You Take My Self-Control (NYC, June - The Attack)
WARNING: Yes, long overdue. Not a very pretty picture inside the mind of the Florentine Rogue. Yet, forewarned is forearmed. Enjoy. (And yes, as usual, it's long. Deal! Blackmore would have been proud. LOL)
_________________
I try to stay focused on the streets as the car winds its way through the eteranal traffic of the night. Some things have never changed about New York. Since the emergence of the motorcar, traffic most assuredly is not one of them. I navigate these streets,maling my way back to the brownstone, everso thrilled that I am playing chauffeur to Felipe and Dylan. Especially now and under these circumstances Gavin charges Felipe with safeguarding Dylan while he's in Chicago. Why? Well, because it seems that the timetable of his little 'arrangement' with Mani is perhaps a bit off-schedule. Bad enough that Chief 'Thowing Bull' is away from the city to begin with. Bad enough that we were not certain before the evening started as to weither we'd see or Senechal or if he'd be in chicago as well. Bad enough that that would have left the Elder Council to hold down the fort ... myself, Felipe and Nona. Bad enough that all of this followed Head giving the information to Gavin about the 'Dragon Murders' and him dismissing it with an 'it's nothing, it's not a Masquerade breech' attitude. Whatever.
I grow increasingly tired of Gavin, and now thanks to his own miscalculation and what not, here I am babysitting his whelp. Not that I particularly dislike Dylan, but he's not Dragon ... he's not Ventrue, obviously ... he's not particularly useful to me ... so why should I give a sodding care about him.Yet, I keep it all to myself.Seeting behind the mask of self-restraint and guarded civility. The whole thing is an irritation. But then again, this entire night has been as well. Why would I be surprised?
Page and the Carthians have been their usual idiotic selves all evening. Confrontation between Simon and Jonathan. Like no one saw that coming. Please! One did not need to have precognition or some soothsaying bent to foresee that one happening. Then there was Green. A month out of the spotlight insured that he would be making a guest appearance this eve. Typically his lovely, charming self. Baiting and taunting and threatening everso veiled, as is so typical of him and of other base amateurs. Pity that he seemingly holds more cards than the rest of us do. Like some riverboat card shark that has been either counting the deck or has the other 3 Aces tucked up his sleeve. A lovely question and answer period is granted to Thomas and I. (Yes, did I neglect to mention that out illustrious Seneschal did actually grace us with his presence. Quel Suprice!) And in the end, after garnering little more in information that we did not have at our disposal before, I am told by the enigmatic Mr. Green that I have 'one cycle of the moon' to render my decision as to weither I will aid or stand against him. I doubt the man knows how already thin the ice grows beneath him. Pity that.
Oh, and lest I forget, there is the arrival and command audience of yet another from the merry-go-round of reemerging Past Princes of New York. Not unlike some amusement park ride where little animated marionettes bob up and down and chirp a macabre little tune of how small this metropolis is and how (like a bad penny) they all turn up again eventually. So what's stuck in his craw now? Well, it seems that the latest 'Dragon Murder' took place under his own roof. Saint Patrick's Cathedral, of all places. Still, the man covered it up before the authorites could notice. I give him the covenant's assurances that we will keep him apprised of investigations and further inroads. Lip service is such a wonderous tool.
One problem after another. each to be delt with in their own time. Once again, I focus my attentions more completely on streets and vehicles as we come closer to home. Yet something is horribly amiss.From my periferal vison, I see them all. Animals abounding. Cats sitting on windowsills and fire escapes. Rats scurrying about in the darkened recesseses of the surrounding buildings. Pigeons and crows perched upon the overhead streetposts and traffic light wires, like something that only Hitchcock could have envisioned. And then, amidst the eerie calm and silence, it happens ...
