Snippet #2664114

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Ellari


First light had broken a short time ago.
A thin ribbon of blue smoke drifted listlessly away from the dark haired young woman sitting atop the railing of a nameless storefront, long since abandoned by its proprietor. Heavier smokers than her even, the occupants now residing inside always had cigarettes to spare for good stories and the old woman willing to barter in sappy romance novels one came across from time to time. They knew her as Eerie, and she never crashed with them, though they offered. She gave everyone nightmares and it wasn’t safe either.

Glowing green wasps floated about without purpose or sound. She chewed her labret, exhaled a deep drag and extended her hand through the cloud. A wasp landed on her palm. She eyed it gently, turning her hand as its wing fluttered and antennae twitched. She breathed in deeply of the hazy city air and steeled her eyes upon it in intense focus. Its glow brightened and she began to feel its prickly legs on her palm. Excitedly, she tried harder but all at once it nearly vanished, only a loose silhouette marking its ‘existence.’ It primed its thin wings and lifted into the air.
She cursed.

“You guys could be handy if I could get you through…” She said dully, taking another drag and looking out into the street.
Filing through the grimy road below her many inhabitants were already or still about. Some shuffled, chilled by the still cool air clinging to the dark corners where the night hid from the piercing rays of the new sun. Tired from the trappings they followed in her embrace, heading home. Others moved hastily, rested and ready to begin their morning.

In the distanced the Den could be seen tall and grim, in a warm kind of way. Everything was a little grim to her. Little glow bugs were all around, even in the distance, resting on trees, floating through window panes and congregating around the sleepiest; unknown to all but her as she understood. Formless and writhing shadow things crept around too, retiring to the darkest corners of the world. Normal people could make them out sometimes at night, when everything is greyscale. If you stare long enough at nowhere in particular, as the speckled static and tiny lights intensify, you can see the shadows breath and sometimes crawl…

The clouds drifted above against the pink morning. She could feel something pushing against her brain in the same place slumber always sat like a lead weight. It pressed into her skull, beginning to push harder than her most extreme fits of dreariness. It was slowly increasing and the alien cause intensifying. Far off she saw power beginning to fail and someone collapse.
“Did that guy pass out? I wonder what he’s got on him… No, no, somethin’s going down.” She said quietly to herself. The glowing bugs gathered in the air around him, covering his head and torso thick as those only in the deepest of ‘sleep’ attract. She flicked her smoldering butt away. It rose, arced and fell. Another person collapsed abruptly close by. A sudden sense of urgency came. She panicked; jumping down the tiered roof and off its shortest part, rolling with practiced clumsiness.
Away she went.
“Oh shit… Fuck, fuck…” She continued in this fashion, frantically whispering all her curses while sprinting. A woman collapsed behind her. The occasional crash could be heard as drivers became hapless passengers. The wasps gathered thick in the air. Her own retinue swelled far more than the normal by the moment.

She ran as hard as she could, rucksack bobbing and rattling. The wall of sleeping was just behind her, but also settling in like a bog before her. ‘It,’ whatever this was, already everywhere, settled in like silt in water.
She was still cursing as she turned hard on her heel and slid into an alleyway, eyes wide, looking for something to climb up or crawl in.
“Lord Albion is coming! He’s finally freaking broke the veil! Or maybe it’s Anduin or fucking Asmodan!?”
She pivoted on her heel and ducked through torn chain link fencing, hopping up as she came through and rolling over a closed dumpster, smacking her knee as she came down. She rose slightly and half squatting leaned hard against the cold steel, looking back where she’d came, panting hard.
“A blood moon!? Hunters Moon!? Virus? Aliens. Fuck…. Um, um maybe it’s just a disease… Or I’ve finally really lost it and I’m sending every ones soul to the Bishop!?”
She started digging in her suede rucksack and produced a pill bottle. Handy things, tough lid, water proof, good shapes. Empty. She cursed and tried another. Same problem.
“Are you kidding me!? I thought I had at least one left.” She mumbled a string of uppers and amphetamines, shaking bottles and checking plastic baggiess as she went. Nothing.
“Really? Fuck. What’s happening!?”
Changing tactics she swiftly slapped herself in the face.
“Owe, damn it.” The intense pressure was still there and growing, her eyelids began to droop more than usual. She slapped herself again. Now her face hurt too. Around her, the glowing wasps began to fall dead to the ground and darken, morphing into all other manor of sinister and other worldly insect. The surfaces of objects began warbling, as if a blanket upon water.
“Shit. I’m totally goin’ down.” She curled up, hugging her knees and began rocking, thinking, whispering her mantra to Aeridin.

Changing tactics again she tried to leave her body. Projection rarely worked and it didn’t this time. Whatever was coming felt almost mechanical, maybe magical, she couldn’t tell in this state. Regardless of the cause she was stuck in this world and at the mercy of whatever horrid dream beast was coming. She feared some ailment that would finally propel her and the others here into the depths her nightmares, the places that exist beyond mortal comprehension.

“This is it. We’re toast… Wait… Can’t crash here, not… safe.” Her journal hung at her side on a strap. It was bound in unidentifiable leather and metal that didn’t corrode and was always cold to the touch. Specifically, the skin warm and metal cold. Duality. With deft practice she produced a pen, clicked it open and noted the date, time of day, thoughts, weather and other details she felt were important. It took her only seconds. Her writing was fast and completely ineligible, more like a bastardized short hand of chicken scratches and notations. Strangely she recalled the keyhole gate dream she went through one year as a child and the tall, slender, pale purple beings in robes that gave her the journal that anchored her life.

Safely tucking it under her roughly patched hoodie she grabbed a homemade incense stick from her pack and lit it. Carefully as her eyes grew heavier she set it in a crack of the crumbling concrete. She loathed the thought of crashing in the open or having that smell for all to find, but hopefully it would prevent something coming through. She crawled between the dumpster and the wall in the back corner. Putting her back against the bricks she pushed with her legs to move the massive thing for a few more inches of purchase. By the graffiti she passed she knew she was near the Den at this point. In her last act of lucidity, she pulled out a heavy wool blanket from her bag, kicked over a waste bin to obstruct the ‘entrance’ and covered herself up hoping for camouflage. Resting her head on the concrete, the last thing she saw was the black tentacles of dream eaters and a multitude of flaming blue eyes beneath the dumpster. Her heart choked. This would be a deep slumber …