Chapter 18
Waking Nightmare
Her surroundings felt different again. This time, it wasn't the cold, hard stone, but a soft bed. But everything else was wrong. Cold, cold and alone. Instead of the warm, snuggly embrace of her blankets, an icy gust blew over June’s body.
Darkness filled her vision. She had eyes again. That was new, unexpected. They snapped open to stare at the plain white ceiling she’d memorized every detail of over the last few years. From the chipped paint from bouncing things off it, to the stains in the corner from their leaky roof, everything was the same. As she bolted upright, her room looked largely the same as she remembered it, at least in form.
It was the colors; they were all wrong. Blue walls had turned to grey. That old beige carpet had become black and void-like. Every nook and cranny of the room seemed to swallow light and cast a long shadow. It was like the entire room was a shaded reflection of itself. Details twisted and blurred, as if the entire world had become a charcoal sketch.
June took a moment to check over her body. It was just as she remembered it. The brown hair, pale complexion, all of it. But the colors were muted, wrong. It was like she was seeing the world through sunglasses. But it wasn’t just the colors, sounds were off too, frightening. As her awareness adjusted, soft voices fluttered to her ears. Indecipherable echoes of a memory, like the garbled audio of a skipping CD. June tried to pay attention to them, but only lost them like whispers in the wind.
With abandon, the whispers shifted up in volume. They turned into a flood of screams. Curses in a language she didn’t know inundated her ears. The torturous flow soon became a flood. Jolting off of her bed, June threw her hands over her ears and rushed for the door. Desperate, she flat-out ran through the door. Beyond the threshold was a hallway filled with the same grey scale color and washed-out light, ringed by slithering shadows. Without thinking, June rushed into the bathroom across the hall and slammed the door. The screams lessened, filtered through the hefty door. No, not filtered, further away.
Slumped against the door, she sunk to the floor. June’s panic eased in that moment, and she stared up at the mirror, or at least where it should have been. Instead of her reflection, an inky, swirling void stared back at her. It wasn’t a mirror at all, but a portal to some opaque hell, an unimaginable nightmare. Despite herself, June stood and reached out, grazing her fingers across the twisted surface. Like water, her fingers passed right through it.
June recoiled from the visage and threw open the bathroom door, rushing out into the hall, trying to find someone, anyone. Someone to help her out of whatever this hell was. “Mom...” the visage of her mother came to her mind in an instant, and pain welled in her chest. June ran through the house, she came to the threshold of her mother’s room. The plain white door stood in her path, and with a prickle of anticipation running up her back, she threw the door open.
Nothing, absolutely nothing. Gone was the room she knew well. A plain, dark void stood beyond the threshold. As though night itself had taken residence in her mother’s room, a wall of black stood in front of her, unyielding. Backpedaling out of the room, June slammed the door shut, shaking like a leaf in the wind.
Panicking, June rushed to the front door and peered out of the window to its side. Looking outside for the first time, their suburban home was seemingly right where she remembered it. The tiny, patchy green lawn wrapped its way around their small home. But outside, too, the colors were all wrong. It looked like a foggy night outside, thicker fog than she’d ever seen, clung to everything. June’s vision failed to pierce the thick haze further than the edge of her yard.
June’s hand shook as it rested on the knob. June was about to open the door when she froze in place. Just as soon as she glanced out the window, things shifted. Rapidly, ice formed on the windowpane. A foggy night shifted to a foggy morning, as if on fast-forward. The chill of the air was anything but comforting. No wind blew outside the window, not even a leaf moved, even as time sped by.
“No...No...No,” repeated in her head as if from a grainy cassette tape. The distorted echo twisted into an indescribable wail as anguish crept in. The scene before her eyes was all too close to home for June. That damned frosty morning...
It’s amazing how much an accident can change things. In one simple moment, a person’s life can change forever. That frosty November morning would forever remain etched in June’s mind. The sound of her front door slamming as her mother left for work, then seconds ticked by in silence as June teetered on that precipice between sleep and the drudgery of the day. But the crash and scream shattered all notions of peace and relaxation in her mind.
