CHPT 281: Burned By Truth....
Darkness, it welcomed him like an old friend when he finally shut his eyes. Only that darkness wasn't a friend-- or an ally, by any means. It was a shifter of shapes, like himself.
Only the shape the darkness within his mind took wasn't a physical form. Or one form at all for that matter. It was a culmination of forms, sceneries and experiences all bundled up into his own personally crafted hell.
The dark of a soundless sleep brought on by plants and powerfully grown herbs faded within half an hour. He'd drank enough to kill a horse-- and the magic of the Moon couldn't care less.
It scalded his skin and snaked into his mind, twisting and churning his black sea of unconsciousness. Forming the shadows into green valleys and distant mountains littered with everything he hated. He'd had the nightmare before-- but rarely was it so lucid.
He stood in the field like a lost traveler-- as if he hadn't been in the area more times than he could count. The long wet grass tickled his ankles like a dozen hands while the rainfall above invoked a similar cold feeling. The way it streaked down his back and chest, gliding across his skin like raindrops on a window told him he was back in his human form.
The only human as far as his eyes could see. The only living being that resembled a human at least.
Everything else was what he fought not to be.
WereWolves. Beasts fallen victim to the thrill of the hunt and everything that came after. The giant Monsters that barely resembled Wolves with sabered fangs and massive almost humanoid arms, ripped and tore into all the humans that attempted to flee the massacre reeking of fear and disgust. The worst part of it all was, he could smell the Wolves excitement whenever they gave chase.....he could feel his own blood pulsing like the waves of an ocean, filling him with the power he needed to join them.
Up above, falling with the rain, winged humanoid Monsters added to the madness happily. Under the dark stretch of night, they stood out like white omens of death. Their wings spread out, bony with visible digits and claws that clawed through the windy currents and gifted them with flight.
Matching the pale and emaciated expanse of each wing, their bodies held an undead beauty shown in each steel cord of muscle beneath their bloodless skin that twitched and tightened in their descent. As the divebombing monstrosities neared, mouths opened with a gruesome snap. Their jaws stretched so wide that their cheeks ripped like wrongly fit clothing.
The wind caused the ripped tatters of their cheeks to flutter like fleshy curtains and reveal the rotted teeth beneath-- as well as the four needle-like fangs that practically reached for the bleeding humans below.
The last thing he saw before they swept into the mess and began feeding on the humans was each and every pair of the monsters eyes. All black-- a deep and icy cold black, save for their glowing blood-red irises.
Vampires.
Their inhuman screeches and screams blended with the howls and growling barks of the WereWolves, falling on his ears as a wild hum.
His eyes peeled away from the madness and found humans that escaped, they ran towards the mountains in the distance only to be taken down in a flash by scorpion tailed thirteen foot tall Monsters.
When the HellBreeders got off the Humans, they groggily rose from the ground different than before. Their skin took on a smoky undercurrent like flames and smoke bubbled from within. And horns ripped from their scalps and foreheads. Some resembled the horns of a rhinoceros, others were closer to Bison or even Bucks antlers. Among all this difference, one fact remained.
They were Demons.
They turned, no longer interested in fleeing and joined into the blood red flurry of chaos. The Silver Cursed and BloodStarved welcomed them with open jaws.
New sounds drew his eyes to the forestry that bordered the field. Within its shadows and clump of trees, he could see eyes. Glowing and sadistic.
They rose and stepped forward. Jack and Dolion emerged from the foliage watching over it all like two builders eyeing their handiwork. Then, they turned to face the sky and transformed in a flash with a single inhale.
One second there was a cloud of steam and the next there were two sleek furred Lupines of Remus watching over it all like a deformed shape-shifter king and his lowly servant. Above them, a Lupine corpse hung from the tree like rudely tossed clothing.
His fur was all brown except for a white streak on the sides of it's head.
It killed him everytime he saw him. His father, reduced to a mindless Monster and taken out on a whim. All his hard work, all the years the man spent raising him and studying the world they lived in. Reduced to ashes and blown away by the cold winds of the Deviant his nightmares locked him inside of.
As if on que, tears ran down his face, blending with the rainfall. But, before the true torture of endless time could begin,
"YoUuuuu.....YOu HaVe ThiS DrEam AlMoST EvERY NIGHT!....AnD YoU NeVER EXplOre IT!"
