missing the wave of white animals spilling across the floor when the doors close. With a moment to recollect himself Captain quells a lingering tension in his racing mind. It proved difficult to notice through the chaos, but he could have sworn, looking within the trash compactor, that he’d heard something in its depths. He couldn’t understand what it entailed. The more he clamours for a clearer recollection of the faint echo the more mumbled the sound of it repeats, fading further with each read. Whatever it may have been, the thought scatters under the next moment of surprise that awaits him when the lift doors open. A starkly new scene greets Captain in the lower level he visits. The empty, barely lit floor proved strangely abandoned, its worn structures and scattered relics covered thoroughly in a fine layer of grey. Captain slowly steps across the floor, his mind torn between his search and a growing bout of confusion. The level resembles little of the noisy office above. Instead, on further trudging through the brittle relics littering the floor, Captain’s wandering eyes catch wind of just what this place had once been—a hospital. An unexplainable chill runs through, and he clings to his new sense of unease the further he walks. To further feed into it the shadows skitter almost uncomfortably so at the edges of his vision. One such shadow moves in a blur of grey. A momentary shock brings Captain to a standstill, but he wrestles down his unease and pushes himself to chase after, feeling it to be the jackalope he’s searching for. The encompassing dark flooding the halls keeps the skittering figure vague, its shape taking different angles in passing—long ears, whipping long tail, flitting paws, static, an open beak. A pang of misery gurgles through his gut the longer he looks. This isn’t who he’s searching for. They’d been lost here for much too long for him to remember. The gurgling brings him to cringe away from such a recollection, and weighs him down in his chasing.Captain stumbles to a stop at the ground level of an open reception area amidst multiple floors. Here the fine dust seem to float gently in the deathly quiet, amid a single light shining from the levels above. Hunching over to ride the queasiness out Captain notices it brighter than the darkened ambiance seeping through the cluttered halls, almost blindingly so. The fleeing shadow had since moved on, and with no other means to find it he looks up to see what could be letting so much of this light through from high above. A long-eared body throws itself over the highest railing, following the light and dust to the ground like snow. <br><h3>contact(b): Regret Complex</h3> Faint wakefulness yields another scattering strike. He couldn’t recall it bearing itself in such grotesqueness, but thought no further with his fleeting mind giving way once more. <p style="text-align:center;">* * *</p> In a blink the dark of a decrepit hospital returns to his sight. A strange emptiness follows in the wake of the light’s disappearance. Before Captain can grasp its meaning, nor why it had left him with such a harrowing aftertaste, a new chill runs through him. Something unseen lingers. Not the hollow stillness that once presided over the abandoned floor, but a faint squelching of something hidden beyond the faded edges. A thicker chill clings to his back in its excessive crawling. Captain moves from the noise to find the silence, and leave the uncomfortably visceral presence far behind. The squelching follows incessantly with closing distance, refusing to sink into the quiet. Its stalking pushes him into a sprint, refusing to allow it any closer. Speed works against Captain in kind. The hospital floor and its abandoned structures bend in his racing view, unable to keep up. Confusion brings the squelching presence closer. In his desperation he stumbles quicker away from its heat closing around him. The entire floor warps further until it holds no longer in his frantic retreat, stretched to the inevitable rip at its seams. Every crack and split yields to empty space. Captain keeps whatever footing he can on remaining ground, but its further dissipation leaves little to maintain pace with. The squelching presence being almost upon him in the vacuum, Captain couldn’t help but to catch a glimpse in his slowing. He recognises the flash of bright eyes staring back with searing anger. And then, in a blink, he wakes up. He lies still with his pounding heart in the bed of a small hotel room. Night hadn’t yielded yet, caught in its darker hours where moonlight once lingered. His dreaming left him numb with tension once again, to his frustration. Captain wearily slides his legs out from underneath the bedsheets to sit over the edge and catch his breath, yet feeling the ground solid and silence prevalent fails to give him any assurance. Something about the dark bothers him. It blurs the room in grimy shadow. Given he’s awake now there isn’t much that can be done about it. He may as well keep himself occupied in the remaining night, until it’s time to be where he must be. The thought of it kept Captain from viewing the clock at his bedside. Its light carries a hint of something fading quickly into obscurity, but he’d rather not know just what it was nor how long he has left. Rising with some difficulty Captain heads for the bathroom, time skewing in each hobbled step. When the lights prove unresponsive he plants his focus on the brittle faucet of the sink, and prolongs a look in the mirror with a quick rinse of his face. The dark allows him little view upon his reflection, making the mirror appear as if it had rusted over. The grime blurs his youth with an addition of wrinkles he hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps a mere illusion from his tiredness. He leans in closer and the wrinkles deepen into his skin with further clarity. A startle brings Captain to pull away from the inexplicable change. In stepping back he catches glimpse of a mass in the bathtub. He whips around in its direction and finds himself facing the rotted remains of a familiar body, much like his, resting there. Captain awakens in a panic that jostles him out of bed. Moonlight returns the hotel room to normal, as he