Reality Is the Real Nightmare

Drache is the present-day capital of the Kingdom of Arangoth and lies at the mouth of the River Darian, surrounded by the city docks all along the waterfront. Click here for information on the various suburbs and areas of Drache. You can also click here to view a sketched map of the city.
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Nymphetamine
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Joined: Thu May 10, 2012 1:09 pm
Preferred Title: Marog the Destroyer
Characters: Aezra
Azalia Stygian
Eliya Almakira al-Fasaad
Ianesene
Isabelle Auxerre
Nesira Vertal
Rix
Senkessa Silak-Dekhal
Siraz'jah Av'Zathrak
Location: Seattle, WA

Reality Is the Real Nightmare

Post by Nymphetamine »

The Late Bell had rung some time earlier, or maybe that was the Second Late Bell. It didn't matter when it was.

Eliya Almakira sat in the center of seven painstakingly drawn and painted magic circles on the floor of the warlock, Alim Kassad's new safe house. Her hands were bound with rope tied to an iron ring embedded in the center of the stone floor. The Emshi psychic didn't look like a sacrifice. In fact, she seemed oddly calm for the situation, though beneath that underlying serenity, there was the trepidation of what could happen tonight.

Fact of the matter, this was not the first time she had been tied up. The third or fourth such night, in the same place, cushioned by a few of the pillows. The rope was tight enough to be uncomfortable but a necessary precaution. Alim's instructions of 'Don't run outside the circle' last time had been taken to heart. The reality bending experience had sent the psychic running nonetheless, and the episode on Coffin Row resulted. A handful of awoken but insane servants to the creature, all because she had run. This dim realization had inspired the current situation.

She had been having the daytime warnings of the nightmare. Whispers, chittering, clicking and hissing at almost all hours, there in the back of her head. Even now, they were itching at her consciousness, enough so that the quiet of the room was disturbed by these hallucinations only she could hear. Once or twice, she had shared it with Alim, a quiet hand on his and the opening of psychic gifts. He had heard the same noise through her, but she was plagued with it daily since the day after Candlenight.

The day after Candlenight had been difficult on its own, even without the precursor nightmare hallucinations, but there was nothing she could do about that now. The nightmare had to come and pass before she was even ready to deal with any of that. As such, her presence at the Black Dragon had been scarce and mostly to see to her gelding. The rest of her time was spent in this same spot, the center of a magical number of magic circles. The ropes came later in the day.

By now, Eliya knew she didn't have to be asleep for the nightmares, which had only helped the tiniest bit in allowing her to sleep at night. The nightmare could come any time, why worry about it each night?

This time, Alim sat outside, keeping watch and ready to stop her if she somehow snapped the ropes and tried to flee. Not like she could get through the hidden door. The new safe house was ideally located for that, secret and hidden by magic. And remote from people. No infecting random citizens tonight. She could not get out, and with any luck, that wouldn't backfire on the warlock himself.

She felt herself nodding off where she sat upright, and didn't fight it. Her sleep had been lacking for days and any was welcomed. Even now, despite knowing that the nightmare was to come at any point. There was little she could do about that.

The transition from reality to slumbering world was like passing through a fog that she hardly remembered. She was suddenly on the crystal frontier at twilight. A quick look told her that the sun was setting, but it was dazzling the sands with a glory of scarlet and ochre flames. An emotional pang of homecoming struck her then, though dream-self did not know why she should be so happy. She had never left the Fareedah and nightmares were not so terrible as to trouble her beyond the morning.

The wind blew from the west, ruffling clothing and the long braid that normally was tucked away. Her head was uncovered in a way that was uncommon for her life in the desert, but perhaps it was only because she was drinking in the lethal beauty of the crystal sands. Home was home, and despite knowing she had never left, Eliya was ecstatic to be home again. Not far from where she stood was her blood bay gelding, pawing at the scrub growth of a hardy bush and nosing around for either forage or water.

