now is the hour, the time when lost souls wander restlessly in the night

[thepull_mods]

Who: Siren's Port
When: The night of Sunday, October 16th into the morning of Monday, October 17th.
Where: In the mind, in the dreams, in the unconscious of the sleepers.
Summary: --
Warnings: These dreams may be considered not safe for work, with violence, gore, death, underlying sexual themes and other mentions of graphic nature. Having them is completely voluntary. They will strike your character when they are asleep (and if they do not sleep, your character may be pulled into a trance-like state for an undetermined amount of time, at the mun's discretion).

Reactionary logging is encouraged, and feel free to use this post to do just that. Anyone hoping to do dream-walking and other psychic-related shenanigans should ask for permission first, though. And, of course, there will be one log per day of the dreams that happen at night for the entire event.

Tonight's dreams have an extra sexual and violent content warning. Please be advised that this might be potentially triggering material.



Once the door is open, it cannot be closed so easily. There is no lock or key and no true way to hold it shut. You can only wait until the nightmares end and the whispers stop so you can finally find your way through the darkness. But now there is nothing, just the cold in your limbs and the realization that you can't move. You're floating in endless night, without stars or light or even the moon to guide you back home.

You're drifting into nothingness, an unconscious dreamland you've created just for these moments...when you can't handle reality any longer.

But there are claws this time, sharp, to grab you and tear you apart like a victim on the rack.

It's dark and grungy, but it has been for days. Days and days and days and hours upon hours. It's the kind of dark that hangs over the room like a dreary canopy made of soot and smog. It's suffocating, the way the shadows eat up the corners of the candlelit room and how the flames flicker and dance. Absolute darkness is preferable to the dim candlelight. It engulfs them and keeps them hidden and there's nothing more that anyone wants than to hide away or become invisible to the eyes that inspect and jeer behind elaborate masks.

But those eyes see. They pierce and study. They judge and sting.

They peer through the cages. They look until they pick and decide.

Sometimes it's the girl in the cage off to the right. She's small and pretty, with blond hair that would've shone. But it's stringy and dirty now, just like the rest of her. Sometimes it's the pair of twin boys in the cage to your left. They're a favourite to be beaten and whipped, forced to gag on men twice their size until they're thrown back in and crawl, on shaken limbs, to the very back of the cage.

It used to be the frail little girl who shared your cage that was taken out more often than most, but she'd been discarded of. They'd broken her neck from brute force when they slammed her against hard concrete the last time, tossing her limp body off to the side when they'd realized she was dead.

A body only stays warm for so long, after all.

Days are marked by candles. When they're lit, a new day has started. A new ordeal is to be faced. When they're extinguished, the day has ended.

Although they never talk to one another, everyone thinks the same thing. There's no need to utter it:

Everyone wonders when their life will be extinguished. It's only a matter of time, after all.

It's your turn to become the favourite.

Words echo off the dingy walls while women and men come to peer and inspect the cages, cooing in false tones as they point and consult one another. You're pretty. Terribly so. It's what they comment on. You don't look them in the eyes, you can't. It's too frightening to. It's easier to stare at shackled ankles, raw beneath the rusted metal. It's easier to inspect dirtied, bloody fingernails and hands, scuffed knees and bruised arms.

There's the sudden creaking of metal latches being undone. Of keys jingling as they open the cage. It's the only warning - a futile warning.

Then the hands come.

They pull and twist. They yank you by the arms, dragging you out kicking and screaming. Screaming hurts your already sore throat as your heels drag on the cold, hard floor below. Clothes are stripped off forcefully before something searing and hot presses against your skin. It burns, it stings, it's the most agonizing feeling and there's nothing to dampen the pain. It takes over absolutely everything. All you can hear is your own wailing. All you can feel is the feel of fire kissing every inch of your skin, branching out from that one, particular spot. All you can taste is your own, wet tears that smear themselves over your face.

Before you can learn to breathe again, you're back in the cage, left to sob and curl up, hidden under filthy, manky clothes.

Candles extinguish. Candles are lit.

Days pass, but you're not sure of how many.

Then the hands come again.