A loud series of explosions erupt, ripping through from the left side of the car. First, the front wheel tirewell and then the back. Both violently torn assunder. I yell to the other two to hold tight, as I struggle with control of the steering wheel, trying to keept the car from turning over upon itself. Yet as the car skids, for an instant, I see the figure de-cloaks through my narrowed grey eyes. Thick black hair. Pale skin. Armed with a knife and tomahawk. And ... naked. Still, I remain calm in these tense moments, though my Beast snarls like some pensive animal straining for release. Gingerly, I apply the breaks to bring the car to a swirving hault. Yet, as we cease to move, I can no longer see our veiled attacker. Suddenly, another horrible sound comes as the roof of the car is torn off, peeled back like some pull-top lid. Once more the large, naked Indian is revealed. Standing over the car and armed with clawed fingers. My Beast snarl once more. I can sense it. This creature is potent, but I refuse to do nothing other than hold my ground.
Felipe tries to stare down the savage, seemingly to no avail. I shove Dylan out of the car and tell him to run, to put as much distance between him and out attackers as possible. Yet as I move forward, I turn back to check on Felipe, to make sure he is right behind me. But he is not. He stands there trying to fend off the savage, and I turn once more to return to aid him. I won't leave him. Dylan is the target but the Creole is family and, regardless of what little stands between us, he is still that. But then, another strikes at us from the shadows. Appearing out of the very air itself, another assassin. It strikes at Dylan. The axe falls and shatters the Mekhet's collar bone, as a knife is driven into his stomach. Julian spin on my heels, closingthe gap that stands between me and this new villian, attempting to gaineye contact with him. Hoping that if I succeed ... that if I call upon the powers of the blood ... that I can drop this creature and race back toward Felipe.
If Dylan is the target, then Felipe and I are merely obstructions to the appointed task.Likely we will both be hurt in this forey. Our best hope is escape. Perhaps even destroy one of the two in the process. But likely, Mani is out there somewhere. Lurking in the shadows like the creatures that caught my attention before. Waiting for his moment to strike. Yet if he strikes,it will be at Dylan, not us. If he succeeds in taking Dylan captive, what do I care. The Sheriff of New York City is neither Ventrue or Dragon. If Mani and his cohorts succeed this eve, then it only further proves what we know of Gavin and his capabilites ... or lack thereof.
I focus on what I assume is a Nosferatu, from his rather macabre presence. Yet, I am Ventrue. I am the master of man and beast. I am one who controls the realm of minds. It's who I am. It's the blood that flows through my veins. These are the powers that I wield. Take him down ... 'drop him like a bad habit' ... and speed to help Felipe. That is the plan. And yet as my eyes lock with those of my opponant, I hear the scream. I turn to see the claws of the savage rake across Felipe's back, as he yells out. My eyes narrow as I see the Creole stare down the Indian. Another blow as the naked attacker leaps down upon felipe and slices across his chest. And the voice in my head screams out.
"Focus, Rinaldo! Take out yours and then take on his! Focus!"
My head spins around. My fangs beared. My eyes narrowed. And my eye lock with the black eyes of the Nosferatu. Yet as I atempt to push my mind toward his, there is something that passes between us in that glance. Suddenly, my body goes limp and world around me goes dark, and then ...
My mind is slammed with a rapid succession of images. I find myself in the brownstone once more. Seeing it all as if I were there, and yet somehow I am outside my body at the same time. The walls and furniture are awash in a sea of red and debris. And as if I speed through the various rooms in a motion faster than the human body can travel, my eyes see the horror that lies before me. I stop from room to room, speeding between them. Like a video player, fast forwarded and pauses. Over and over. And with each pause, another vignette of personal horror. Each a grizzly scene perpetrated against each of the famiglia.
Marius lays on the living room floor in a sea of blood. His clothing and body slashed beyond belief. His skull split in two. Each half artfully turned to face each other, staring in that blind stare. Nearby, thrashes Raven. Her arms and legs severed from her body. Writhing and flopping around with the wet splashing of the blood beneath her, like a fish hauled up on to a dock and left floundering upon it. Snarling, she is overcome as her Beast cries our in pain and frustration.
Amrit hangs from the ceiling of the library. Strung up and hoisted aloft, her near naked body hangs like some grotesque chandelier. Silks and entrails dangle from her airborn body, as her twisting body showers blood down on the skattered books below.
