V - Dream II

Part 1

I wondered for weeks who the person would be to fulfill my first trial. After the first morning of staring at the chalice in the armoire I had become once again bogged down in my work. I was afraid that the entity would vacate my body, its new vessel, if I did not complete the task quickly enough. My mind burned with the possibilities whenever I was free to think and old memories seemed to awash my mind.

I saw a moving picture once and only once at the World’s Fair. It dazzled and excited me to no end and I had hoped to witness more. Only the luckiest of places would receive theaters but I need not worry about missing out. For my dreams were now a stage at which moving pictures could play.

                Lights and sounds erupt as the dimness of sleep takes me from this plane to the next. The curtains unfurl as the stage is revealed. I see a boy, perhaps it’s me holding the hand of a little girl. I know not her name or whence she came but in my heart, I feel she is special. The scene changes and I’m older on a ship headed out to sea. I wave from the gunwale towards the crowd sending us off. The little girl is older now and holding a kerchief, tears filling her radiant face. Who is this?

                The waves crash and a storm rages at sea. I feel the world is breaking and I can’t hold on. I’m thrown from the ship into the surf where I fall slowly but surely into oblivion. I hear a whisper. It is the girls voice.

                “Come back to me…come back to me.” it repeats.

                My lungs fill with cold water. My feet touch solid ground. The world is jagged and frozen. I’ve returned to the hellscape. The silvery figures now stand in a circle around me, keeping their distance. I hear breathing as if through water, gurgles and spitting. I turn to see the girl face obscured by darkness, hunched over. She squirms, and blood erupts from her maw. I’m in shock at the sight. I cannot see her eyes through her tattered hair and bloodied form, yet I know she is staring at me with a hollow gaze. My hand reaches out to brush aside the errant strands of hair.

                A dark hand grabs my arm and spins me around. The devil with his red eyes pushes me aside and grabs the girl wrenching her from the ground at which she feebly stands and takes her bloody mouth into its own. The teeth, enormous and wretchedly jagged, bite down hard on her face. All I hear is the crunch and a wail in the distance.

                I awaken to my room the wailing fading as my eyes adjust. I realize my mouth is open and the wail was coming from my own mouth. Hurried footfalls ascend toward my door and a knock persists.

                “Reginald are you alright? I heard screams!” Geoffrey tries the door but the lock is tightly set. I shudder under my covers first at the fading image of the girl being ravaged by the beast then at my own inability to stomach the action. Am I not ready for this trial?

                My voice, though feeble and worn, reassures him.

                “It was only a nightmare Geoffrey, I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”

                A silence descends then Geoffrey returns.

                “Alright Reggie, try to get some rest.”

                I turn over in my sheets, a cold sweat has thoroughly soaked them through and my mind burns. The whisper enters my mind.

                “Are you unable to fulfill this wish in me oh weak one?” The whisper, normally a gentle voice, now torments. It’s words dripping with a hint of malice.

                “I’m not weak!” I reassure the beast.

                “Perhaps not, have you found your victim yet?”

                The image I once held fades to the point of non-remembrance. Did my dream show who I was to take? Who was it that I screamed for? Was it myself or the…the…. I couldn’t remember but I knew time was finally running out.

            Days passed fretting over the feeling the dream had given me. I had not made any headway on finding the victim. The one that I loved, whose blood I would use to fill the chalice. The blood I would feed to the beast. 

My relief would arrive when I received a letter from my mother. She wrote that my young sister Elaine would be coming to visit me and stay at the house with Geoffrey and I for a fortnight or more depending on her moods and that I should welcome her with open arms.

                At reading the words by lamplight in my room I could feel my mouth salivate. An image of the chalice filling with her red blood stirred something deep inside me. My heart pounded and I began to sweat. Ideas flooded my head. How should I do it? When would be the opportune moment? What if Geoffrey catches me? What if I don’t succeed? What if this…what if that…? My mind was racing with the possibilities.

                The lamplight went out and I felt a pair of hands, a light touch, almost indiscernible, in the darkness. The whisper returned. I felt a calm crash like a wave over my form.

                “Do not fret,” it said, “with a steady hand you will perform this task. Unless you are indeed weak.”

                “I am not weak.” I reaffirmed. I turned to get a glimpse but as my eyes caught it in the fringes of perception the lamplight returned, and the entity was gone. I felt the letter in my hand again as a smile crept across my face. I would not fail.

                In the morning, I informed Geoffrey that we would be receiving a guest before to long in the form of my sister. He beamed at this. I felt a tinge of jealousy at his reaction. Could he have some sort of feeling for her? He had spent a summer with us a few years ago in our lake house and they did seem to be rather fast friends. Though at the time I was preoccupied with work and other things to notice much of their comings and goings. Perhaps it had been a fly by night romantic encounter, or even a triste in secret? Or was I blowing things out of proportions?

                Either way, relations or no, he would not become an obstacle. No images fret me of his involvement or disruption. No fears of him were taking hold. No one would stand in my way now. Not even myself.

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