11-11-2020, 07:02 PM
The others here, they hardly notice me, nor I them. It’s so unlike she had said things would go. But maybe this is all just temporary - a peculiar dream and nothing more.
The Dark Thing remains unspeaking, though I can’t shake the feeling that I am hovering on the precipice of some kind of dynamic energy mounting. The fine silvery hair along my bony neck rises to stand on end, and then just a suddenly as the world goes black, a column of ghostly light lands at the toes of my hooves. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust, and I utilize the time to steady both my breathing and heart alike.
The place, it turns out, is one that I know well. Years ago, I had been left in this cave hidden in the darkest parts of the Forest. It was nothing spectacular, this place, just a coincidental collision of pockmarked boulders and uprooted trees. The dead roots nestled perfectly against the opening of the cave, making it the ideal comfortable prison at its founding and later on, after <I>she</I> stopped coming by, what I’d refer to as Home.
<I>Trust me, Sweetling,</I> I can almost hear her whispered echo from the mouth of the cave, <I>Stay here, they’ll never love you like I do.</I>
And again I’m left to wonder if the moments just before weren’t simply a dream. But I have lingering doubts that refuse to subside. The sounds and scents of the this same cave collapsing had felt so real; the cuts and bruises and wheeze of my lungs when the dust settled had felt like proof of reality enough. And this darkness that surrounds me now feels bitter and hopeless and empty, as though all traces of life had vacated. So contrary to the rich, glistening depths of my cave that I had learned the intricacies of.
I feel as though I’m an outsider in a place that should feel inviting. And that odd sensation of being a stranger in my own home drives out and into the waiting pillars of forest trees. Greyscale and mute in color, their bare branches clattered harmoniously together on a windless night.
I follow a path saturated with sallow grey moonlight, in search of an answer to a question I don’t entirely understand and one I fear I may not recognize. But just up ahead, the bend in obstructed by something ethereal and unwavering.
Something. A horse?
Reluctantly, I step closer, trying to ignore that same dynamic presence of energy I’d felt with the Dark Thing before. And when I’m finally just close enough, I immediately wish I’d turned around sooner. Hollow sockets where eyes might’ve been before had turned to face me, had paralyzed me where I stood. Lacking in ears, smooth skin where nostrils should’ve curved, and a mouth impossibly wide and agape as if frozen in eternal shock - the being watched me. Her mane and tail, unkempt and gray, floated eerily in streaming banners as though she were submerged in water. The legs were impossibly long and slender, bent grotesquely at the knees in the opposite direction an averages horses would.
How do you move? I wondered aloud, absently. And as if the creature could hear me, faded out of existence as if to answer. Then painstakingly slow, she emerged from the Nothing again, much closer this time, as if the faux gray moonlight were pouring itself into her insubstantial shape and filling the empty spaces between her ragged outline.
If I were thinking clearly, her movement might’ve reminded me of a firefly flickering in and out of a sweltering summer night. But I haven’t the luxury of what would have been a pleasant analogy because as the the last of the filtered glowing light reaches the top of her poll, something toxic and sickly laps at the edge of my consciousness.
It’s excruciating and desolate and foreign, grief that is not my own and pain that I have never tasted before.
I hadn’t noticed she had started singing; Not until my pale eyes are able to refocus again, and my ears train forward, coming to alert as my instincts finally begin to rally at the threat of danger. Her song low and mournful at first, began rising in pitch and grandeur, the agony in her voice began to feel less of an imposing itch and more like claws raking across my soul.
Then the wailing came.
Then howling.
Then screaming.
<I>The screaming.</I>
I recognize it.
I’d heard it before, as the cave had heaved and collapsed. I’d passed it off as the stones protesting and grinding oddly against each other. Had she visited me the night before? Tried to warn me of what would come?
As if she might be an omen - a banshee.
But then, why would she be here now? In the Afterlife? If I am already dead?
Unless...not <I>yet</I>.
Though I fear that if her keening continues, what little parts of my soul that are still there might shatter and be lost to this place forever. She doesn’t want me here, I realize then, and I am beyond willing to oblige.
Gathering what’s left of my tattered senses, I turn, eager to put as much distance between myself and the specter as is physically possibly in the span of three heartbeats. As the space between us widens, the lighter the burdens of the banshee’s song becomes, though I dare not slow down.
Something dark laid up ahead, pitch in color and cloaked in feathery shadow. The closer I get, the wider the gate seems to yawn, as if eager to welcome my passage. And when the familiar darkness takes me, I sigh in relief. Opening my eyes, the Dark Thing faces me once again, in the exact place as before, as if I’d never left in the first place.