This time there's no burning, but there's a terrible tear below when you're forced on your hands and knees, stripped bare and pressed against. Stretched and bleeding, your arms are yanked back behind you, bony shoulders threatening to pop out of place as you're entered again and again. It hurts. It's excruciating. It's demeaning. Disgusting. When you scream they simply gag you like they gagged the pair of twin boys. Women in masks chuckle and make remarks, although they're incoherent. There's nothing to focus on except for the pain. With a body being used up like a doll, it's the only indication of being alive anymore.

You lose count after the second, although you know there was more than two. There's a terrible taste left on your tongue and a disgusting concoction of blood and something equally revolting that dribbles down your thighs.

The cage comes as a comfort; the darkness of the room after the candles extinguish acts as a tourniquet for wounds that will fester deeper than the flesh.

But the hands don't leave. They never leave. Even in the darkness, behind the bars of your cage, they still reach through and touch you up and down your chest, digging their nails into thin, pale skin that barely covers bones.

You can't hide behind your eyelids anymore.

A sense of time has been lost, along with your dignity. There are new eyes that stare and inspect, one in particular that stands out amongst the rest. A pair of blood red eyes that seem to ask you if you wish to live - there's a spark, a desperate reaching toward those eyes. Tears stream down filthy cheeks while long fingers cradle one of those very cheeks.

It's the last day you'll ever see the candles lit.

There's singing and chanting, prayers and incantations. It's disorientating, frightening, and when the hands come again, this time they don't tear off clothes. They don't push you to the floor. Instead they drag you to a cool stone alter as you kick and scream for your life. You're pinned to the stone, shirt unbuttoned as a man in a mash hovers over you, brandishing a knife.

There's another tear, one that is as excruciating as the other, but this time it's in your chest. The knife is jammed downward, through a frail little ribcage, its tip aiming for the small, tired heart that the weak bones tried their best to shield. It stings but there's the terrible feeling of suddenly drowning as blood seeps up your throat and past tiny lips. It tastes metallic. Disgusting and overwhelming, but ultimately better than any of the men you've been forced to choke on.

It hurts. It hurts and hurts and hurts and all you want is your family back. All you want is to run into your mother's arms. To be picked up by your father. You want to climb into their bed, to sleep there safe and sound. But they're dead. They're dead and gone and soon you will be too.

The world is becoming hazy, as colors swirl and blend together into a dirty, dark brown. The candles seem to have put themselves out. Your breathing has stopped and so has your heart.

You've died. You're dead. You'll never be you ever again.

You lack reality, they say. But look, look here, and listen to what they have to say.

It is torment. It is madness. The core of the mind is a fragile thing, but with it open like this, all you can see, hear, taste, smell, touch...

It is everything. It is everyone.

There is the chief of police, drumming her fingers on her desk and counting down the days until DeDrago finds a way to kill her. (She asks for solace.) There is the man in the restaurant on the corner, texting his girlfriend. (He is lust.) And in the back alley, just before siren, you see your killer while he stabs you with a knife and cuts your throat open until you drink your own blood. (He is the malice, the darkness within us all.)

You can taste the blood in your sleep. You wish you could scream.

You're in a bathroom. It's cold and dirty and dark, with cracks in the tile and rust covering the iron pipes. The one lantern in the room does nothing but make the darkness even filthier, casting shadows over all your faces.

Your girlfriend is in the corner, weeping silently, restrained by another man. She's clearly drugged; her eyes are glassy and slightly out of focus as they stare at you. You want to go to her, to help her somehow, but you can't look at her for long; slender fingers slip under your chin, tipping your head back to their owner.

"Look at me, my darling Jacky," he whispers to you, his eyes glittering in the dim light. His tongue darts out of his lips, licking them slowly, and your stomach drops even farther. "Just look at me. Focus on our deal, Jacky."

You want to throw up. You want to bolt, you want to yank your face away, but all you do is nod vaguely. At that sign of consent, his fingers wrap around your wrist, guiding it forward until you can feel his erection straining through his doctor's scrubs. You whimper softly, your eyes closing, and he laughs. Leaning forward, he kisses the side of your neck, biting like you imagined a lover would.

"Don't be scared," he chides gently, nipping at your earlobe. "Just get through this and she'll be safe." When you can't manage anything more than another whimper, he sighs as if you've disappointed him. Pulling back, he begins to move quickly:pulling your pants open, yanking them around your ankles. Your shirt is stripped off and before you know it you're naked in front of everyone. The urge to run wells up within you once again, and you even give a shudder, your body thrashing once-- but he grips your wrist even tighter, his lips meeting yours in a vulgar parody of a kiss and you stay still.

