Revolution (Risen Series Bk2)

Well done to everyone for getting through another year, and here's to the next.

This is just a short chapter, more of a dream, but I hope it tides you over to the next update...

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Chapter 24: A Dream of a Dream

Swirling blackness and gentle wisps of grey cocooned me away from any pain I might have felt. Only slight prickles of sensation, like the tickling brush of butterfly wings, reached me here. If this was death, it was peaceful, but achingly empty; neither cold nor warm, nor quiet or loud. I floated in that space for an unmeasurable amount of time, quiet and at ease for the first time in my very long existence.

Until my lost thoughts slowly returned.

It could have been Hell I occupied as my mind replayed the last few fearful moments of my life, the way I’d begged gods I hadn’t believed in since my childhood to let me stay. I died again and again with the same frozen image of Atanas’ face at the forefront every time. It was the pain Airell had been so desperate to see; the moment Atanas realised he couldn’t save me.

The amount of blood that had spilled down my clothes, the fangs that had all but torn my head off, even vampires couldn’t survive such wounds...right?

A flash of a mummified arm grabbing me, the sickening sensation of falling into the tomb, a bite powerful enough to crush my windpipe, it was but a memory and yet it still made my consciousness recoil.

The moment replayed again in more detail and it was then I realised the memory was wrong. I shouldn’t haven been able to see Atanas’ face. Nor could I understand how I was seeing my own bloodshot eyes and bloody lips parted in a scream. It was as if I was watching from inside the tomb, looking up at the scene from beneath. I felt my blood flow warm and sweet down my throat as if I was drinking it, my joints locked and jerking as if I held my own struggling body captive. It filled me with a shot of unease.

Washed away by the terror I felt at witnessing my death as if I was the killer, I was left surrounded by dark once more. But there was no peace in the oppressive night. Gnawing hunger drew pitiful and echoing moans, accompanied by the sickening feeling of my skin drawn disturbingly tight over bones and peeling away from around my nails.

Was this another memory the afterlife made me relive to torment me? It felt familiar enough. I’d been starving before, kept in the dark before, but never to the extent I felt here. The pain was a inescapable agony no being could ignore. It twisted and ate away even at thoughts until I couldn’t even remember my own name. Just as I thought I could take no more, that such suffering would leave my sanity forever snapped, the view changed again. Hell had yet more to show me even though I could swear I’d been suffering in this purgatory for many slow rolling centuries.

This time it was different though.

The change came with a powerful knocking force, like being physically shoved back into another reality.

A bright blue sky stretched overhead for miles until it reached the craggy peeks of snowcapped mountains. Fields of green and yellow shimmered and rustled in the warm breeze, grass tickling my ankles beneath the plain brown dress I wore. A dress I didn’t recognise. And blonde hair swirled around my waist instead of the short silver I remembered.

In the distance, a young man waved for me to join him. Eyes of dark brown shadowed by thick black hair, his skin a beautiful mahogany under the hot sun, the sight of him made me smile for an unknown reason. He called to me in words I didn’t understand, repeating a name unknown to me. I felt the urge to go to him but my actions were not my own.

Without intending to, I turned away from him instead to see a fluctuating shadow running through swaying golden crops that withered to brown as he passed.

Paralysing fear rooted me to the spot. The shadow crept closer, and despite the cold chill its presence brought, the power radiating from it swayed me forward and a pale hand lifted to touch. . . A claw reached out from the mass of writhing dark and grabbed my wrist. The moment its cool skin touched mind, our surroundings were whipped away. The visions came swift and fast after that, of escaping the dark and running...running...always running, interspersed with scenes of devastation; cobbled streets running red with blood, roaring flames leaving entire cities charred and crumbling. Bodies. So many bodies left like breadcrumbs behind me.

None of it made sense.

None of it was from my past and I didn’t understand why death would choose to torture me in this way. Not even when a face as familiar to me as my own appeared to throw me off.