The Dark Thing remains unspeaking, though I can’t shake the feeling that I am hovering on the precipice of some kind of dynamic energy mounting. The fine silvery hair along my bony neck rises to stand on end, and then just a suddenly as the world goes black, a column of ghostly light lands at the toes of my hooves. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust, and I utilize the time to steady both my breathing and heart alike.
The place, it turns out, is one that I know well. Years ago, I had been left in this cave hidden in the darkest parts of the Forest. It was nothing spectacular, this place, just a coincidental collision of pockmarked boulders and uprooted trees. The dead roots nestled perfectly against the opening of the cave, making it the ideal comfortable prison at its founding and later on, after <I>she</I> stopped coming by, what I’d refer to as Home.
<I>Trust me, Sweetling,</I> I can almost hear her whispered echo from the mouth of the cave, <I>Stay here, they’ll never love you like I do.</I>
And again I’m left to wonder if the moments just before weren’t simply a dream. But I have lingering doubts that refuse to subside. The sounds and scents of the this same cave collapsing had felt so real; the cuts and bruises and wheeze of my lungs when the dust settled had felt like proof of reality enough. And this darkness that surrounds me now feels bitter and hopeless and empty, as though all traces of life had vacated. So contrary to the rich, glistening depths of my cave that I had learned the intricacies of.
I feel as though I’m an outsider in a place that should feel inviting. And that odd sensation of being a stranger in my own home drives out and into the waiting pillars of forest trees. Greyscale and mute in color, their bare branches clattered harmoniously together on a windless night.
I follow a path saturated with sallow grey moonlight, in search of an answer to a question I don’t entirely understand and one I fear I may not recognize. But just up ahead, the bend in obstructed by something ethereal and unwavering.
Something. A horse?
Reluctantly, I step closer, trying to ignore that same dynamic presence of energy I’d felt with the Dark Thing before. And when I’m finally just close enough, I immediately wish I’d turned around sooner. Hollow sockets where eyes might’ve been before had turned to face me, had paralyzed me where I stood. Lacking in ears, smooth skin where nostrils should’ve curved, and a mouth impossibly wide and agape as if frozen in eternal shock - the being watched me. Her mane and tail, unkempt and gray, floated eerily in streaming banners as though she were submerged in water. The legs were impossibly long and slender, bent grotesquely at the knees in the opposite direction an averages horses would.
How do you move? I wondered aloud, absently. And as if the creature could hear me, faded out of existence as if to answer. Then painstakingly slow, she emerged from the Nothing again, much closer this time, as if the faux gray moonlight were pouring itself into her insubstantial shape and filling the empty spaces between her ragged outline.
If I were thinking clearly, her movement might’ve reminded me of a firefly flickering in and out of a sweltering summer night. But I haven’t the luxury of what would have been a pleasant analogy because as the the last of the filtered glowing light reaches the top of her poll, something toxic and sickly laps at the edge of my consciousness.
It’s excruciating and desolate and foreign, grief that is not my own and pain that I have never tasted before.
I hadn’t noticed she had started singing; Not until my pale eyes are able to refocus again, and my ears train forward, coming to alert as my instincts finally begin to rally at the threat of danger. Her song low and mournful at first, began rising in pitch and grandeur, the agony in her voice began to feel less of an imposing itch and more like claws raking across my soul.
Then the wailing came.
Then howling.
Then screaming.
<I>The screaming.</I>
I recognize it.
I’d heard it before, as the cave had heaved and collapsed. I’d passed it off as the stones protesting and grinding oddly against each other. Had she visited me the night before? Tried to warn me of what would come?
As if she might be an omen - a banshee.
But then, why would she be here now? In the Afterlife? If I am already dead?
Unless...not <I>yet</I>.
Though I fear that if her keening continues, what little parts of my soul that are still there might shatter and be lost to this place forever. She doesn’t want me here, I realize then, and I am beyond willing to oblige.
Gathering what’s left of my tattered senses, I turn, eager to put as much distance between myself and the specter as is physically possibly in the span of three heartbeats. As the space between us widens, the lighter the burdens of the banshee’s song becomes, though I dare not slow down.
Something dark laid up ahead, pitch in color and cloaked in feathery shadow. The closer I get, the wider the gate seems to yawn, as if eager to welcome my passage. And when the familiar darkness takes me, I sigh in relief. Opening my eyes, the Dark Thing faces me once again, in the exact place as before, as if I’d never left in the first place.