33 Summer 506 AV
It was dark when Marion woke, summer air filtering through the open window, hot, sticky, and unpleasant despite the reprieve nighttime normally brought. She slept without the covers on nights like this, sacrificing the security of sheets for some meager comfort. It always took her forever to fall asleep like that, all exposed with nothing to guard her against the darkness but a thin cotton nightgown. It was the reason summer was her season for nightmares.
There was still terror on her lips when her eyes flicked open. She was greeted by darkness, a shuddering in her heart. Something had happened. Something horrible, something so awful that it left her teeth grinding and an electric tightness in her chest. It was all in her head, she knew, something she had conjured up when her imagination was left to run unchecked into the darkest recesses of her young mind. But there was a moment, a split tick in time, when Marion felt frozen to her sheets, body numb and on fire all at once. Outside of her door, she could hear faint but rhythmic footfall. Then a knock, three times, softly. The moment passed.
She slid soundlessly off of her bed as feeling trickled back into her limbs. It was a prickling sensation, like mist on her skin, but faded after a moment. She wound her way to the door with sliding steps, careful not to stub any toes in the dark, and braced pale hands against the door when she approached -- one flat against the wood, the other wrapping around the knob. The metal was surprisingly cold in her fingers. And... wet? Was that frost she felt? It was impossible to tell without any light.
The next tick seemed stretched, like moist clay twisting in some grand schemer's hands. Every sensation was suddenly incredibly vibrant. She felt the pressure of her hand on the metal and the metal pushing back, fighting a losing battle in its resistance as it turned. Slowly, so slowly. And the noise it made, the clicking and the creaking. Tiny screams. If only she'd been more awake, she might've noticed. She might've heeded the door's warning. But it swung open with a lazy push, and there, waiting, was nothing.
Simple emptiness. No hallway. No trail of strewn rugs leading to the living room. Not even a wall. Just nothing, an abyss darker than the blackness around her.
But there must have been something.
Because something was forcing a sense of dread down her throat even as bile rose in response to it. Something set her little heart to trembling, something choked the air to scream from her lungs, something tensed her muscles to paralyze before she could turn to run. She vaguely remembered some saying about staring into abysses, and though the words slid through her mind on turpentine trails too fast for her to grasp, she knew they were disturbingly appropriate. Something was twisting in the dark, something too grotesque, too horrible for her mind to comprehend. But her eyes saw it.
"Marion."
Her eyes saw it.
"Marion."
Her eyes saw it.
"Marion?"
She woke with a gasp that would've been a wail if she'd had the breath for it, shooting upright under her sheets and skittering backwards. She hit the wall, and the thin gown she wore offered little protection as her back slammed against it with a dully painful thud that was numbed only partially by adrenaline. For a moment her arms flailed almost uncontrollably, her shoulders shaking violently as if there were... bugs, millions of tiny bugs biting and burrowing and crawling across her skin and she needed to get them off.
(Her eyes saw it.)
Only a tick passed before Marion realized there was a presence in her room, and it was only through some primal instinct that she knew who it was.
"Daddy," she whimpered, voice catching in her throat somewhere between a breath and a sob. His hand was at her shoulder then, large and warm and bringing with it the kind of heady reassurance that only a father could provide. Her breathing came heavily but eventually grew less labored, the shock of fear that had shot down her spine and temporarily fried her nerves now fading to a lingering tingle.
"It's okay, Marion mouse," he assured, gently plying her away from the wall, where she'd half-curled into some semblance of a fetal position. "Just a nightmare."
Another one, she could nearly hear him say. But there had been no exasperation in his voice, no irritation brought on from being woken by a child in the night. His voice was strangely clear, considering. Normally, when these things happened, he would trudge in half-naked and sleep-addled. He would pet her hair or rub her back with hands that were far clumsier than they ever were in the light of day. Marion would ask, on those nights, why Ionu let the nightmares happen, and he would groggily answer that it wasn't Ionu, that the god of illusions only controlled the waking dreams, not the sleeping ones. (Those apparently belonged to another god entirely.)
But this wasn't normal. Dad hadn't been asleep, not for some time at least, and it felt as if he wouldn't be any time soon. The light was minimal. Marion wouldn't have placed the time past two bells -- unless the city had decided today would be a day without light -- but as her eyes adjusted she could make out the shape of her father's face, sharp angles and unnatural patterns of facial hair that seemed to change from day to day. She could the the outline of his beard, twisted in two parts like warthog tusks, and from under the shadows of his eyes glinted pale and piercing eyes, too lucid and wily to be anything but fully awake.
"I didn't wake you up?" She couldn't decided if it was a question or an accusation. The outline of his head shook the negative nonetheless, but not before he pressed a hushing finger to her lips.