You fight the urge to gag as he pushes his tongue into your mouth, as his fingers slip down to begin stroking you to hardness. You stay still like a good puppet, your fingers clenched into fingers at your side, and you try like hell not to think about how she's watching you, taking in this sight, memorizing it for later. You try not to hear her sobs in the corner , but where does that leave you to focus except on the hand getting you off?

It's worst when you're finally hard, because it feels good, better than it ought to, and you're getting off on this you sick bastard what's wrong with you how you could like this-- You swallow a moan, trying to muffle it as you and he kiss, but he hears it anyway and chuckles softly as he pulls away. Biting at your lip teasingly, he smirks at you.

"That's a boy," he encourages, his fingers stroking you firmly. "And what a good boy he is-- what an eager boy--" You grit your teeth, your eyes casting downward, and he laughs again. "Oh, don't be so embarrassed, Jacky. I much prefer you defiant."

The fingers of his free hand toy at your neck, slip down your chest, linger at your hips, as his other hand stills on your cock. For a moment he stays just like that, teasing you-- and then abruptly he turns you around pushing you unceremoniously onto the floor. You gasp as you're forced onto your hands and knees, you buck up once, you try and protest you don't know what's going on (you absolutely know, you know precisely what's going to happen, oh god oh god oh please no no no oh please help me oh god oh god oh god--) because maybe if he thinks you're an idiot he'll take a few minutes to explain and you can put it off just a little longer. But he doesn't; he just laughs and refuses to explain.

"Don't, please," you whisper, closing your eyes, tensing as his fingers tease up your spine.

"Shh," he chides. "You'll enjoy this." He waits another moment, just to tease, and then abruptly shoves his hips forward.

You scream. You scream until all you can hear is the noise of it echoing in your ears, you scream until your throat feels raw. Not just because you've never felt pain like this before, but because with it comes another fresh round of humilition. He isn't slow; he isn't gentle. He forces himself into you, his hands gripping your hips tightly. You buck and scream, your hands scrabbling uselessly at the stone floor, trying to get him out of you. But whatever you do is pointless; he simply laughs (high-pitched and loud and you think you'll never get it out of your ears) and keeps fucking you. You're intensely aware of the two figures in the corner, watching you, watching you bent over like this; you're aware you'll never recover from this, not emotionally, not really. How can you? How can you ever get over this; how can you ever forget this? How can you ever have a relationship again; what woman would ever want you? A man who submitted to another man; what woman could ever want that?

A low sob escapes your throat, borne more of humilation than pain (because the pain is there, the pain is constant and sharp, but it's not nearly as bad as the humilation). And now you're crying, and you've always been ashamed of crying, and you want to stop but you can't, you can't stop a damn thing, all you can do is lie there and sob and close your eyes and pray it'll end soon.

It doesn't.

You lose track of time after a while. You grow used to the pain, to the feeling of blood running down your legs. Your sobs quiet. He finishes more than once, and though it's hard to tell, you're fairly certain you get off once or twice as well. It's difficult; everything is becoming a blur. Your expression is blank; you can't even respond to his taunts anymore. All you can do is lie there, your face pale, your eyes wide and empty, while he moves and taunts and laughs.

Eventually he grows bored. You feel him reach down and stroke your cheek one last time. You don't even twist your head as he kisses you, bites at your bottom lip, as he smirks and pulls away and says, "We'll see how well you can use that lovely mouth of yours in a few days, shall we? Once you're feeling a bit better, Jacky."

With some effort, you close your eyes. There are footsteps, and soon your girlfriend's sobs fade in the distance. The only sound left is the dripping of the pipes. After a few seconds (or minutes or hours) you curl up into a ball, covering yourself with your discarded pants.

Soon the world goes dark and-- blissfully-- you fall asleep.

The hole is deep and endless, a bottomless pit into emptiness. Ignorance, forgetfulness... You wish you could forget what you see. You wish you could forget the words -- (COMMALA COME) -- and you wish you could forget that feeling, that feeling of cold and ice in your veins and in your lungs when the boy dumps the body into the ocean, and the father claps him on the back and says "Good job, son. You're in the family business now."

The world spins, all black and dark, freezing and unwelcoming.

