Beta. Reaper

DREAMS OF DEATH

There was a fire burning in the distance yet I could feel my body loose feeling. My fingers and toenails looked to have been devoured by frostbite while the shiver that had wracked through me already disappeared, leaving me numb. The fire glowed like a beacon promising me warmth, satisfaction and a return of feeling to my soul.

The longer I walked, the farther the warmth and satisfaction moved away from me until my feet started to drag against the floor like a log of wood. Still, I had to get to the fire and that was my only purpose. 

All around me was pitch blackness. The room breathed in my strength and in return I received bone chilling cold, a thick cloud of darkness and a sense of gloom and despair. I had to get out of this place but first, I had to get my feet working properly again.

I was pushing ahead at a snail’s pace when I heard it. It was the sound of a hundred whispers, a hundred chilling whispers, all at the same time, calling out one thing, calling out to me, whispering my name. A shiver started up from my soul and this time it wasn’t from the cold.

“Kelly Black,” The ominous voices echoed and bounced around the darkness. They reverberated and sent terror racing down my spine.

“Hello? What do you want?” I asked in a small voice yet the silence of the darkness caused my words to be amplified. They almost didn’t sound like mine anymore and as I spoke, the words bounced around, smacking me in the face with the air that had produced them.

“Your soul belongs to me, Kelly Black. Give it to me,” The voice of the darkness called back at me. 

“N– no,” My voice came out as a pitiful croak and I knew I had to remedy that. I had to stand up against whatever this was that was trying to claim my soul. My soul wasn’t a piece of candy for whoever to pick up or for demons to wrestle for. “You’re going to have to get it yourself! “ I screamed – or I tried to– My voice came out with more strength than the first time, but it was still nowhere near a sound that could challenge this superordinary force of evil, but I had to start somewhere.

The laughter that followed was taunting. It felt like shards of icicles on my skin, cold, calculated, terrible. It filled me with fear and as though a bucket of ice water had been dumped on me my body jerked forward.

It was then that things took a turn for the worse because right in front of me, a figure started to become visible. It was a being that had no business existing along side the rest of the world. At first, it uncurled like a dragon, but the skin of it was like a snake’s and from beneath it’s wings, two heads on a shoulder emerged. The eyes on this thing were slits like a cat’s and they were dark, red and terrible. A tail with a pointed end, sharp like an arrow, wagged in excitement.

It opened its mouth and smoke poured out like it’s belly was a furnace and this smoke seemed to make the darkness even darker. Fear rooted me to the spot and when I tried to swallow I found that I had no saliva. I watched like a transfixed child as something red and hot – fire – started to crawl up its throat. 

My mouth fell open in a loud and frightful cry and it was then I regained consciousness. I bolted upright in bed as my heart tried to breakout of my ribcage. The cold had escorted me into the real world and its evidence was the incessant way my teeth chattered. 

A hand draped my discarded covers around me, alerting me to the presence of Grey in my room. "Are you alright?" He asked with creased eyebrows. His presence startled me and my heart gave a loud and pronounced ‘thump' as my dilated eyes beheld him.

‘It was just a dream. No one can hurt me in a dream. It was just a stupid nightmare – a scary yet stupid nightmare – I was safe,’ I tried to reassure myself but with the rapid rise and fall of my chest, it was hard to convince myself I wasn’t about to get roasted and devoured by a two headed dragon-like creature. The last time I had woken up from a terrifying dream, Grey had been right next to me.

“I’m fine,” I lied through my teeth. Yet the quiver of my body, the buzzing in my soul and the mist I was breathing through my mouth told a different story. Nightmares were slowly but surely taking over my nights. No longer did I see the innards of Bryan’s little head splashed all over the ground or the unseeing eyes of my family. All I dreamed of now was this consuming darkness that was slowly manifesting terrible creatures and sending cold with me to the real world.

“Your eyes tell of unimaginable terrors and I know you’ve had another nightmare. You’re as cold as I am, Kelly. Tell me what your saw,” He pressed calmly. Tears gathered behind my lids, threatening to spill out.