Claude jumped at the sudden boom of the voice. It sounded like it came from the sky as a whole, causing his eyes to naturally pan up to the source.
The sky of his nightmare was different this time around.
It was clear despite the steady downpour. Allowing him to fully take in the arrays of shimmering streaks of light dancing across the sky.
Aurora borealis.
Only this sight wasn't calming and beautiful. The colors were off. Instead of verdant greens and spacey blues. The sky was slashed with electrical crimson beams of red that blended into oranges, yellows, blues and blacks.
They twisted and morphed into a focused shape. A shape with a snout covered in lines and indents to create an image of something snarling. And teeth that bit into the sky with red eyes that burned holes into him. From his opened ethereal jaws, the rain continued to pour.
Fenrir.
"YoUR TrUTh....IT's In HerRREee..as MUcH aS It'S wiTH ME....JuST LoOK ARoUND!"
The unnatural lucidness of the nightmare allowed him to do just that. For the first time, he did more than turn his head and let his eyes follow.
His feet rose from the grass, moving as if it all were real.
As soon as his foot came back down sounds behind him spurred him into action.
He spun around and found himself looking at two humans with horrified yet stony expressions. Behind them, a whole crowd of terrified people clung to each-other with eyes that screamed of trauma.
Before he could react, one of the two men in front lunged at him with something.
FWOO!
ShLCK!
He felt cold steel jab into his stomach as he bounded backward.
"Stay back beast!"
Claude looked down at what the man held and found a pitchfork reddened by blood in his hands. He could already feel the blood running from his stomach.
"No, N-- I'm not with them. I don't want this!" He spoke, more sternly by the end.
The crowd of people behind him jumped and screeched at his words as if he was swinging at them. The two men who seemed to be their protectors in the front held their weapons tighter.
"Bastards got a nasty bark.." One man said to himself.
Claude felt his anger rising and creating a volatile mix with his sadness and horror, "The fuck are you talking about? I just told you I'm not part of this! Why are you all here? Why won't you leave here?!"
"Stay back!" The men yelled and swung at him again.
Cold steel bit into his stomach again, causing him to stumble backward before yelling out in anger.
"WILL YOU STOP IT!!"
That time he heard it. The words he was thinking weren't coming out in English-- or any intelligent language for that matter.
His roar still echoed across the field like a thunderbolt.
The whole world within his mind fell silent. The legion of humans stopped looking at him and began studying something behind him.
"Oh shit..." One of them announced.
Slowly, snarls and quieted screeches rose with a steady ascent.
In unison with his turn to see what the humans were watching, all the Monsters that were once ripping into the screaming humans changed their targets to the one's Claude roared at as if a command laced his voice that they all heard as clear as day.
"Nooo! WAIT!" He roared as the Vampires, WereWolves and HellBred Humans descended on the crowd of humans like a pack of starved wolves.
He didn't bother turning, didn't bother fighting. Nightmares didn't usually allow him to fight anyway.
He growled in anger, "Wake up....wake up...wake up!"
The chants grew spaced out only by the sounds of him biting his arms and ripping open his chest.
"Come on dammit! WAKE UP!"
The sky shook, "It"S A ShAME ReALLY....yoU'RE tHE OnLY PeRSoN In HeRE ThAT DoeSn'T SeE YouRSelF FoR wHAT YoU...ArrrreE....."
"Shut the fuck up, Fenrir!....I swear to god I'll skin you and hang you up where no one will ever see you again!" He snarled.
"YeSSSSsss.....goOD. I WanT YoUU TO TrEAt EvERyTHiNG oN THE OUTSIde LiKE Thisss....." He paused for a moment and turned his head as if a new sound caught his attention, "Hehehe...SpeAKIng of the OutSIDE....It IS TimE FoR Youuu to....AwaKEN!"
Before Claude could respond, the aurora-like form of Fenrir's maw lunged for him from the sky. It's streaks of light stretched and cut through the winds before smashing into him with a burst of light and burning energy.
Immediately, his skin began to stretch and bubble.
By the time his eyes closed, he was fully transformed once again.
In the distance, he could hear the howls of a wolf...