Aleks and Bella in one of the guest bedrooms. Naked among the strune red stained sheets. A single pole impaling the two to the blood soaked matress. Gashes covering both of their still, lifeless forms. And Romulus ... standing near the bed, lapping up the blood of his mistress as is trails down her arm and from her fingertips.
Felipe sits in a chair, in his own room. A stake rammed through his chest and protruding through the bak of the chair. His eyes, nothing more than bloodied sockets. His pants down around his ankles, and nothing more than bloodied mess between his legs. Spiders crawl all over his still form, crawling out of his vacant sockets and out of a mouth that gapes open.
Downstairs, in the passage between the garden and the secret subway enterance, lay several ashed forms. Trickles of propane still drip from the holes in the ceiling and walls. The deep black scorchmarks of fire encircle those openings, and the smell of recently burnt flesh clings to the very air itself. Among the grey powder on the floor, I can see the personal effects and jewelry that mark the identities of each of the victims. Michael. Rose. Eight. Tatyana. Arielle. Nick. All of them dead, charred beyond recognition. Much like the bodies that we found when the passageway was when we opened it upon discovery.
And then I hear it. That savage snarling combined with a rather gutteral laugher. My view spins and I see the figure standing there. His back to me. A mess of black hair, matted with blood and pieces of flesh. His naked body smeared with the blood of my famiglia. Blood drips from hands that are soaked in the ruby liquid that flows through me, as it did through them. And then the slightly hunched form turns to face me. It raises it's head, and my eyes lock with his. I know this creature. I have fought it for years. His fanged mouth smiles at me, taughting me. It's blood soaked maw does not hide his identity. I look at this visage and I see myself. My Beast unleashed. A Dragon who has lost control of all that he has strived so long to supress and control. I have lost. Lost everything. Lost control. Lot everything that I hold close, by my own hands. And I near the scream. That ear-shattering, pained, savage scream that comes from him ... and from me .... and ....
Then this nightmare world stops in a horrible outcry ... only to begin again. The location changes over and over. As if someone has pressed the 'rewind button' on the video recorder. The scenery shuffles backwards in a sort of reverse chronology. Wartorn Germany and France. London. Saratoga. A ship crossing the Atlantic. Further and further back through time. Back toward Florence and Venice. The bodies decimated change as well. Rebecca. Gideon. Nona. Thomas. Chloe. Shade. Moll. Charli. Rapheal. Reliving past life locales and seeing faces that populated those spaces, only to return once more to the brownstone and to the slaughter of mia famiglia. My own very personal 'Mobius Strip from Hell'. Over and over. In numbing succession. And through them all, interwoven into this tapestry of terror, there are the others. People whose faces I barely recall. Faces who no longer have names for me, assuming that they ever did to begin with. Victims from my past. From the assault against Green's associates ... men and young boys, fellow Italians ... to long forgotten trysts and indiscretions to assasinations and obstacles in the path of my varied goals. Previous capers and adventures taken by a roguish knave, and the casualties whose existence was forfeit in my persuit. Those whom I preyed upon. Those whom I applied my skills and seductions upon. Those whom I fed upon. Those whom I killed, like Ethan Fitzgerald ... only to throw his lifeless body over the rail of a ship at sea. Each, one fatality after another. Each, bringing with it a myriad of sensoral and sensual waves that seeing them, feeling them, touching them, tasting them and killing them provides for this ravenous beast. A macabre synphony of lust, passion, averous, gluttony, anger, hatred, disdain and wanton pleasure for blood. And while the beast is aroused to levels of euphoria like no others, I stand there helpless to do anything. I feel what he feels and yet I am clear of mind to understand what he does not. Yet somewhere I that know deep inside of my being that none of this happened and that none of it is real, the sensations and images are overwhelming, and I find myself drowning in the bottomless well of this Nether-world dreamscape. Torn between the reveling in the sensations and repulsed by the visualizations.