The visor comes off and he is sightless, unfeeling, reaching for that coffee cup--

Another slumps against his desk and mourns the child that's disappeared into nothingness, that thing called Grace.

You wander into the dark theater like always, but this time you don't bypass the stage. It's never been for you before, but now...

Now, a voice is speaking to you that's familiar in so many horrible ways. It's a voice that you hear all the time in your nightmares--goading you, sickening you, manipulating you. It's everywhere, all over, echoing inside you.

'Go to the stage, my dear. They're waiting for you.'

You step onto the stage, but it's nothing like what you dreamed. Instead of Broadway set pieces and brilliant lights, there are neon signs, skin and smoke and leather and sin. You can't make out what the objects are, because your mind won't let you remember. But you know what this looks like. You'll never forget that place.

And then you turn your head.

The audience looking up at you is made up of skinless people. Their raw red flesh is exposed, the whites of their eyes wide and unblinking. You back up in horror--and you feel a cold steel pole behind you.

'Go on, dearest. This is what you've always wanted, isn’t it? To be onstage, to be adored.'

No. You’re wrong, I don’t want this--

'But it's what everyone wants from you. It's the only thing you're good for. Do you think he would have been so angry with you that morning, if you'd told him you liked it? That's why I asked you for it. I knew you would have given it to me, because it's just so very easy for you, isn't it?'

Suddenly the skinless people move in, crowding you, getting closer and closer. You try to run away, but something is holding you back, holding you down-grabbing you and kissing you in a locker room, licking your face, bending you over a kitchen table--

‘You did this to them. They just want you to make it up to them. Go on…give them what you owe them.’

Their hands reach for you, red and bloody, groping--

Give me what you owe me.’

Mother tucks her into bed and sings her a simple lullaby. She hums into slumber, where her words twist and groan like the whispers she - you, damn it - can hear now.

Turn back TURN BACK (it's all you can hear make it stop, make it STOP)

Shut the door, turn the key, keep them quiet. You just want silence.

Another girl puts a gun to her head and pulls the trigger. There are no bullets. She's practicing.

The Venus key swings back and forth and soon you're falling down the rabbit hole again. Clocks and woodwork fly past you, brushing your face and hair. The world tilts and reality vanishes with the card castle that dissolves as you fall down, down, down into the clouds. The skies open and you land safely on lily pads, bright and inviting. This world is your own, a vast expanse of wonder and beauty. Even the statue of the crying girl brings delight to your eyes, a comfort after so long a time with white walls and terrible cruelties.

Magnificent, isn't it? A whole world just for you. A place for you escape the confines of reality.

And so it is.

Your friends are here too, the hare and dormouse, the gryphon and rabbit... All of your friends. Yours.

It's beautiful.

You're lost.

The water turns to ink, to ooze and blackness. The sky cracks like fragile glass, breaking into a million pieces and raining down on the world. Hands grab at your dress and drag you down, down into the ooze and the ink, where every touch is like fire on your skin. You squirm and you scream, thrash and cry. Your heart beats wildly and threatens to break out of your chest, spill everywhere, free for the taking.

You choke on your tears in your desperation. "Please--"

Against your mouth are teeth, vicious and cruel. Swollen and bruised, you bite back and hear a cry.

The lights come back on. You stare into the glare of lenses as he adjusts his glasses and sits back. He clucks his tongue and writes something down. You sit up, wide eyed, a deer in front of the hunter. He watches you and writes something else down.

(When did your dress get so rumpled? When did your stockings rip?)

The Venus key returns, waving in front of your eyes. "Go to Wonderland."

The cycle begins again and you fall once more, down down into the depths of the castle made out of flesh and bone, where she waits to scold you once more.

The world erupts in flame, with your parents screaming and your sister woefully silent.

The train is coming with its shiny cars. With comfy seats and wheels of stars. So hush my little ones, have no fear. The man in the moon is the engineer.

There is no method in this madness.

In this world of lost souls, you can feel the dead walking even now, their eyes cast out to the lighthouse, where the sole beacon in the Darkness continues to turn, night after night. It never ends. The siren calls for all who will hear it, waking them from the dead and casting all others into slumber. They don't know what's really out there, what haunts the night and crawls down the streets and out of the sewers, swoops down from the cloudy sky and looms over the few humans out in the night, searching for prey.

Can you hear it? Can you hear them calling?