“A– Are you sure y – you haven’t b – been in my dreams?” I questioned. I had to be sure – absolutely certain – that Grey was not playing a trick on me. He was the only source of such darkness I knew. 

“You can’t take his word for it. He has said he finds your fear intoxicating and it’s fading fast. Can’t you see he is trying to make you afraid so he can use your fear for his sick pleasure? “ My wolf hissed at me. Hera didn’t like Grey – she detested him – because according to her, he reeked of danger. He was a dangerous predators and wolves were unused to predators that outmatched them on such a large scale.

Anger spilled from Grey as he began to emit darkness all around. “As awesome as I am,” He started with a humourless tone “I can’t be in Dream World. It is forbidden for me to enter that realm,” He cackled like a wounded animal. “As much as I like breaking the rules, this is one that I cannot break, not without severe punishments. It is one of the few privileged denied me. Death has to know his place – remember that he is only a messenger and forever second to the Lord of Darkness,” He said bitterly. A faint tang of his bitterness entered into my mouth.

The Lord of Darkness could only be one person and I briefly wondered if that was what Grey wanted. To be like the him – to be the Lord of Darkness. He had mentioned something about someone being usurped once. 

Could he be the one planning to usurp this creature. My head spun with the magnitude of all my thoughts. I was used to the company of death now and I had convinced myself he wasn’t such an evil entity. What if he really was a power hungry demon. It would explain why he was so invested in finding out if I was a mage. Did he need a mage to perform some diabolic ritual that would help him usurp the Devil? Was that even possible?

What if the Lord of Darkness knew Grey was trying to usurp him? What if he was trying to use me to unravel the plot. He could think I was a mage that Grey was going to employ to steal his power from him. Goddess, all these thoughts were going to give me a terrible headache and I could already feel it coming on 

"So does it mean your boss has been in my dreams?" I asked uncertainly.

The anger in the air was automatically replaced with amusement. "The Lord of Darkness? In your dreams?" He burst out laughing at that and I crossed my arms in annoyance. I hated it when people laughed at my questions as if they were foolish – as if I was foolish.

"What's so funny?" I spat out like a brat. He laughed low and hard and the deep vibration of his laughter had me feeling funny but I did not dwell on that.

"Ah, sweet Kelly. You don't know how good that felt," He said as he rubbed his chest, still smiling at me.

‘How good what felt? Laughing? I do know what it feels like. Can't say the same for you though, because, you know, you have nothing to even be happy about," I said haughtily but it wasn’t me. Not totally. 

In the moment when I was distracted with the feeling that spread through me thanks to Grey’s beautiful laughter, my hold on Hera who had been raging to give Grey a piece of her mind had slipped and my wolf had come out to play. Grey smiled his usual Kanye West smile, showing all sharp and gleaming teeth, and my heart fell. I hated it when mean words came out of my mouth. Wolf or not.

"I guess I deserved that," He said and I kept quiet. The damage had already been done. I couldn’t go back to correct it.

“Kelly, the Lord of Darkness has free access to dreams but so do a lot of lesser demons. He steers clear of Dream World except necessary because he is too proud to operate on a domain with low class demons. Getting into someone’s dream is tricky business, even for him, and such mundane interferences just to frighten a little girl is beneath him. He wouldn’t be in your dream claiming to do my job because that too is beneath him,” He explained.

“So is this a regular nightmare that’ll pass?” I asked with equal part fear and desperation. I wanted him to say yes.

“It is likely the work of a lesser demon trying to amuse himself at your expense,” He stilled. “A lesser demon who operates in Dream World, “ He said in a whisper of realization. “No, he wouldn’t mess with me like that,” He shook the realization away. “This is just based on your imagination, Kelly. No creature from the Underworld has been in your dreams, certainly not the Lord of Darkness,” He said in a very certain tone. I didn’t want to believe he was lying yet here was a voice nagging at me, begging to differ. It was stupid of me, but I allowed myself to be spoon fed lies because I was scared of the truth and they came back to ruin my life in the future.

They say what you don’t know cannot kill you and I held on to those words as I nodded, accepting Grey’s lies for the truth, but it took Death on my side for the lies to not devour me like a gourmet.