The shrill of terror and total abandon deafens me. The victims of my mind scream in a single voice and, one by one, they fall to the monster that I have become. The monster whom I have always thought that I held bound an chained within me. This monster unleashed. He is all that remains now. I am no more. Julian Madeina does not exist. Rinaldo Piero Vasari does not exist. Every identity and alias in between no longer exists. Just this Beast. This monster. And repeatedly a terrible roar is heard. Yet I stand here and watch, unable to move as the images cascade before me. Eternally caught in the hell of my own nightmare realm. Still, somehow I know that I am in the presence of something far more dangerous than myself, made even more hoorifying in the realization that it is in fact ... me. And where normally I would fight to regain control of myself ... both mind and body, I can not. This is a fight that I can not win. This is a fight that I have already lost.
And then finally ... it stops. I open my eyes and find myself in my own room. The brownstone. Amidst the blood-sweat soaked sheets. The feeling of personal terror still causing my body to shake uncontrollably. I lay there. And then I feel him beside me, standing over me. Felipe. Though he has cleaned and bandaged himself, he is severely wounded and obviously sufering from the damage he has taken. He tries to bring me further out of my own state. Slowly, I make my way to sit up. Still feeling the effects of what has been done to my mind, and yet I try to push past it. I look at him, and draw back. I still see what I did to him in my mind. What I did to all of them. He and I both suffering throught our own pain. And yet, I can not have him here now. Nor would I want any of the rest of them here either. The overwhelming need to distance myself from them all. Shame and fear and disgust in myself. Fear that all of this could indeed come to pass. That all that I saw in my mind could come to fruition. That I would find myself alone, awashed in a sea of blood from those that I hold close. I ask him to leave me. He nods. And a part of me sinks further, as the door closes behind him.
Alone now. Alone with my own thoughts. Alone with my terrors. Yet, through it all, my mind retains a single thread of realization. And with these thoughts, I feel the chained monster inside me, stir once more. And that scares me now, moreso than it ever has before.
Farewell, Dylan .. wherever you may be ... Heaven, Hell ... the Bronx. Gavin ... your days are numbered. And you, Mani ... you and your cohorts ... it's personal now. Far more than it was before. Smile, Green ... tonight you got your answer. You'll have my decison far sooner than you think.
_________________
I try to stay focused on the streets as the car winds its way through the eteranal traffic of the night. Some things have never changed about New York. Since the emergence of the motorcar, traffic most assuredly is not one of them. I navigate these streets,maling my way back to the brownstone, everso thrilled that I am playing chauffeur to Felipe and Dylan. Especially now and under these circumstances Gavin charges Felipe with safeguarding Dylan while he's in Chicago. Why? Well, because it seems that the timetable of his little 'arrangement' with Mani is perhaps a bit off-schedule. Bad enough that Chief 'Thowing Bull' is away from the city to begin with. Bad enough that we were not certain before the evening started as to weither we'd see or Senechal or if he'd be in chicago as well. Bad enough that that would have left the Elder Council to hold down the fort ... myself, Felipe and Nona. Bad enough that all of this followed Head giving the information to Gavin about the 'Dragon Murders' and him dismissing it with an 'it's nothing, it's not a Masquerade breech' attitude. Whatever.
I grow increasingly tired of Gavin, and now thanks to his own miscalculation and what not, here I am babysitting his whelp. Not that I particularly dislike Dylan, but he's not Dragon ... he's not Ventrue, obviously ... he's not particularly useful to me ... so why should I give a sodding care about him.Yet, I keep it all to myself.Seeting behind the mask of self-restraint and guarded civility. The whole thing is an irritation. But then again, this entire night has been as well. Why would I be surprised?
