308. After a bad dream, 8

(Rose)

We chose to head west. Toward Constantinople.

We are hiking between Cliffside of the mountains and the shore. Had we had a boat, sailing would go easier.

But here it seems the shores have fallen into the sea over a few kilometres at least. We see small protruding buildings in the distance sometimes, like extended reefs.

We are going slowly through a very lush forest covering these mountains from here.

After a few days up there, came a night of storm. We built a small shelter to wait for the weather to get better.

It was a stressful night.

We saw something during flashes of lightning, high up in the sky. Something scary. We hid that night.

Nothing happened, but the fear rotted inside of me and poisoned my dreams.

~

Bad memories coming back to haunt me.

Death. Murders. Blood everywhere, mostly others, but as well mine.

Ogre's glowing cerulean eyes piercing me, like an omen of impending doom.

Swords ripping flesh. The growth of monstrous plants over corpses. Demons only lurking to eat us, body and soul.

Asking families to sacrifice their child to them, while using the deceased like tools.

All the bad things emerge and eclipse the sun, making me believe for a moment of nauseating terror that the world holds only them

That there is nothing but grim fights for survival in here, and no other fate but exhaustion and defeat in the end.

As I hear the violent downpour outside even inside my dream, part of me knows that the sun will rise again tomorrow. This night time panic is corroding my thoughts.

But then. Something new triggered a real dream. Things I've not quite experienced.

The eclipse of the sun turns into a hole in the sky.

Gravity turns itself over and I can feel myself falling suddenly toward it, as if the ground was a ceiling above this silent astral maelstrom.

I fall with some panic and screams into what becomes a giant well. It's dark.

The walls of this place I'm falling into are made of polished stones and bricks. It looks like the walls of a coliseum, circling this hollow tower.

I know this place., though I never came in.

Bleue probably remembers it.

I'm looking around, still scared despite my awareness of the dream.

Because I know in places and moments like this that only a daiûa can appear before me.

I see a giant mirror standing in there, where I landed more than I fell.

Two very old children are crying against it, one from either side.

And then the demon appears. I feel like I know her, that I've seen her before.

She looks at me, and it feels as if my heart was getting pierced by needles, if not daggers.

She looks a little surprised to see me actually.

I have a moment of doubt, as she looks rather human despite her threatening look and scary appearance.

R - ... Daiûa?

Is it just a bad dream, or a real contact?

I kind of hear her reply, her thought unspoken.

So it really is you, she seems to say.

I hear the idea more than the words themselves.

I feel there's a context I can't see, there's more to this than meets my eyes.

She looked at me...

She stands up and the dream begins to shatter.

All I see is a dark sky and the sun rising over the horizon. In a matter of minutes, I see the full day be gone, with the sunrise transforming in day, then twilight, then night.

The sky and stars rotate then, before the sun reappears on the other side. A weird experience and dream.

The thing that looks human points toward something in the west to me. Lucky call I guess. But I don't see what she's pointing at. I only feel uneasy.

As I wake up in sweat, maybe just my instinct telling me that something ominous lies somewhere ahead in the west.

~

I spent the rest of the night having short sleeps, having nightmares and making up from them.

The daiûa in the hole was actually the less horrible dream of the night. All I dreamt about afterward were gruesome scenes and torture. Killings at nauseam, to a point where it's meaningless, though my primal instincts were saturated.

I kept screaming, until I woke up from it in bad sweat.

Nothing really felt like a premonition in all of that. It looked more like the symptoms of a sickness incubating.

In all of that mess of hellish visions, well, delusions rather, one that marked me was about the other roses left in England.

This worst dream was seeing me and them killing each other... Given they are a part of me or my family, we are related to each other, whether we like it or not. Seeing them murdering each other with insane violence was shocking to me.

I could never have seen any family behave like this elsewhere than in a feverish nightmare.

It left me with a very bad lingering aftertaste, in a shapeless form of worry and fear.

Roses getting to die, by the hands of monsters, or their own.

As if our blood was cursed to become toxic and spoil, and that our lives could only end violently. In long screams and moans of painful agony, crawling scorched and naked, ripped, in cold and pain. Pierced, shot, strangled, burnt, shredded and eaten. Our body parts feeding beasts, or used to craft the body of a wider monster, a new god to dominate the leftovers.

It was hard to swallow all these fears. I know they're just nightmares. I know... But I'm still getting weary, drained, and stained with lingering worries.

The two words I usually use to dream over stories I have read, what if, now they haunt me on their pessimistic counterpart.

Please, someone tell me none of these could become real...

Because I fear something out there could make some of this true.

There could be a daiûa out there whose only meaning in existence would be to destroy the roses.

One god not even Licht couldn't defeat.

An end just taking its time for now.

There could be a monster growing somewhere, whose only purpose would be to seek and eradicate all the remaining human lives on Earth.

Who knows what kind of demons still lie out there?

I've seen how far the power of the beings-like-her can go.

It makes everything imaginable in the world for me, now possible.

Every kind wish. And every evil intent too...

Now I fear, the worst ending imaginable could come to pass as well.

And a seed of paranoia blooms amidst the fears of this night.

~

I woke up in the late morning, exhausted and terrified. Bleue seems fine. She found some fruits for lunch.

B - Are you alright? You're pale.

My memories of the bad dreams are fuzzy, but something sad did sprout.

I can't recall precisely where my mind wandered during this painful night.

Aside the anguish that will slowly fade on this very fine day, only one thing remains. Only one thought remained clear enough and sticky enough to linger in a way I can voice out.

R - I think there might be a daiûa somewhere further west. One that... would be better we avoid encountering.

Bleue doesn't smile. She just nods. She felt something too.

We will make a detour inland, and see if we can refine our instinct or perception of things like that.

To avoid the worst.

~