TURN BACK

"I've already left! What more do you want?!"

This nightmare is dark. Very dark. Unnaturally so.

Even with the lantern shining, the darkness oozes about like a fog.

There’s the distinct sound of teeth grinding as you move around what appears to be an old cellar. Giant tuns line the sides of the stone wall, with the occasional empty shell of an oak barrel strewn around them.

The lamp’s light ghosts over the rotting wood; what look like rats or very large roaches hiss and skitter out of sight. Back to the darkness.

Teeth continue to wear themselves loudly as a woman’s shriek bursts throughout the cellar. The wail echoes, leaving behind a whimper and a chill in the body.

“No! Get away from me!”

You turn in futility for the source; all around you, you can hear her broken, petrified sobs. There's no helping her now, you have to realize...

A short and tense journey to your right leads you into a small office.

Swallowing dryly, you approaches the lone desk and rummages through the drawers. The last one reveals a human’s face, maggots crawling out of every opening.

You gasp - practically screaming - and stumble back, hitting the wall.

The lamp falls out of your nerveless grasp and breaks upon the ground, light extinguishing itself, oil canister leaking precious fluids onto the floor.

“No!” You cry, sinking to your knees and feeling shards of glass cut into you knees and hands. Your lamp! Your only lamp!

You starts to sob as the hungry gurgle of a humanoid monster sounds out- and rapidly approaches.

He stands atop the towers and holds a black cape in his hand, gazing out into the night with a serene smile and blood on his hands. She is silent but deadly, looking out into the night and pining for that red haired man who haunts her thoughts. He sits in a bath and contemplates the world, all the while holding a leash on any who speak to him.

But they are not alone.

Thoughts filter in when there were once barriers. You hear them all so clearly.

"If he won't take care of himself, then you need to take care of him."

"Question: when does a killer...not kill?"

"You'll never understand me."

The building echoes to the eaves with the faint roar of water. Although you started on the top floor of the multi-storey tenement it only seems to take a second to get from the red brick walls of the apartments to the gritty, chipped whitewash of the basement. You notice the change and with it become aware of the time dragging as you head towards the white-blue light at the bottom of the stairs, highlighting the doorway to the basement. The sound gets clearer the further down you go, and although the roar has subsided to a gush the sloshes of it moving to fill a large space are still noisy. The lowest steps are underwater, and by the time you stand in the doorway you’re up to your waist.

There’s a woman kneeling, almost covered by water. Although you might not recognise her, with her black hair fanning around her upturned face, the sharp features of it, you feel now as if you know her. Her legs are held against the floor by her dress tangled in debris, which is pinned in turn by a fallen beam. She’s stretching as far upward as she can, tilting her head back, but the water still laps at the edges of her eyes and runs into her open mouth. No sound escapes it and despite the desperation of her situation that doesn’t surprise you. Even unable to cry out it’s clear that she’s afraid. Later you’ll offer your apologies for being slow, and maybe joke it’s just like the movies, isn’t it, to have a rescue at the last minute. For now you move past to where the beam rests at shoulder height. Your back is to her but you can hear an intake of breath, the sluice of an arm searching for purchase and finding nothing solid.

The beam is heavy, but you’re strong: even with your perception of time stretched by tension and adrenaline there could only have been a couple of seconds of effort before it tumbles out of place to splash into the water below. There’s no danger that you took too long, so you start to turn back, hand already outstretched to help her up.

You're stopped by the sight in the corner of your eye of another beam, exactly where the last one was. A part of you knows it couldn’t be there, but rather than waste time you accept the fact that of it. This time you’re quicker to move it, shoving with your whole weight and dislodging it almost instantly - only to stumble against the beam that takes its place. Now you wrap your arms around and pull, and repeat the action for the one that replaces it, and again, and again. You can never pin down the exact moment when the last one vanishes and another reappears as it only seems as though there is a unending number of them which all exist within the same space, and that each one removed simply reveals the next. You don’t question the logic of it. The water stops rising when it reaches your chest, churned up by the continuous impact. It sound of it constantly slapping against the walls and buffeting your body almost covers the silence.

That’s okay. There’s not meant to be any other sound. So rather than consider what, by now, is the likely reason for her silence you carry on pulling at the debris, which never stop being replaced, one after the other, tearing down a stream of them until there’s no increase to the burn in your shoulders, only a steady, agonising fatigue. You don’t look back.