"I've been up." He had always had a way of explaining things while leaving more questions than answers. When he spoke, it was hardly above a whisper, the oddly fresh scent of his breath punctuating the fact that he hadn't been to sleep. "I wanted to show you something. But quietly. Your mother's still asleep." With that he slid back, and Marion, somewhat-yet-not-quite confused at the situation, almost missed the "follow me" gesture he waggled at her.
There was still terror on her lips when her eyes flicked open. She was greeted by darkness, a shuddering in her heart. Something had happened. Something horrible, something so awful that it left her teeth grinding and an electric tightness in her chest. It was all in her head, she knew, something she had conjured up when her imagination was left to run unchecked into the darkest recesses of her young mind. But there was a moment, a split tick in time, when Marion felt frozen to her sheets, body numb and on fire all at once. Outside of her door, she could hear faint but rhythmic footfall. Then a knock, three times, softly. The moment passed.
She slid soundlessly off of her bed as feeling trickled back into her limbs. It was a prickling sensation, like mist on her skin, but faded after a moment. She wound her way to the door with sliding steps, careful not to stub any toes in the dark, and braced pale hands against the door when she approached -- one flat against the wood, the other wrapping around the knob. The metal was surprisingly cold in her fingers. And... wet? Was that frost she felt? It was impossible to tell without any light.
The next tick seemed stretched, like moist clay twisting in some grand schemer's hands. Every sensation was suddenly incredibly vibrant. She felt the pressure of her hand on the metal and the metal pushing back, fighting a losing battle in its resistance as it turned. Slowly, so slowly. And the noise it made, the clicking and the creaking. Tiny screams. If only she'd been more awake, she might've noticed. She might've heeded the door's warning. But it swung open with a lazy push, and there, waiting, was nothing.
Simple emptiness. No hallway. No trail of strewn rugs leading to the living room. Not even a wall. Just nothing, an abyss darker than the blackness around her.
But there must have been something.
Because something was forcing a sense of dread down her throat even as bile rose in response to it. Something set her little heart to trembling, something choked the air to scream from her lungs, something tensed her muscles to paralyze before she could turn to run. She vaguely remembered some saying about staring into abysses, and though the words slid through her mind on turpentine trails too fast for her to grasp, she knew they were disturbingly appropriate. Something was twisting in the dark, something too grotesque, too horrible for her mind to comprehend. But her eyes saw it.
"Marion."
Her eyes saw it.
"Marion."
Her eyes saw it.
"Marion?"
She woke with a gasp that would've been a wail if she'd had the breath for it, shooting upright under her sheets and skittering backwards. She hit the wall, and the thin gown she wore offered little protection as her back slammed against it with a dully painful thud that was numbed only partially by adrenaline. For a moment her arms flailed almost uncontrollably, her shoulders shaking violently as if there were... bugs, millions of tiny bugs biting and burrowing and crawling across her skin and she needed to get them off.
(Her eyes saw it.)
Only a tick passed before Marion realized there was a presence in her room, and it was only through some primal instinct that she knew who it was.
"Daddy," she whimpered, voice catching in her throat somewhere between a breath and a sob. His hand was at her shoulder then, large and warm and bringing with it the kind of heady reassurance that only a father could provide. Her breathing came heavily but eventually grew less labored, the shock of fear that had shot down her spine and temporarily fried her nerves now fading to a lingering tingle.
"It's okay, Marion mouse," he assured, gently plying her away from the wall, where she'd half-curled into some semblance of a fetal position. "Just a nightmare."
Another one, she could nearly hear him say. But there had been no exasperation in his voice, no irritation brought on from being woken by a child in the night. His voice was strangely clear, considering. Normally, when these things happened, he would trudge in half-naked and sleep-addled. He would pet her hair or rub her back with hands that were far clumsier than they ever were in the light of day. Marion would ask, on those nights, why Ionu let the nightmares happen, and he would groggily answer that it wasn't Ionu, that the god of illusions only controlled the waking dreams, not the sleeping ones. (Those apparently belonged to another god entirely.)
But this wasn't normal. Dad hadn't been asleep, not for some time at least, and it felt as if he wouldn't be any time soon. The light was minimal. Marion wouldn't have placed the time past two bells -- unless the city had decided today would be a day without light -- but as her eyes adjusted she could make out the shape of her father's face, sharp angles and unnatural patterns of facial hair that seemed to change from day to day. She could the the outline of his beard, twisted in two parts like warthog tusks, and from under the shadows of his eyes glinted pale and piercing eyes, too lucid and wily to be anything but fully awake.
"I didn't wake you up?" She couldn't decided if it was a question or an accusation. The outline of his head shook the negative nonetheless, but not before he pressed a hushing finger to her lips.
"I've been up." He had always had a way of explaining things while leaving more questions than answers. When he spoke, it was hardly above a whisper, the oddly fresh scent of his breath punctuating the fact that he hadn't been to sleep. "I wanted to show you something. But quietly. Your mother's still asleep." With that he slid back, and Marion, somewhat-yet-not-quite confused at the situation, almost missed the "follow me" gesture he waggled at her.