Page and the Carthians have been their usual idiotic selves all evening. Confrontation between Simon and Jonathan. Like no one saw that coming. Please! One did not need to have precognition or some soothsaying bent to foresee that one happening. Then there was Green. A month out of the spotlight insured that he would be making a guest appearance this eve. Typically his lovely, charming self. Baiting and taunting and threatening everso veiled, as is so typical of him and of other base amateurs. Pity that he seemingly holds more cards than the rest of us do. Like some riverboat card shark that has been either counting the deck or has the other 3 Aces tucked up his sleeve. A lovely question and answer period is granted to Thomas and I. (Yes, did I neglect to mention that out illustrious Seneschal did actually grace us with his presence. Quel Suprice!) And in the end, after garnering little more in information that we did not have at our disposal before, I am told by the enigmatic Mr. Green that I have 'one cycle of the moon' to render my decision as to weither I will aid or stand against him. I doubt the man knows how already thin the ice grows beneath him. Pity that.
Oh, and lest I forget, there is the arrival and command audience of yet another from the merry-go-round of reemerging Past Princes of New York. Not unlike some amusement park ride where little animated marionettes bob up and down and chirp a macabre little tune of how small this metropolis is and how (like a bad penny) they all turn up again eventually. So what's stuck in his craw now? Well, it seems that the latest 'Dragon Murder' took place under his own roof. Saint Patrick's Cathedral, of all places. Still, the man covered it up before the authorites could notice. I give him the covenant's assurances that we will keep him apprised of investigations and further inroads. Lip service is such a wonderous tool.
One problem after another. each to be delt with in their own time. Once again, I focus my attentions more completely on streets and vehicles as we come closer to home. Yet something is horribly amiss.From my periferal vison, I see them all. Animals abounding. Cats sitting on windowsills and fire escapes. Rats scurrying about in the darkened recesseses of the surrounding buildings. Pigeons and crows perched upon the overhead streetposts and traffic light wires, like something that only Hitchcock could have envisioned. And then, amidst the eerie calm and silence, it happens ...
A loud series of explosions erupt, ripping through from the left side of the car. First, the front wheel tirewell and then the back. Both violently torn assunder. I yell to the other two to hold tight, as I struggle with control of the steering wheel, trying to keept the car from turning over upon itself. Yet as the car skids, for an instant, I see the figure de-cloaks through my narrowed grey eyes. Thick black hair. Pale skin. Armed with a knife and tomahawk. And ... naked. Still, I remain calm in these tense moments, though my Beast snarls like some pensive animal straining for release. Gingerly, I apply the breaks to bring the car to a swirving hault. Yet, as we cease to move, I can no longer see our veiled attacker. Suddenly, another horrible sound comes as the roof of the car is torn off, peeled back like some pull-top lid. Once more the large, naked Indian is revealed. Standing over the car and armed with clawed fingers. My Beast snarl once more. I can sense it. This creature is potent, but I refuse to do nothing other than hold my ground.
Felipe tries to stare down the savage, seemingly to no avail. I shove Dylan out of the car and tell him to run, to put as much distance between him and out attackers as possible. Yet as I move forward, I turn back to check on Felipe, to make sure he is right behind me. But he is not. He stands there trying to fend off the savage, and I turn once more to return to aid him. I won't leave him. Dylan is the target but the Creole is family and, regardless of what little stands between us, he is still that. But then, another strikes at us from the shadows. Appearing out of the very air itself, another assassin. It strikes at Dylan. The axe falls and shatters the Mekhet's collar bone, as a knife is driven into his stomach. Julian spin on my heels, closingthe gap that stands between me and this new villian, attempting to gaineye contact with him. Hoping that if I succeed ... that if I call upon the powers of the blood ... that I can drop this creature and race back toward Felipe.
If Dylan is the target, then Felipe and I are merely obstructions to the appointed task.Likely we will both be hurt in this forey. Our best hope is escape. Perhaps even destroy one of the two in the process. But likely, Mani is out there somewhere. Lurking in the shadows like the creatures that caught my attention before. Waiting for his moment to strike. Yet if he strikes,it will be at Dylan, not us. If he succeeds in taking Dylan captive, what do I care. The Sheriff of New York City is neither Ventrue or Dragon. If Mani and his cohorts succeed this eve, then it only further proves what we know of Gavin and his capabilites ... or lack thereof.
