The Nightmares that Follow

[Nex Paciscor]

60th of Winter 510AV

When his eyes opened, Nex discovered himself to be surrounded by pure unending white all around, and yet his feet remained firmly planted on the cold white floor of nothingness. It all seemed so normal, and for some reason he just didn't feel like questioning the normal oddness of the situation.

Doing another slow spin he came face to face with a giant, disembodied head, and other than the black orbs filling its sockets, it possesed a rather featurless face.

Suddenly knocked off of his feet, Nex looked to see what was the sudden cause of the jolt, that made him lose his balance and fall. Looking up, he watched the.. thing's eyes blink, and once they did, the white prision was immediately wracked by severe shaking, and a loud tearing noise as if the power of the eyes was ripping this unsubstantial world apart.

Scrambling away from whatever manner creature it was as fast as he could, he noticed that his previous pure, white surroundings where coming out in patches and revealing all kinds of colors from behind. The prision was losing its solid shape fast and becoming once more as tangible as a cloud, Nex grimly observed as he finally fell through the floor hurtling down towards the ground.

Not quite ground he saw, but rather an immence ocean of pure flames. He cringed on the inside, seeing his unavoidable doom, and wishing that he was still up in the cloud with that beast. Maybe, he would be lucky and he would die quick, and painlessly. Perhaps the overlarge expanding wall of fire would simply incenerate him.

As he neared the bottom he closed his eyes shut tight, expecting to hit nothing tangible, and as he felt the heat, he flinched and hit somthing very solid with a bone crunching smack. Pain shot through all parts of his body, as he laid on a cobble stone road floating on the ocean of fire, that was not there before he didn't think.

Trying with all his might to move, he found himself incapable of movement, as he laid there in a broken pile, unable to even talk or hardly think, so great was the pain and damage. He prayed that the pain would black him out, but it never did, and neither did the pain ever stop.

After a while he felt the cobblestong patch of road he was lying on start to tip over, seemingly of its own will. Paralyzed, and in to much pain to even scream, Nex wept as he saw himself sliding towards the body of fire and prayed that this would atleast be the end. He plunged through the surface of the fire as if it where a pool, and the fire even felt like water, if he liked swimming in at 1000 degrees. The flames quickly blackened his skin shrivled away his extremities and eyelids, but leaving his sight unharmed as his broken body sank deeper into the lake of flames.

He tried to hold his breath for as long as he could, but when he finally couldn't no more, he opened his mouth and took a big gulp of the flames surronding him, cooking his insideds, blackining his lungs, and consuming his tounge completely. But still he yet lived.

A flash of blackness stole him away from the horrifing scene and the pain that accompanyed it and suddenly he found himself to be fully healed and in some strange tavern he had never been in before. Instantly it seemed he forgot all about what he was thinking off, and opened his eyes once more to find the tavern completly empty, save for a georgous girl in the corner.

She walked slowly towards him, leaning in at times to give him a good look. If she was a seductress, she was good at her job, was one of the thoughts that ran through his mind. She came upon him all, at once embracing him, raising alarm in him only briefly.

While she kissed him he only had a vauge sense of what was going on, and only noticed when she took somthing out of her hair that was holding it up, allowing for her long brown tresses to frame her pale shoulders beautifully. As her kisses became more insistant, he became more caught up into the moment, and distracted.

Suddenly he felt a sharp pain and his neck, and watched as the woman, backed off from him, wearing a wicked grin and her hands out plaintively. He tried to reach up and pull the long steel dagger from his neck, but found himself paralized and unable to move or speak. It left him only the option of watching in horror as the woman crept closer to him once more, and took of his plain brown tunic to expose his chest.

He watched in mute terror, as she shoved both her hands through his chest, as if his skin, muscle, and bone where made of butter. Her hands where ice cold inside of him and filled him with a dull pain. The pain intesified however, as she pulled apart her hands and seperated his chest bones, pulling them out wide. He looked down again and what he saw disgusted him, and waves of nausa washed over him as he saw his own heart beating, and her hand slowly reach for it. Suddeny she tore it from his chest and devoured it. The suddenness of the movement jolted him from his sleep.

*****
"NO!" he screamed aloud into the empty air of the library he had fallen asleep at. Sweating, and panting, waves of relief washed over him as he relized it had only been a dream.

[Mercury]

Nex Paciscor Skill(s) Observation + 1 XP Lore(s) What is Normal? (In Dreamland) Lore of being Paralyzed (In Dreamland) Eating Fire and Surviving (In Dreamland) Heart Wrenching (In Dreamland) Lore of Nightmares Method to my Madness: You didn't really observe much so I couldn't really give you too many skill points, but it was super fun trying to figure out creative lore names for you. Good job Nex; keep at it.