04-06-2019, 10:06 PM
Slipping into oblivion was tempting. Toma’s voice lulled his lids low, and moments later, darkness fell. Jaxen’s grip on the world loosened, his soul laid bare on the rocks. Toma’s poison dripped blissfully slow. Maybe this was the passage into the realm of the dead. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad after all. Nothing to fear. No fires licking tormented limbs. Just sleep. The heart slowing; blood sluggish; time frozen….
He walked a hallway, fingers trailing white walls slick as silk. No lines. No doors. No windows. Just eternal light glowing bright enough to squint the eyes. Foreboding doom hastened steps he knew he'd walked before but was unsure of where they led. He was a black shard in the light, as though his very existence was a crack in their bright world.
Motion pulled frightened eyes upward. Red leaked from the ceiling, dripping along the walls like paint. Mesmerized, he came close, dipped his fingers into the ooze and put them carefully to his lips.
He gasped. Blood! And ran. The blood dripped faster until it puddled on the floor. A river flowed underfoot. He was going to fall! Then, a doorway appeared out of no where. The curtain of red cascading between red death and escape. He hurried, but his balance was gone. The wind knocked from his chest when he fell, screaming. The blood drenched his body, smeared his cheeks. Horrified, Loki clawed at the floor, finding purchase on the coils of a rope. He pulled, or maybe the rope pulled him, and he was yanked from the red river. Landing, coughing, on an enormous floor, clean and crisp, he felt the eyes watching from on high. Afraid to behold the slender creatures looming overhead, he was shaking as he focused on the rope in his hands, as though it might pull him from this nightmare.
But something was wrong with the coils. It was soft, pliant. Stretched slippery. It was a tube. Something was inside. Something soft. Horrified, he looked, following the line of it onward to its origin. From a body laid open. He started screaming. The body of his son…”Nari!!!” he groaned, entrails falling from his hands just as the brightness burned his bones to ash... again…
When the burn of electronic lights pulled him from the threshold of death, ancient fury pulsed fresh venom through his body. The blackness of his eyes lifted bare crescents. Fire swarmed, but in its midst laid a bloody body. Gray hair sprawled, the eyes frozen wide with fear. Jaxen knew that upon which he looked.
“Boda,” he said, barely a whisper.
They killed Boda, but not him. He would live. Toma saw to that. Just long enough to know he was responsible. A Marveet. Daddy asked sweetly. A life for a life. Eyes for eyes; the deal soured. Jaxen flexed every ounce of hatred buried deep within toward retaliation.
Instead, he fell from the chair. Carpet sprawled on his cheeks, fingers clawing painfully floorward, but the arc of his back did not lift him from defeat.
Tears fell like blood.
He walked a hallway, fingers trailing white walls slick as silk. No lines. No doors. No windows. Just eternal light glowing bright enough to squint the eyes. Foreboding doom hastened steps he knew he'd walked before but was unsure of where they led. He was a black shard in the light, as though his very existence was a crack in their bright world.
Motion pulled frightened eyes upward. Red leaked from the ceiling, dripping along the walls like paint. Mesmerized, he came close, dipped his fingers into the ooze and put them carefully to his lips.
He gasped. Blood! And ran. The blood dripped faster until it puddled on the floor. A river flowed underfoot. He was going to fall! Then, a doorway appeared out of no where. The curtain of red cascading between red death and escape. He hurried, but his balance was gone. The wind knocked from his chest when he fell, screaming. The blood drenched his body, smeared his cheeks. Horrified, Loki clawed at the floor, finding purchase on the coils of a rope. He pulled, or maybe the rope pulled him, and he was yanked from the red river. Landing, coughing, on an enormous floor, clean and crisp, he felt the eyes watching from on high. Afraid to behold the slender creatures looming overhead, he was shaking as he focused on the rope in his hands, as though it might pull him from this nightmare.
But something was wrong with the coils. It was soft, pliant. Stretched slippery. It was a tube. Something was inside. Something soft. Horrified, he looked, following the line of it onward to its origin. From a body laid open. He started screaming. The body of his son…”Nari!!!” he groaned, entrails falling from his hands just as the brightness burned his bones to ash... again…
When the burn of electronic lights pulled him from the threshold of death, ancient fury pulsed fresh venom through his body. The blackness of his eyes lifted bare crescents. Fire swarmed, but in its midst laid a bloody body. Gray hair sprawled, the eyes frozen wide with fear. Jaxen knew that upon which he looked.
“Boda,” he said, barely a whisper.
They killed Boda, but not him. He would live. Toma saw to that. Just long enough to know he was responsible. A Marveet. Daddy asked sweetly. A life for a life. Eyes for eyes; the deal soured. Jaxen flexed every ounce of hatred buried deep within toward retaliation.
Instead, he fell from the chair. Carpet sprawled on his cheeks, fingers clawing painfully floorward, but the arc of his back did not lift him from defeat.
Tears fell like blood.