In the innate sense of dreams, she knew that she should be returning to the tribe on this evening. She had been gone from them for a few days, as was her custom, prowling closer to the corrupted zone of the interior than the tribe ever wished to tread. Not that she blamed them for that, and even though this isolated her, she accepted her duty without complaint. Uncle Hakim had instilled that deep in her bones. She reached for her waist and found a pair of daggers. One was bejeweled and not of desert make. The other was the silent ekrinam, created in the manner of all crystal daggers of Amas'kyaa, but from far away and thus foreign. How she knew these things, she couldn't have guessed because dream-Eliya was surprised to find them there at all. The shock faded quickly and she accepted them in the easy, casual way that dreams fostered. ~It was nothing,~ dream-brain told her. ~You are home.~

For a fleeting moment, memory pricked at her, recalling faces of men whom she had befriended in another life. They were the dreams, friends were not a luxury that she could afford. She thought on this as she pulled herself into the saddle and lifted her hands to the keffiyah to cover head and mouth. A sense of deja vu hit her then, like she had done this before. Of course she had done this before. A thousand times, since she had been given Ahlor Ryr, they had been partners for seven years. (Seven circles.)

Shaking her head, she kicked the gelding's sides and they were off, devouring the terrain as they headed south west, to where her tribe was probably setting up for the evening. They were between oases at the moment, but their supplies were good, and they could sustain themselves for a few weeks with strict water rationing. Eliya rode for over an hour. She should have reached them by now. Casting out with psychic abilities, she searched for a hint of them, the small cluster of minds that represented the tribe should have been easy to find. She could reach out for miles for them, and eventually, caught a hint of them, further west and south than anticipated. Once more, she set off.

Again, she found nothing. Where they should be, they were not. Darkness had fallen in earnest now, the sun buried beyond the horizon. Matathu, what was going on? Open to the world, she heard them, the minds of her tribe, setting about their nighttime rituals as the cold began to settle in with the departure of the sun. She tugged one of the reins to pull the gelding to the right, trying to catch sign of campfires. There were near.

Eliya closed her eyes and concentrated. Hakim's mantra flooded through her. Still like the sands, lethal like the sun, swift as the wind, aware of the Fareedah like crystal. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe in the wind, exhale doubt. Breathe in the night. With eyes closed, she could not see the foggy haze that was pulled into her lungs through her nose. Even as she did so, the tribe coalesced around her, their chores like a cacophony on the sands after searching for hours for them. Suddenly, as if it was nothing, she was in the middle.

"Eliya!"

That was not a voice of the tribe.

"Eliya!"

Lashes fluttered open and she saw her brother, Nasim approaching, smile wide, his son carried in one arm. She was not so lonely as to isolate from her family, small as a unit as it was.

"Nasim, Rashad," she greeted them both by name and leaned over in the saddle to take the squirming five year old Rashad from his father. The child smiled at his aunt and settled in before her like this was normal. It was, he was always so happy to see her after her solo sojourns into the interior.

"Father thought you would be out later, Sister," Nasim told her as he reached to take the gelding bridle in hand, leading her through the campsite to where their family was. Their parents and Nasim's wife would be waiting for them, this scene a regular thing for the psychic. Be gone and alone for several days, return, sometimes with more bruises.

"Eliya!"

Again, another voice she did not recognize, the tone caressing her name in strange ways.

She twisted to look around for it, and for a moment, a second, the world flickered like it was hardly real at all. It wasn't, but somehow it was at the same time. Rashad said something to her that she didn't hear and her face whipped around to focus on him, her smile genuine. As Rashad repeated his question, everything around her went dark for just a heart beat and then reasserted itself. There was a sense of something heavy settled into the sands, though everything around her appeared to be the same. Brow furrowing, she didn't know what make of this and tried to stifle it in her mind. She played the part of doting aunt, attentive sister, though neither of them inquired if she was well, sensing nothing of the oddity that she did. That was not unusual, either. Amas'kyaa's legacy was her birthright and with it came the psionic gifts that marked her.

On auto-pilot, she went through all the motions of her return. Greeting her family, tending to her gelding, eating whatever was in the pot tonight on pieces of flat bread. They did not ask her of her time alone and she did not volunteer it. Twice more did the world seem to blink in and then out but she could not comment. They had not noticed, and she would not disturb them with it. Her silence was not out of place, either, though Rashad entertained her until his mother collected him for his rest. They passed around a pipe, and the calming effects filtered through her.

Reality shifted while she was hardly aware, a little high on opium. That too was a custom after venturing into the outer edges of the ruined sands that once was a mighty empire. The settling of her nerves and the disconnection was perfect, exactly what she needed.

Eliya!

When next she opened her eyes, she was alone in the cold darkness of the Fareedah. Her horse stood nearby, his tack removed and settled on the ground nearby. There was no campfire, no pipe to smoke opium resin. No Nasim, no family, no tribe. Eliya was alone. She had always been alone, this entire time. She had not found her tribe, but something had tricked her.