He looked younger. Vibrant with life and joy, blue eyes sparkled in the flickering torchlight and his cheeks were flushed red, probably from the red wine he heartily drank from a golden goblet. Laughter and conversation filled the air, more clearly than the visions that came before. Moonlight filtered in from a gap in the villa’s square roof, glinting off the jewellery worn by the men and women around us. Their features were blurred, all of them insignificant. Except for him.

The moment his eyes met mine, I felt a flutter of excitement, but not in a romantic way despite the craving in my gut. It was more the way a cat spots its next prey to toy with, and it unsettled the part of me still aware enough to tell this wasn’t real. Or was it? I could no longer tell. These foreign images and emotions blurred and meshed so tightly with my own, I was suddenly unsure of my own past.

Atanas stopped talking to his companions as I walked around the perimeter of the open courtyard covered in thick green vines while birds of vibrant reds and yellows fluttered into thick branches overhead. A warm breeze brought his scent to me, spicy and as inviting as the quickening of his heartbeat. The craving turned to roaring hunger that burned through my veins. He would be mine that night. And he would remain mine.

Swirling into another scene, I saw glimpses of Atanas as a newborn vampire, feasting and doing as he desired. He claimed empires, women, great ships and treasures, all in the name of the one who made him. My dream self was pleased, watching with pride as his power and influence grew, it kept me safe from the shadow that crept ever closer.

The next vision was out of focus thanks to an explosion of pain that pushed through the dream I’d weaved myself. Sharp pinches like a thousand needles being stabbed into my skin thrust me back into my body and startling awareness. Muscles contracted and pulsed, jerking my limbs uncontrollably so my jaw shattered shut with such force, I bit through my tongue. Something cool touched my arm and lulled me back, the dreams taking over to hide me from whatever was happening to my body.

A flash of Airell’s face haunted me even though I’d seen his head ripped from his body. His face was red in anger and he argued furiously with someone who stood in a darkened corner of a huge hall. I couldn’t see their face, but their presence was enough to make me sit stiff in the gilded throne atop four steps. The feeling of being trapped with no escape yet again chipped away at the will to keep running. This feeling I could emphasise with. One gave up on thoughts of fleeing when the inevitable finally became clear. You would always be caught.

The hall was replaced with a dark street. The smell of shit and piss lingered sickeningly in the air, and I couldn’t stop what I did next even though I screamed for the dream to change. There was a baby in my arms. A small pale little thing with orbs of mercurial silver nearly hidden by scrunched eyelids as she screamed into the still night. Bundled in soft blankets, I placed the babe on the doorstep of an unsuspecting human. A flicker of reasoning pierced through as I hid in the shadows and watched as the baby was taken safely inside by a mother. I somehow knew had never managed to have children of her own, that she would treasure the babe as if she were her own flesh and blood.

After that it was more of the same horrors as before. More hiding and blood, fear, scenes of death that made even my hardened stomach churn with disgust. There was enough blood spilt in these strange nightmares to soak the ground of the earth over and over and over...

Gods, please make it stop!

Maybe someone had heard my silent scream. The horror faded quickly to be replaced by surroundings that felt familiar. Old factory buildings, buzzing orange streetlights, and a figure hunched on the edge of a roof. Moonlight caught their hair, casting them in a silver glow, and when their head lifted, my heart skipped a beat...or the person I was in this dream did. Silver eyes, silver hair sliced into a violent bob...it was me. I was looking up at me. With emotions swirling between dread and awe.

How could this be?

The last reel to swirl in my mind was of an Auburn-haired vampire lying in a pool of his own blood. Pale fingers reached out to close unseeing emerald eyes for the last time. The rage and fear that tainted this vision was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Such determination for revenge and to take back whatever had been stolen that I’d have an army bigger than ever seen to march through entire countries to get it back. That’s where the strange dreams ended, as if forced to a stop by an unseen entity.

“You’ve slept quite long enough, Libertas Mea,” a deep voice thundered. “Open your eyes. Now!”