The words are indistinguishable sometimes, rushed together and poking into your mind, needles and pins and driving you crazy. The numbness in your limbs makes it all the more frightening. You thrash and howl and then they howl back, crying out for appeasement. Yes, the night speaks too. They always have. They make cat-calls at the windows and doors of homes and long for the day the glass is dented, when they forget to lock something properly...

They want you to join them in their torment.

TuRN BACK

You suddenly desire human flesh. Your stomach twists.

A sharp slap to the face draws you from unconsciousness. Your heartbeat pulses in your ears, your vision swims. A dry mass in your mouth indicates you've been gagged.

"Darling...wake up, darling."

That enchanting voice you'll never forget. One you'd never thought you'd hear again. The witch's. But this is Siren's Port, where even the long dead are revived and given a second chance.

You know this first-hand.

And so you lift your head and as your vision clears, your veins begin tingling with excitement, hope, love, as thrilling as a rush of cocaine and then confusion suddenly hits you as you realize you're tightly bound to an all too familiar chair, in an all too familiar basement.

Your basement.

The enchantress cackles through her emotionless ceramic mask as the realization dawns in your eyes and she moves closer, the hatred in her unblinking eyes burning holes through yours.

"Have you missed your beautiful little queen?"

Her hand lightly caresses your face, a gesture painfully familiar. She leans forward, pressing the cold mask against your cheek, and whispers in your ear.

"I've been waiting so long..."

You grunt through the gag. You've been waiting too, but not for this; your creations don't get to enact revenge. You turn your head away from her, knowing she will take your face in her hand and turn it toward her once again.

You headbutt her when she does.

But she gives that tittering laugh that always irritated you and buries a knife you hadn't seen before in your abdomen, deftly slicing a wide slit. You howl in pain as she reaches in to pull out your intestines, her laughter drowning out your screams.

Not that anyone will hear you anyway. You always swore by soundproofing.

Blood and innards spill into a warm puddle on your lap. Gently, she takes a length of intestine and strokes it lewdly before winding it loosely around your neck. Both of her hands move to her mask.

"It's only fitting that your last sight will be the terror you brought upon yourself."

The cermaic mask smashes on the cement floor.

It's not the once beautiful enchantress that you yourself lovingly disfigured all those years ago, but a much more threatening visage, partly covered by a black cowl, the mouth curled into an even more hateful sneer. He falls upon you, drawing the intestine tight around your neck and choking you, growling as he does so.

"Scum like you reap what you sow."

Darkness swiftly clouds your vision, the pain from your abdomen now forgotten.

But just before you take your last breath, just beyond his caped shoulder, you see her.

Unmarred.

And laughing.

Your body convulses into spasms and you choke around a tube in your mouth. The world is white, then black, then white, and full of mechanical sounds and metallic clangs. You pull and gasp and kick out at nothing. You plead for an end to this.

And then you can breathe.

You've been waiting forever. The sky turns scarlet and then plunges into an inky indigo as the sun falls. Where is he? Something must be really wrong this time.

A sound catches your attention and you turn over your shoulder to see the shadows hitch and warp, sliding across the cobbled walkways like living oil. It's a peculiar sound they make: like wet, heavy feathers falling into one another or long sheets of pooling satin. There are no feathers or satin to these shadows, though, only darkness and the sick yellow of their eyes. They rise from the ground, all claws and quaking, spasmodic movements, and you back away, instinctively moving into the darkness cast by the great columns. It's in the darkness that these creatures thrive, however, and no sooner do you step into the black cloak of shadow than you hear the sound again, whispers in your head that don't even register to your ears, like they're in your mind and under your skin before you see them. Their numbers have increased exponentially lately, they're everywhere and Ma doesn't like you to stay out after dusk these days but you can't just leave him. You got into this mess together and that's how you'll get out, and so you whirl and backpedal and lash out, knowing you can't hurt them but you try anyway. You always try, and maybe this time you'll succeed.