had left it. The dark may very well have just been a memory, gone as the seconds within it. Yet in recollecting his surroundings his ears catch wind of clattering and clicking just beyond the hotel room door. The mysterious monotony draws Captain up on his feet, straightening his casual attire of shirt and trousers before approaching. With a cautious turn of the doorknob unfiltered light and sound immediately seeps through the cracks and greets him to a strange factory view. In the level’s grand automation everything his eyes fell upon bent the wrong way. Nonsensical machines constructed shapes and colours together in a perplexing manner, and passed them along in undecipherable directions. Captain steps out onto grated flooring in his wonder. The factory stretched into forever, upways and down, with a multitude of walkways suspended between the countless clusters of machinery. He spots hands maintaining the inner workings at a distance, yet not a single worker around. Rather, every pair of hands and slender arms attached to the same long, blocky body slithering about. It ends in an elusive feline head that sees him from far off through its waves of hair. It twists its neck upright in interruption of its work, and bears its teeth in a wide grin. Captain meant to smile back, recognizing such a lovely face until it hit him immediately. The long body twirls and skitters haphazardly between suspended gratings, adding a cacophony of ringing metal that signaled a haunting fate in its arrival. He backs away from the edge of his platform and runs quickly for the closed door to his room. The knob refuses to budge in continuous tugging and turning, forcing him to flee with the crawling growing louder by the second. The connecting walkway loops Captain around active machines, too locked in his rush to slow down among them. He ducks under a mechanism swinging overhead, stumbles with another nearly catching him across his face, and trips clumsily past the cluster, somehow unscathed, to continue bolting onwards. The blocky centipede, having abandoned its duties in its manic chase, merely barrels through and rips the assembly line to shreds. The broken machinery interjects their neighbors, throwing their timing askew in a starting chain of self-destruction. Captain chances a glance in his tumbling retreat to see the spreading carnage and the feline head following behind, its many hands clawing towards him. The hauntingly manic excitement in its grin still remained pronounced. In a long stretch of narrow walkway Captain and the centipede sprint with little thought for the ripping machinery all around and the endless pitfall just below. Through the endless, unbearable noise Captain kept his focus only to the open doors of an elevator lift at the very end that promised an escape. The railings start to groan with the frantic flight, yet the large centipede refuses to abate, its one-tracked mind bringing the far end of the walkway to snap from the lift’s platform. Captain leaps the gap in time, his feet barely landing on solid grating and launching him into a roll with his remaining momentum. He sits back up inside the lift, the centipede looming just outside. Before it can reach in for its prize, in the growing explosion of screeching gears its head splits in twain. Captain presses his back further into the far wall of the lift, witnessing the last moments of the centipede’s consequence. It collapses onto the platform, twitching underneath broken machinery that pierce and bury it. The lift doors close before a single hand can reach in, nor his out, embracing Captain in bittersweet nothingness. <br><h3>contact(c): Molting of I</h3> Teeth gnash through a gap of lucidity, a jolt to inject its venomous mire. He begs not to live this sorrow once more, yet the waves of consciousness part. He sinks lower into its inevitable end. <p style="text-align:center;">* * *</p> His thoughts stew upon coming to in the elevator lift. The uncomfortable squirming feeds his aimless nervousness, ticking in time with his yet unfinished journey. Captain still cannot comprehend the before and after of his fleeting time. Just mere silhouettes blurred through the frosted glass he peers into. Only the now exists in full clarity. But the holes in between have grown too wide to ignore, yet too deep to look upon. Something still keeps him from doing so. He knows there’s somewhere he must be, and he’d rather focus on that. A chime cuts the conundrum short, allowing him to bury it once more. The doors open to a new floor, musty and wet, a shallow marsh within the white walls of a pristine laboratory. Swallowing hesitation Captain cautiously wades through the shade until dim light grows softly full in a new room. But he’s met with a morbid sight in return. In a corner a grand machine stands just above the waters. Its edges are lined with the remains of an aged body shredded to a pile of old flesh clinging to pale bone. Captain averts his gaze, sickened to the pit of his stomach, but finds more of these machines lining the edges across from it, each housing their cracked, rotted effigies lying forever in twisted agony. He covers his nose under an open palm and seeks an elsewhere uncluttered by such dreadful idols. Looking upon them summoned a sense of vague recollection he dare not seek, in their pained reaching. Passing in his stark ignorance of the rest he misses a gap somewhere in between, yet to be occupied. A dead end hallway brings a halt to Captain’s wandering. At the end stands one lone machine, similar to the others before aside from the cleanliness of its structure. An untouched ceramic sculpture stands tall from its open maw in near incredible height, enfolded in slumber. A temptation pulls Captain closer to the peaceful sight, before he recognises the pronged horns affixed between two long ears. Another pit weighs in his stomach. The familiar effigy trembles in each step, and adds to that weight when it opens its empty eye. With a chorus of cracking skin it unwinds in elegant stutters, bends low, and crawls on its arms towards Captain. There’s an erratic gracefulness to its glitching, within the murky waters the effigy drags itself through. In its wake pieces of its shedded porcelain