342. A haunted house, 5

(Rose)

I can hardly remember when was the last time I travelled like that.

Almost alone.

With only a guardian spirit, a whimsical presence alongside mine. Now in the form of a giant talking bird.

I walked across the outer ruins and cliffs of the city. I swam across a channel and walked on uneven landscape for days forth. Ana carried my bag and clothes on the other bank while I swam, that's helpful.

She's a good bird. When she's not pecking your legs at least. She has her character.

She also has quite a presence when she flies ahead to lead the way over these paths. I'm following the giant blue crow spirit, as it's leading me to the land of nightmares.

That may sound awful, but I'm really excited.

I'm going to meet a daiûa!

Wouldn't you have loved to hear that as well, dear father in heaven?

You would be so proud and happy for me. As I am.

In the distance, I begin to see that halo. A small ring of clouds is flowing around it in the sky, as if there was an invisible mountain there.

Given how recognisable it is, I didn't really need Ana to show me the way, however she might be able to help negotiate or even translate ideas. I'm mostly human after all. She's a little more on their side.

~

Day after day as I walk under this blaze of a weather, I'm reminded of the colourful sands of Egypt.

A land where I wouldn't have been able to survive without the help of Blume.

Beings-like-her have always been attracted toward humanity, even posing as humans, getting close to them. Playing with them.

While we on the other hand have always had envy and respect for their kind.

Love or hatred also, and fear, but that's less relevant here.

Our kinds are attracted to what the other has that we lack. We're pulled toward each other as we exist in this new world. Since the white day, and possibly even long before, from the shades of the older time...

I believe we're bound to live together us and them.

Just like the people of my time were bound to unite themselves over time.

Humanity always had wars between people but I believe we were growing more united over time.

We wanted to.

Here, we will.

We will be friends.

~

Each new day, the rings in the sky, hinting at the shape of a flexible bubble, are cleaner and closer. This dome of colder air hits the rest of the surrounding atmosphere along these lines that shift slightly.

As we get closer, I realise it's a gradient like the light at the end of a tunnel. It doesn't start abruptly but you're step by step further inside.

For the first time in my life, I've seen a bird sleeping on it back.

At first as I woke up, I thought Ana was dead. But then I saw her breathing, and just realised she only had the weirdest sleeping posture for a bird.

Ana doesn't care. She liked me combing her feathers next though, to brush of the dirt. Then we were on our way again. And without realising it fully, we entered the domain of the lord of nightmares.

~

The ring in the sky made from a cloud stuck around the dome was still further away.

It was the top of a wide, immense droplet, more than the dome of a bubble. A heavier drop of liquid, less spherical, wider.

The air did began to feel nice. And just like that, we were inside.

Trees became more lush and grass less dry.

And after a while, a faceless fear began diffusing itself through our minds. An osmosis of something about thoughts had begun and I couldn't control it.

The nightmares began with sudden bursts of anxiety and jolts. Small panic attack at a nearby sound or feeling.

My heartbeat had risen suddenly. I was growing nervous and restless. I was worried about Bleue.

Then my mind, I could feel it, was on the verge of slipping into paranoia at any time.

What if...

The two words opening doors to other worlds in imagination, my unlawful land. To beautiful places when you already know how to use them by yourself. And also to the depth of horrific hell if you're unable to prevent yourself from falling over...

They're opening. I heard the locks fall in my mind.

I could feel it, a part of my mind beginning to see doors opening themselves, anxiously.

What if Ana was wrong? What if Bleue was hurt?

What if the lord of nightmares was just looking forward to eating humans?

What if I had been lured?

Cold sweat followed.

Ana had disappeared.

I was alone in a strange world I couldn't trust anymore.

I knew something ominous was lurking in the surroundings, looking at me.

I didn't realise before it was far too late that I was already deep inside the nightmare.

The daiûa was already playing a trick on me. One of tragedy, one with the sad face of tragedy.

I was gasping for air as everything in my surroundings was vanishing into the mist.

The light was fading in there. It grew redder, oppressing.

In my nightmares, I was powerless, afraid, at my weakest.

I was crying in panic, afraid of the coming dark as nightfall surrounded me.

I would be screaming in panic as it was about to swallow me quietly.

I was lost in anguish, my mind in disarray.

I was on my knees, at my weakest, when it appeared before me.

I was unable to lie. I wouldn't be able to lie, threaten or to intimidate anyone or anything.

I wouldn't be able to negotiate at all. Only to beg, or flee...

Everything else I felt was lost.

The shape appearing in front of me, I had met a few ones similar to it before.

It was god.

As they believe themselves to be at least.

A juvenile, androgynous and skinny silhouette, cut in utter darkness. It's probably not corporal at all.

This one, like some have but not always, had two slim tentacles of the same naught protruding behind, like attempts at wings cut short, or the first lines for a drawing of them.

More or less, she had a very common aspect for a being-like-her. A humanoid silhouette that is not their real body, if they even have one.

This one now held me like a petrified little bird, in the palm of its ghastly hands.

N - So... You're Rose... I thought you had flowers on your chest.

R - Ah... They're gone.

I was dead scared and unable to think the words coming through.

N - It doesn't really matter... Now, you have something I want. So, give me your blood now.

I shivered. My heart stopped. It grew closer, stretching an ominous hand toward me.

I began screaming for my life.

~