I focus on what I assume is a Nosferatu, from his rather macabre presence. Yet, I am Ventrue. I am the master of man and beast. I am one who controls the realm of minds. It's who I am. It's the blood that flows through my veins. These are the powers that I wield. Take him down ... 'drop him like a bad habit' ... and speed to help Felipe. That is the plan. And yet as my eyes lock with those of my opponant, I hear the scream. I turn to see the claws of the savage rake across Felipe's back, as he yells out. My eyes narrow as I see the Creole stare down the Indian. Another blow as the naked attacker leaps down upon felipe and slices across his chest. And the voice in my head screams out.
"Focus, Rinaldo! Take out yours and then take on his! Focus!"
My head spins around. My fangs beared. My eyes narrowed. And my eye lock with the black eyes of the Nosferatu. Yet as I atempt to push my mind toward his, there is something that passes between us in that glance. Suddenly, my body goes limp and world around me goes dark, and then ...
My mind is slammed with a rapid succession of images. I find myself in the brownstone once more. Seeing it all as if I were there, and yet somehow I am outside my body at the same time. The walls and furniture are awash in a sea of red and debris. And as if I speed through the various rooms in a motion faster than the human body can travel, my eyes see the horror that lies before me. I stop from room to room, speeding between them. Like a video player, fast forwarded and pauses. Over and over. And with each pause, another vignette of personal horror. Each a grizzly scene perpetrated against each of the famiglia.
Marius lays on the living room floor in a sea of blood. His clothing and body slashed beyond belief. His skull split in two. Each half artfully turned to face each other, staring in that blind stare. Nearby, thrashes Raven. Her arms and legs severed from her body. Writhing and flopping around with the wet splashing of the blood beneath her, like a fish hauled up on to a dock and left floundering upon it. Snarling, she is overcome as her Beast cries our in pain and frustration.
Amrit hangs from the ceiling of the library. Strung up and hoisted aloft, her near naked body hangs like some grotesque chandelier. Silks and entrails dangle from her airborn body, as her twisting body showers blood down on the skattered books below.
Aleks and Bella in one of the guest bedrooms. Naked among the strune red stained sheets. A single pole impaling the two to the blood soaked matress. Gashes covering both of their still, lifeless forms. And Romulus ... standing near the bed, lapping up the blood of his mistress as is trails down her arm and from her fingertips.
Felipe sits in a chair, in his own room. A stake rammed through his chest and protruding through the bak of the chair. His eyes, nothing more than bloodied sockets. His pants down around his ankles, and nothing more than bloodied mess between his legs. Spiders crawl all over his still form, crawling out of his vacant sockets and out of a mouth that gapes open.
Downstairs, in the passage between the garden and the secret subway enterance, lay several ashed forms. Trickles of propane still drip from the holes in the ceiling and walls. The deep black scorchmarks of fire encircle those openings, and the smell of recently burnt flesh clings to the very air itself. Among the grey powder on the floor, I can see the personal effects and jewelry that mark the identities of each of the victims. Michael. Rose. Eight. Tatyana. Arielle. Nick. All of them dead, charred beyond recognition. Much like the bodies that we found when the passageway was when we opened it upon discovery.
And then I hear it. That savage snarling combined with a rather gutteral laugher. My view spins and I see the figure standing there. His back to me. A mess of black hair, matted with blood and pieces of flesh. His naked body smeared with the blood of my famiglia. Blood drips from hands that are soaked in the ruby liquid that flows through me, as it did through them. And then the slightly hunched form turns to face me. It raises it's head, and my eyes lock with his. I know this creature. I have fought it for years. His fanged mouth smiles at me, taughting me. It's blood soaked maw does not hide his identity. I look at this visage and I see myself. My Beast unleashed. A Dragon who has lost control of all that he has strived so long to supress and control. I have lost. Lost everything. Lost control. Lot everything that I hold close, by my own hands. And I near the scream. That ear-shattering, pained, savage scream that comes from him ... and from me .... and ....