Bone and skin torn asunder by nothing more than a fall. She’d never expected something so common to be so terrible. What a foolish little girl she’d been, to think such a thing could never happen. All it took was ice and some careless steps.
There was so much blood, more than she’d ever seen in her life. In a panic, June rushed back inside, calling 911. On the edge of tears, she begged them to hurry. Minutes passed as June tried to do what she could to keep her mother calm and conscious. Mercifully, the wail of a siren broke through her panicked mind as help arrived. Her mother was whisked away, and an emotionally wrecked June tried her best to follow in the flurry of the rush hour.
She would never forget the way her mother looked at her from the hospital bed, telling her not to worry, that she loved her little girl. But that wasn’t the thing that would truly stick in her mind like a jagged blade. That feeling of numbness when she had to clean her mother’s blood off of the steps. Ice and blood was a motherfucker to clean up. But that was just the beginning.
Emergency surgery, discussions with doctors. It all passed in a blur. Every day, she would brave the hell of passing silently through the hospital doors to see her mother and meet with doctors. When she finally was discharged, things were just as hellish, in a new way. They would spend hours in traffic going to and from the hospital, trying to care for her mother. Hours that would run together. Anxiety made worse by far too many cups of crummy vending machine coffee. That day would soon be forgotten, but scars would remain.
And even months later, after spending all that time caring for her now hobbled mother, June still worried. Months of physical therapy and doctor’s visits; all of that time just ran together into a nebulous blur. She never had the heart to tell her mother that the reason she often stayed up so late was to try and make sure her mother never fell again. The sound of that front door shutting always woke her up, even if she pretended it didn’t.
Stress, worry, and so many other emotions clung to her like heavy fur. Dread over the future constantly streamed out of the deep recesses of her mind, just as often as the late night tears, especially when loneliness joined in the ‘let’s make June incredibly depressed’ beat down.
All this and more ran before her eyes, like a greatest hits album of her worst moments. June wanted to flee as these memories flashed before her eyes. Crystal clear, as if she was watching a recording. They looped. Faster and faster they ran, blurring together. “Run,” the voice inside her head told her, but her body wouldn’t move. The cold environs around her lay forgotten, ignored, like the shattered remains of her life; all as she stood there helplessly, reliving hated memories. After what felt like hours, the blur of colors, sirens, and wails abated. Its grip on June released just enough for her to curl into a ball, sobbing.
“I just want to go home...” she sobbed into the wall. “Mom, please...” she choked out between huffs and hiccups.
She couldn’t leave, this was hell. Had she really died, and that strange reincarnation had all been the last gasp of a dying mind? Was this what her eternity was? A purgatory of her own making, built within the walls of her trauma?
But she didn’t have time to ponder these questions. A crack behind her made her blood run cold. A snapping of bones, a wheezing breath. The smell of rot...
“Hello, young one...” came the rasping call from a voice of death, a vision of decay that June knew all too well. With a last desperate push, she tried to lash out. A scream became a pitiful sob as she tried to scare off the incarnation of death. June tried to push this thing out of her mind. She sought tranquility in visions of the forest, running through flowers as a child. Anything, even a glimmer of hope, would do.
As she walked through the trees in her mind, a frigid gust blew in. In an instant, the leaves wilted and fell to earth. The bark cracked and trunks snapped. With every step, her pace quickened, and June was running through a decrepit wasteland. Only in a distant memory did it hold even a glimpse of vibrant life. And the same happened with every vision she tried. A crystal clear pool turned to dust and rotten algae. A crackling fire in her grandpa’s cabin was snuffed, leaving behind dark ashes and a cold, dusty room.
Snapped back to the shaded reality, a bitter truth consumed June. This thing, whatever the hell it was, had won. Her inner fire was gone. That burning hatred had been snuffed. An icy grip cradled her heart in fear. She just wanted to go home, a scared little girl that just wanted to run away. Frozen in place, time stood still as she watched from the corner as doom closed in.