You try all night, until your shoulders ache and your clothes are torn and there are scratches from their impossible claws all over your arms, your legs, your back, and you can feel yourself bleeding but you don't care because where is he? The sky has turned a wan, watery green, the color of nausea, and as the shadows begin to recede they take the shadow monsters with them and you drop to your knees, breathing heavily. Your heart pulses in your ears and your head is heavy and your eyes are heavy and you're not sure you can stand up, but you have to. You have to try. You always try. The sky turns an odd pinkish orange now, like when you put a flashlight in your mouth and your cheeks light up, and you look down at the blood on your arms and then brace your palms on your thighs and get shakily to your feet.

The castle gate is a great blue door with gilded edges and brass rings. Lifting one of them, you rap it heavily against the door and it echoes in your head, in your hands, but there is no response. You open your mouth and shout, but it's like your tongue has forgotten how to form words and so your voice just tears from your throat, a horrible wail, the sound reverberating off the high walls and the empty air and the sick red-orange of that bloody sunrise. You slam your fists into the wooden door and it thunders and rumbles and quakes beneath your skin and bones but doesn't budge. You hit the door until your fists are bleeding like your arms and the wood has gone slick and red and there are splinters beneath your skin but you don't even feel the pain now because where IS he? You got into this mess together but now you're alone and you hate being alone and as you watch the blood slide down the door, black and thick like mud, you think you won't know what to do if you have to be alone forever.

The sky is pale yellow and barely blue, watered-down lemonade and crushed forget-me-nots and torn paper clouds. How long have you been awake? You feel like there's sand in all your joints, like your clothes are made of lead. Staggering back away from the door you stare blearily at the festive firework patterns of your blood on the wood, the spatters like dead flowers against the blue paint.

Your knees buckle and the ground rises up to meet you and there's a loud sound as your knees strike the stone but you're sure you can't really feel pain anymore. You're too tired, too scared, too daunted by your own solitude. Where is he? Where is he? Panic wells up in your stomach, your lungs, your throat, and you can't breathe anymore. What if he's gone? What if you're alone? You can't be alone, you can't. What have they done to him? What will they do to you if they catch you?

You can't breathe, your hands are shaking, your legs are shaking… no, the ground is shaking. You draw a halting breath and lift your eyes, watching as the castle begins to shake, the towers throwing dust as they pitch and twist. You crabscuttle backward, leaving a festive trail of blood in your wake and your arm gives out from under you and you feel the shock of impact radiate up your arm, and there's a massive crrrrrakk! but you realize with something like horror that it's not your arm that has shattered. Perhaps you wish it had been. Twisting where you've fallen you watch the ground open up, ripping apart like a gaping maw with jagged stone teeth, swallowing the benches where you used to sit, the flowers you never appreciated… Wrenching yourself to your feet you just turn and run to that big blue door and throw yourself at it and your throat is raw as you scream. Maybe you scream his name, maybe you scream nothing at all, but there's a cacophony of noise, of voices and wet feathers and falling rocks and dying flowers and you never thought the end of the world would be so loud.

And then it's silent.

The sky is the deep purple of crushed black grapes. There are no stars. Your back hurts, your head hurts, everything hurts, and you're not sure if you're asleep or awake or alive or dead. No, you can't be dead, it wouldn't hurt if you were dead.

But you're alone. Maybe that's worse.

The ground is wet, but it isn't raining, and you sit up and groan because everything aches. The fear is gone, though, and the panic. Actually you don't really feel anything. You look down to inspect the damage to your hands, your arms, but they're covered in black fabric. All of you is cloaked in black--a coat with a hood and pewter zipper. Your gloved fingertips swim to your face and press against the skin and you lean forward to try and glimpse yourself in a puddle.

A cry escapes your throat as the puddle turns black--suddenly, like someone spilled paint. Looking down you see that your clothes are soaked, but not with water. It's blood, and it's pouring black from your chest, and as you push the fabric of the coat aside your voice fails you as you see the great gaping hole in your body, the empty space where your heart should have been. You can't move, and you can't breathe, and you can't feel anything, not pain or shock or even fear. You can't feel anything.

Where is he?

The sky is black. And you're alone. And you're still waiting.

A hospital. You're in a damn hospital.

The room is empty and sterilized, smelling of chemicals and toxins. Your mouth tastes like blood, your lips ripped to shreds. You've been bitting around that tube.

It's funny, though-- (go awAy) --that you still can't feel anything after what you've done.

You press yourself back against the bed and try to relax, wait for the nurse, and hope to get some answers. You just want to go home, to escape from all of this. You're just so tired. You close your eyes.

The lights go out.