Then this nightmare world stops in a horrible outcry ... only to begin again. The location changes over and over. As if someone has pressed the 'rewind button' on the video recorder. The scenery shuffles backwards in a sort of reverse chronology. Wartorn Germany and France. London. Saratoga. A ship crossing the Atlantic. Further and further back through time. Back toward Florence and Venice. The bodies decimated change as well. Rebecca. Gideon. Nona. Thomas. Chloe. Shade. Moll. Charli. Rapheal. Reliving past life locales and seeing faces that populated those spaces, only to return once more to the brownstone and to the slaughter of mia famiglia. My own very personal 'Mobius Strip from Hell'. Over and over. In numbing succession. And through them all, interwoven into this tapestry of terror, there are the others. People whose faces I barely recall. Faces who no longer have names for me, assuming that they ever did to begin with. Victims from my past. From the assault against Green's associates ... men and young boys, fellow Italians ... to long forgotten trysts and indiscretions to assasinations and obstacles in the path of my varied goals. Previous capers and adventures taken by a roguish knave, and the casualties whose existence was forfeit in my persuit. Those whom I preyed upon. Those whom I applied my skills and seductions upon. Those whom I fed upon. Those whom I killed, like Ethan Fitzgerald ... only to throw his lifeless body over the rail of a ship at sea. Each, one fatality after another. Each, bringing with it a myriad of sensoral and sensual waves that seeing them, feeling them, touching them, tasting them and killing them provides for this ravenous beast. A macabre synphony of lust, passion, averous, gluttony, anger, hatred, disdain and wanton pleasure for blood. And while the beast is aroused to levels of euphoria like no others, I stand there helpless to do anything. I feel what he feels and yet I am clear of mind to understand what he does not. Yet somewhere I that know deep inside of my being that none of this happened and that none of it is real, the sensations and images are overwhelming, and I find myself drowning in the bottomless well of this Nether-world dreamscape. Torn between the reveling in the sensations and repulsed by the visualizations.
The shrill of terror and total abandon deafens me. The victims of my mind scream in a single voice and, one by one, they fall to the monster that I have become. The monster whom I have always thought that I held bound an chained within me. This monster unleashed. He is all that remains now. I am no more. Julian Madeina does not exist. Rinaldo Piero Vasari does not exist. Every identity and alias in between no longer exists. Just this Beast. This monster. And repeatedly a terrible roar is heard. Yet I stand here and watch, unable to move as the images cascade before me. Eternally caught in the hell of my own nightmare realm. Still, somehow I know that I am in the presence of something far more dangerous than myself, made even more hoorifying in the realization that it is in fact ... me. And where normally I would fight to regain control of myself ... both mind and body, I can not. This is a fight that I can not win. This is a fight that I have already lost.
And then finally ... it stops. I open my eyes and find myself in my own room. The brownstone. Amidst the blood-sweat soaked sheets. The feeling of personal terror still causing my body to shake uncontrollably. I lay there. And then I feel him beside me, standing over me. Felipe. Though he has cleaned and bandaged himself, he is severely wounded and obviously sufering from the damage he has taken. He tries to bring me further out of my own state. Slowly, I make my way to sit up. Still feeling the effects of what has been done to my mind, and yet I try to push past it. I look at him, and draw back. I still see what I did to him in my mind. What I did to all of them. He and I both suffering throught our own pain. And yet, I can not have him here now. Nor would I want any of the rest of them here either. The overwhelming need to distance myself from them all. Shame and fear and disgust in myself. Fear that all of this could indeed come to pass. That all that I saw in my mind could come to fruition. That I would find myself alone, awashed in a sea of blood from those that I hold close. I ask him to leave me. He nods. And a part of me sinks further, as the door closes behind him.
Alone now. Alone with my own thoughts. Alone with my terrors. Yet, through it all, my mind retains a single thread of realization. And with these thoughts, I feel the chained monster inside me, stir once more. And that scares me now, moreso than it ever has before.
Farewell, Dylan .. wherever you may be ... Heaven, Hell ... the Bronx. Gavin ... your days are numbered. And you, Mani ... you and your cohorts ... it's personal now. Far more than it was before. Smile, Green ... tonight you got your answer. You'll have my decison far sooner than you think.