The creature breathed heavily as it advanced across the room. A gust of rot washed out of its fetid hood each time it advanced, tiny insects came fluttering out with it. Like the sweet nectar of blood drawing a hungry predator, the creature advanced, eager for a meal.
In a flash, June found the tiniest glimmer of resistance. Like an ember to dried paper, panic caught in her mind and her survival instinct finally kicked in. Desperately, June skirted around the edge of the room, crawling for the doorway.
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“Good,” whispered the looming creature. As June tried to crawl away, her tears flowed harder, desperate whimpers eschewing from her mouth in ragged sobs. As she tried, she felt a pull, like being swept away by strong winds, but this was different—horrifying.
The elongated arms of the creature appeared from beneath its dark garb, still spewing of puss and insects. Still sounding like snapping bones. But instead of grabbing for the frightened girl, they grabbed for the hood itself.
When the creature pulled back the hood, hell came into view.
A mess of mouths, all hungering for their next morsel, dominated a distended and swollen face. Disgusting drool sloshed from within the sore-filled crevices. Grey flesh surrounded each mouth, with sores and pustules accenting this creature like the devil’s beauty marks. Eye sockets filled with dried blood exploded out from multiple spots on this monster’s mug. Rows of sharpened teeth jutted out from the ragged bits of flesh around each smaller portal into complete darkness.
A hole, no, a void. Fetid, gibbering mouths waiting to consume all that she was. This horrifying visage of ravenous hunger hid beneath that ragged mess. A hunger for affection that June knew all too well was reflected from the black pool of this gaping maw. And worse for June, the maw was opening, sucking her in.
Screams filled the room, but the creature answered no pleas, no begging would find remorse here. This creature was too interested in feeding, consuming. It was June’s screams that were first to be swallowed, but the hellish beast didn’t stop. Even the soft light of the surrounding room couldn’t escape the hungry void. June could only see blackness as the seconds ticked by.
Panicked, she did the only thing she could and tried to hold on. June tried to wrap her hand around the rung of a shelf, but couldn't find purchase. Terrified, she tried to wrap her fingers around something, anything.
As if the room had suddenly grown ten times wider than she remembered, she lost touch with the wall beside her. That ugly green couch passed her by as she desperately grabbed for a leg. That, too, passed her by, like a silent audience watching her torture. But try as she might, she left behind only the indentations of her fingers as they dragged across the carpet. The sight of the lines on the carpet broke something in her. Desperation turned to acceptance. A scream tried to flee from June’s mouth, only to be swallowed whole by the monstrous titan of hunger behind her.
The sucking sound changed in that moment. Like the joyous cries of a child that just got their favorite toy for Christmas, the thing was so close to its scrumptious meal. A vicious growl filled the air as shadow crawled from the corners to snuff the last vestiges of light. Shadow would soon swallow the room, and June would go right along with it.
But in that moment, a bright flash filled the space. June stared at it, transfixed. Its light was vibrant, alluring. That familiar pull returned, and June snapped from her stupor. Pulling with all her might, she fought against the vortex pulling her in. The monster behind her howled against the force of its new foe, fighting for control.
Like two hurricanes, the force of these two ethereal forces of nature slammed into each other, with June caught in the middle. Ripped and pulled, June couldn’t move or resist. Painlessly, her skin flaked away. Then came the flesh and muscle. Blood flowed like a river, sucked into a crimson ribbon, before being pulled into the orb of growing illumination just out of her reach. Every part of her was rushing to salvation. Desperate, she wanted to follow.
Not content to let its quarry go, the baffling monstrosity lunged, wanting to wrap its rotten mouths around fresh meat. Rather, it was repulsed by an unmovable force. A wall of light. Burned, the leviathan of night leapt back with a horrifying howl. Shadow and light continued their struggle, June struggling to reach the orb that would hopefully bring her to safety.
Summoning the last miserable shred of hope in her heart, June pulled against the tug on her form. With a silent scream, she gave herself fully to the light as her fingers grazed its burning surface. The roiling fire pulsed, bathing the room in a light so bright that it would dwarf the sun itself. A serpent of flame slithered out from the surface of the orb, snaking its way around June’s hand. She felt now heat at its touch, instead, a cooling relaxation settled over her body.