~This too was normal,~ her mind whispered to her. ~You are always alone.~ A handful of images flickered through her mind then, like a candle's flame in the breeze. (Candlenight.) Two men, a woman, the few friends she had. ~You are always alone.~ Then the images were gone, and she was as her mind reminded her, alone.

~You are always alone.~

She sat there in the darkness where once she had been smoking with her family and trying to laugh. But she was alone, because she was always alone. There were no friends, no family. There had never been a tribe at all. No Uncle Hakim, no nephew. Always alone, because she wasn't real. She had no name, she had no---

No name?

What was her name?

Nameless, she panicked, because how was this normal? ~This too was normal,~ her mind told her, speaking in her own voice as though it was coated in the dark horror of those nightmares. What nightmares? There had never been nightmares, just as now there was no chittering, no hissing or whispering. The crystal clear voice that was her own. ~You are always alone.~ No name, because she had none.

There was no name for her because there had never been a name. A powerful psychic born to Amas'kyaa's ruins. No, no. Nothing like that. No name, because she had never existed. ~This was the real dream,~ her mind told her. The family, the tribe, the friends of Drache... What was Drache? Drache didn't matter because none of this was real.

Z'xulth the Neverending. The cold caress was like a greater homecoming than anything else she had experienced. Returning to the Fareedah had been nothing in comparison. This was home, this was life, this was all. How her spirit exalted to return, knowing itself as a small part of the infinity that was the Neverending. She rejoiced to be one again, feeling complete and content in a way that superceeded all of those false memories. Family and friends, Fareedah and Drache? What did any of that matter, she was whole. She would have wept if she had a body to weep; there was no strict discipline to control her tears when she wasn't even real to begin with.

There was nothing but the Neverending and she celebrated with every fiber of her being, whatever that was. If she was not human, not Emshi, if she was only the caustic dream of the Neverending, then she didn't care. There was perfection in this madness, something that made the tattered scraps of her soul whole.

"Perfection is in the little things. Learning to be a bit better every day."

A voice speaking the Common creole, from far away, disconnected from the ecstatic joy of communion with Z'xulth. It reminded her that this could not be perfection, even though whatever was 'she' felt nothing like this. No transfer of qi, no empathic rapport could ever match what she experienced in touching the cosmic void that was the Neverending. Swept away on waves, the niggling thought dug at her. Caressed and petted, consumed and devoured, she had given up everything, because she herself was nothing. A figment, a dream, a nothingness that was implanted in that reality to serve its will. And she had, hadn't she?

"No matter how powerful something is, there is always a lever, something to use, some grain of sand that has in him the power to destroy them. Where there's a will, there's a way, they say. There's always a fucking way."

A different voice speaking high Najjira and swearing vehemently, just like that other time. Another reminder, but this too seemed conjured from the false reality of life. She had never lived that, because she had never lived at all. She was nothing, she was a mote of madness and darkness taken form to work the Neverending's will.

ELIYA!

That same voice, how strange but what was it saying? What was 'Eliya'? Your name, it is your name.

ELIYA!

Again, this clarion call that was slashing through the frigid cold of Z'xulth's seductive presence, cutting through the fog like a hot knife through butter. A man's voice, a voice she had known very well in the false life, the real life.

With a crash, one reality descended upon the other with explosive and destructive force. Shattering like glass, everything splintered and erupted spectacularly. Cut a thousand times over with these little pieces of reality, several pierced her body, injecting memories into her with such brutality she cried out. ~You are nothing,~ the strange inner voice reminded her, even as stabbed into with knives, memories penetrated her mind and reasserted themselves as if in challenge.

Her family's faces. Alim Kassad. Wick. Aridia Vloress. Echades. They were all real.

Was she real?

She could no longer tell, even as she scratched at the stone floor in the center of the seven circles, wrists chaffed and bleeding from her thrashing about. Tears coursed down her face, and her bright, luminescent eyes were wide with horror. She spoke, the words pouring forth but of a language she had no knowledge of.

"Hupadgh Z'xulth mnahn'grah'n fhtagn stell'bsna syha'h. Z'xulth tharanak n'ghft, ilyaa h'gotha, sll'ha r'luh'nyth Siveth. Stell'bsna syha'h. Stell'bsna shogg. Stell'bsna Z'xulth."

At this, her eyes rolled up in her head and she fainted, thudding to the floor in the center of the seven circles, hands still bound by bloody rope to the ring. She wasn't even aware of Alim or where he might have been, even if he had his arms around her prone form.
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