117. Nightmare, 8

(Rose)

We walk in silence, both feeling uneasy for confused reasons.

Actually, the air smells differently and...

It gradually slows down our ability to think.

We just feel somewhat weird, but we don't know why.

For a second, I forgot why I was walking here. It smells funny. There's a lingering perfume in the air.

We're getting closer. I'm trembling a little.

This perfume, it reminds me of something sweet. Something very sweet... It's mesmerising.

Ann is giggling for no reason. She looks drunk. It makes me laugh. The air feels heavy suddenly.

The colours seem to darken a bit around us. I don't see any cloud, but it looks like the sky is turning red. The sun is getting even darker.

I've seen that before I think. I was scared then. Perhaps I should run away... But I'm still walking ahead.

I want to know...

~

We're still walking along the railroad. I'm not sure if it has been only a few minutes or months already. I've lost track and perception of time and distance.

Everything is dark, but still visible. It's very strange. We're in an area where only red and brown light comes from the sun. So there's still enough light, but everything is red or darker...

And everything on the ground seem to move a little bit, to tremble...

Something very wrong happened here...

We both hear the singing voice again. It's far, nowhere in particular, but we hear it coming from every direction. Ahead, the song seems stronger.

It's a constant whisper, like the music of water in a stream, or the rumble in a train.

Here it's that awful and bad singing. The same tune over and over, like a record disc...

That's probably it... No one ever sang that. It's just a record that someone likes to play, or forgot to switch off...

I saw a tree running away.

It spooked me so much that I fell on my behind.

My heart is beating fast. The air we breathe makes our head spin. We breathe through our clothes then, and it helps a little, it eases some of the dizziness.

The grass is running away too. It stays away from us, drawing circles around from us when we walk. It keeps distance from us. Are we hallucinating?

We see a forest slowly moving away in the distance. This is so weird... What is happening?

I heard a different voice suddenly, saying something, from far ahead.

Someone is calling. It sounds like a woman is yelling or whispering a word to my attention.

B - Hier... Kommst hier...

Come here, I think it's saying. I can't quite hear it clearly.

The grass leaves us and goes away. Like a tide, it leaves the ground around us and flows away from this place.

It's as if during the last few minutes we were walking, every plant and living thing in the area had left, running away from here.

There's no longer any grass, nor tree, nor shrubs, and perhaps no bacteria left in the area.

The ground is now an endless desert as far as we can see, though that isn't much.

We're entering a dead and forsaken zone we couldn't see from outside. And I hear the voice calling us, just a bit further...

We're going to meet my daiûa...

~

The tracks became different a bit suddenly. The metallic rails look like they shine a lot more starting from here, as if the metal had been cleaned and regenerated moving forward. But the ground on the contrary is desolate.

The dim light is oppressing us as much as the sound.

We will lose our mind if we stay here for too long...

Ann suddenly tugs my sleeve. She saw something and points at it. A human shape in the distance, behind us. But we already know better. From the way it walks or run, we quickly realise it's not human exactly. It's one of those.

We walk faster. We see others appearing on the horizon. Other things too. Horses, cows, dogs, and we can't say what the other things are. Did they regroup waiting for us to come here?

We move faster but our legs are betraying us. Or the ground is, by suddenly moving below our feet.

I see an eruption of ink rushing into the sky from some weird woods in the distance. As if a gigantic tree is suddenly growing in front of me, a mile away, and a mile high, drawn in Indian ink.

It keeps growing, covering the sky.

I manage to think, turn myself, and to stand. I see with horror that the monsters are already much closer to us than they should be.

The ground keeps trembling. I can hardly breathe anymore.

I go to pull Ann back up. My hand gets no hold and rips the flesh away from her arm as if it was jelly.

I'm struck. Ann is not bleeding, doesn't realises what just happened, and manages to stand up by herself. I'm scared.

Are we dead? I come back to my senses. No. Not yet. But we're in dire danger.

We run and slip. We slip in a long slope inside a very wide circular valley we hadn't seen.

The train tracks nearby are thin threads hanging above it from a side to the other in distance.

A very large basin... A wide hollow, suddenly sunk a few metres below ground, leaving only the railroad standing so far...

There's the ground level of the weird woods in the middle, and spreading oddly around. It's a really uneven forest...

It seems like it spewing the colour red into the sky, the colour that covers all that shades haven't claimed.

The forest's shape reminds me of that famous church in Moscow...

It's not a forest... It looked like such from the above ground level. From within the deep, it looks weirder. It's the surface of a village near the middle of this basin, and reaching into the sky, red and dark, like skyscrapers...

I can't comprehend what I'm looking at...

~