As the basilisk of flame covered her body, that relaxation spread further with it. The whispers and screams of the monsters and unseen spirits fell away. Instead, she heard the siren song of an unknown voice—a peaceful one.
As the wave of energy passed over her, something shifted, something deep awoke within June. She could feel so much more than just her own body; every part of the energy that touched was alive with light and pressure. The pressure burned its way through her body, changing it. She could feel every change, but didn’t recoil or panic.
With another pulse, June’s awareness crept outward. June could see her own body bathed in white fire, cradled by it. She could see every path the energy took, even outside her own form. The energy surged through the fabric of this shadowed reality, burning it away to ash. June was content to let the horrors of her past be burned away in the sacrificial fire. June wanted this, needed it.
In a final great flash, the dark rooms fell away, and it bathed June in light. Its overwhelming presence silenced all the screams and horror. As the light faded, June floated high above a perplexingly smoking, frozen sea. Roiling waters spewed mists and chunks of ice. June floated slowly over the blue waters, watching, waiting.
Around her, a great storm raged. Drops of water the size of people fell towards the icy depths from an ashen sky. Lightning cracked across the clouds in angry swathes. But even amid the angriest squall, the sun fought back. Sunbeams filtered down through the clouds, catching on the waters below before disappearing into the black depths.
With each roll of the cold waves, the water frothed and formed into a messy plateau of seawater. The watery boil threw chunks in many different directions, but they all seemed to float back to giant clusters regardless of how far they were thrown. As water washed over th tops of the chunks, it froze in place, growing the icy platforms in size. As more icy water washed over the surface, it seeped into the cracks, freezing and fuzing the chunks together. Over the course of several minutes, the entirety of June's vision was dominated by a massive sheet of ice.
Water rained down from above, adding its own weight to the mass. This water didn't freeze, however, taking on a new form. June didn’t feel the rain on her skin. Instead, she felt the vibrations of air around her as thunder cracked overhead. Each concussive boom echoed, shaking her to her core.
The water took on a surprisingly dark hue as it rested on the surface of the huge sheet of ice. An angry shadow spread across the surface of the glass, coating it with an inky, sticky substance. The shadows clung to the surface, turning it from white to the deepest black. Everything seemed to be swallowed by it, pulled into its dark embrace. Even the tiny glimpses of sunlight shied away from this ebony construction. Blocked out from sight by the glassy surface, the waves bashed against the surface, unable to break through.
But not content to remain still, the shadows stirred. Myriad colors pulsed across the surface, like an old TV broadcast that wasn’t coming in clear. The image warbled and shifted, seemingly hunting for an agreeable form.
Then, fire came into view. As crisp and clear as if she could see it with her own two eyes, a scene filled out the frozen surface. A black stone plinth held a corpse. The corpse was decrepit but alive with another kind of light. Fire still burned beneath its skin, cracking at the skin like magma beneath layers of rock.
The corpse itself wore nothing, but a singed black robe, one that June instantly recognized. The ebony-robed spellcaster had been torn and burned just like the rest of the ragged remains, but the face of that woman was undeniable.
As she watched, some esoteric ritual took place. Various robed undead walked into view, placing some trinket onto the plinth or the corpse. The ritual then took on a more ominous tone as one of the robed undead, this time wearing a gilded purple, began chanting in arcane tongues.
Mana swirled at its command, leaping from the corners to bathe the stone platform and the corpse in living shadow. June’s vision filled with all manner of images; secrets and whispers fluttered past. Arcane runes etched into the stone plinth glowed with sinister light. A rainbow of light, bearing no treasure, shone over the scene. The shadows danced along with the foul incantations, moving to some unseen orchestra.
But before the ritual could finish, the image blinked out. The living shadow retreated from its icy cradle, sinking back into the sea in a flow of sludge.
A bright light, too bright, filled June’s vision once again, before sending her crashing back into the blackness.