sink in little trails of red. Seeing the sculpture mindlessly defacing itself pains Captain so, but an icy chill of fear keeps him from acting. He slowly backs further past sprawled lab equipment littering the hall, refusing to run yet uncertain of staying. He can’t understand why it wants him, specifically. It babbles away in its spurts of noise that could very well have been anything other than words, and continues to claw closer through the marsh. In his helplessness Captain trips against a panel embedded into the wall. He clings to something sticking out from it, but it gives way under his weight with a heavy clunk and sends him on the way down. The machinery housing the live sculpture whirs to life, and with its cycling teeth it pulls the effigy back in with a sickening crunch. Captain falls into the waters. He sits up and finds horror forcing him to watch the sculpture ground further and further through indifferent gears, still desperately clawing for him and loudly babbling in its terror. The gooey mess within the machine eventually sticks the gears solidly together. Half of its body minced into bloody pieces, shattered beyond recognition, the sculpture collapses and finally lies still in a mix of murk and blood, left to dry out and rot as the others have. Captain crawls frantically away from the creeping red still after him in death. He shuts his eyes in a painful pang of guilt, trying his hardest to ignore what had transpired and picture a different outcome from nothingness. It couldn’t have ended this way so quickly. Anything other than this. When his eyes open he’s in a new shade of dark, the pristine lab and its repulsive displays having all but disappeared. Only an etching of the felled sculpture is left in the forefront of his mind, still fresh in his present. With this newly adamant refusal to leave, something is bridged between the holes in his thoughts. Reaching around himself Captain feels a new combination of wall and ground free of clutter and moisture. He rises with some difficulty, pushing through the aching of his joints back on his feet. In his weight he almost doesn’t recognise that of his own body, the one thing that has slowly changed amidst everything. He leans against a wall in pause, a twinge of tired, dreadful realisation faintly reaching him. He’d been knowingly pushing it all aside in his habit, but this has all happened before. No matter where he turns there is no escape from this shifting of places and moments. Though this string of events struck him in terrifying newness it has all happened exactly, like the felled statue etched forever within him, doomed to repeat with each visit. In every night of sleep he will always have somewhere to be, and every step will only ever take him one way through. Finally coming to grasp this, he knows where he must be is close by. Captain can hear blood under his continuing footsteps, by now having grown numb to it. The dark yields to an aged wooden hallway decorated in the dusty textiles of an old hotel. Every door in passing remains closed, some hanging partway into nothingness, some rotted completely shut. Captain only finds one that appears occupied up ahead, leaking a haunting bluish glow. Several labored steps more and he pushes the door open to a rather dull scene. Past the glow the walls of the room fade away under endless dust. Housed in its center is an old squared television set tuned to a flickering broadcast, music playing from its old fuzzy speakers. Captain enters in silence, ignoring the long gone song of yesteryear with his attention to the other prominent sight in the room. A tall man sits erect at the edge of his bed before the screen. The man’s winged arms cling tightly to his chest, unresponsive to the visit. Joining him at his side Captain finds him masked with a porcelain bird’s face. A moment passes in trying to see just what lies beyond the dark holes of its eyes, finding nothing as he always does. Without thinking, once more compelled by morbid temptation, Captain slowly reaches to remove the man’s mask. Out of all he had seen, in every visit made, he’d never had the privilege to know what lies underneath. The music broadcast cuts to loud incomprehensible noise. Captain blinks, drawn into glimpsing the flashing images. He recoils and moves to back away from the screeching, the anger, anguish, and unspeakable pain it carried. A cold hand clamps around his arm, keeping him frozen in place. He sees the winged man holding him from where he sits. The bird’s head turns just barely in a silent series of cracks growing across his neck. Captain blinks, still unable to see beyond the holes of the porcelain mask. Between the wordless bid to stay and the growing volume of static gnashing at his ears he finds himself unable to act anymore. The tumultuous static creeps into the edges of Captain’s sense. The wallpaper and wood of the room peel away in the growing rumble of a coming storm. The floor itself gives way for him to sink through. More feathers grasp him upon slipping. Captain looks one more time into the hollow stare of the bird mask, finding aging, knowing eyes that have waited for him all this time. Captain blinks, and within the creeping rain of static reflected in the porcelain he sees his young self, carrying years lost and years to come. Captain blinks, and through snowy teeth wrapping around him sinuous hands grip the yoke that leads him and his onward towards inevitable agony. Captain blinks, and through their eyes is witnessed a great collapse in a brilliance of colours. The hollow structures of the dream and its bodies within fall apart, crumbling in the arrival of a deafening tempest. Captain blinks, and he flies through a recursive eternity. Their bodies fall where they always have, through his stretched fingers meant to hold them. He remembers each and every face in their last moments. Captain blinks, and in losing himself once more dark feathers let him go. Before the dawn of awakening, in the wake of endless tears, he falls backwards into the gaping maw of an empty machine. No matter its form, nor its order, that’s how it all came to be, how it always will, and that can never change.gif

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