XII - Dream IV

Part 1

When I was in my early twenties, I started having more vivid dreams. This long before I made my pact, I decided that I wanted to learn more about the mind and about dreams and their influence on the waking self. Between working and leisure, I stole away to libraries, pouring over tomes of psychological learning and dream analysis. These avenues spoke of wires in the brain reforming, jettisoning off useless information and the pictures being a blender or imagery from the wakeful states. They afforded me some technical information, chemical names, and other interactions but no real insight to what the dreams could mean. In fact, they often stated that dreams didn’t hold any meaning. They were simply a byproduct of chemical reactions. Being a man of little superstition, I might have held that explanation with a little more weight had I not been experiencing dreams of a deep and moving nature. So instead of looking through scientific texts I moved instead to more enigmatic and lofty works of philosophy, divination, and dream interpretation. Works and words from the far east. Conjectures from philosophers of old and of contemporary natures. Folk tales and rites passed down from ancient human tribes. Secrets held in heavy tomes.

                In these books I found that dreams indeed hold a meaning for many people in the wider world. Not all that was natural could be explained with natural means and that dreams were a gateway. A portal to another world where we as humans could see glimpses of the past, the present from other’s eyes, and possible futures. They spoke of symbols and their meanings. The emotions and why they were so strong in sleep. And why the phenomenon known as dreaming had come about in us. I spend many hours pouring over these books and concluded - in my sleep I could see other worlds.

                The visions were weak at first but the first night I met the shadow creature I felt as if my dreams weren’t just a picture show but a transportation of my body, soul and mind to an actual physical plane. The link however between reality and the dream world was weak so remembering where I had gone beyond a sharp feeling was almost impossible. I had more and more vivid dreams with the inclusion of the beast inside my skin. It showed me things, dark things that would come to pass. All I needed to do was follow the path before me. I would be transported when I needed to where I needed to be. I was sure of it.

                When I laid my head down on the night before the wedding, I remember double checking that all my items needed for the deed I wished to carry out early in the morning were prepared. I had my chalice and knife wrapped in silks and placed in a leather valise. I had my clothes folded and ready to dress on a chair back. I had my shoes by the door. I was ready. I smiled in my bed as sleep crept over me like an encroaching tide. Its fingers were cold yet inviting. I could not resist them, and I would not resist.

                My eyes open but there is only blackness. I shout but my voice is eaten up by the dark as no echo, despite the vastness it feels I am occupying, reverberates to my ears. I reach out and feel a wall. It’s coarse yet smooth, tough yet gives way with a little force, rebounding if I push too far. I spin in circles. I am in a box. I scream but no noise comes from my mouth. I pound on the walls until a sound returns to me. A deep resonating clink-clank like a metal lever being turned. A small light emerges at the floor and a cup is pushed in. The liquid is deep purple and red as the light hits it. I reach for the chalice, my chalice filled with blood. As my hand touches the metal I feel something grasp me. It tears me away. Into the dark I fall.

                I feel my legs move swiftly as if I’m running from a pursuer. My eyes adjust to the low light. I dodge tree limbs and jump over fallen logs. I am in the woods. Dogs bark and men’s voices are heard in the distance. I smell the ocean, I hear its rumble not far from me. I feel the ground slope downwards and the rising sun emerges over the waves. I am at a cliff. I take a deep breath and lean against the powerful winds. I feel another grasp and I am flung to the side.

                I’m twelve years old. I see my reflection in the glass of my armoire. A gift laid down from my grandfather. It holds all his old trinkets, but room is left in it for me and what I wish to add to it. I place my red gem, a gift from my father, into the armoire and close it. I smile and blink a few times catching its radiant light in my mind’s eye. I blink again, it is gone. I feel a deep pain in my chest as I frantically search for it.

                My sister sits on the floor back towards me shuddering as if in laughter. I am no longer twelve years old but the pain in my chest persists. I urge her with my mind to return my gift. I touch her shoulder and she turns to me. The gem is locked between her teeth. I bellow at her to release it. She lets the gem slip into her mouth and down her throat. My chest is a flame with white fury. The open window blows a tumult of hot air from the summer night into the room. I grasp at her mouth as she bares her white teeth at me. My hands wrench open her jaw and I claw at her throat for the gem. I urge her to spit it out, to release it as she had when we were kids but she doesn’t listen. I pull her teeth apart and I hear her jaw crack from the tension like the breaking open of an oyster. She leans back. Blood is erupting from her wounded mouth. I care not. I need to return the gem to its rightful place. I hear another crack and her jaw hangs lose. Her eyes have rolled back. I care not. I reach into her throat but I feel nothing. I pound my fist on her broken mouth yelling and screaming for my gem to return. Then I see it. A shining red thing in the openness. My chest still burns but I reach forward and tug at it, but it stays still. My lips quiver. I wonder if the gem tastes good. That’s why my sister wants to eat it, because it is sweet. I lean in and take the gem into my lips and pull. I feel it turn to liquid in my mouth and it spills into my body drenching my soul. The beast bursts forth in me. A new wave of elation and ecstatic jubilation crashes over my body.

                 I hear a scream off in the distance. I turn my head and I see myself. I’m reaching out. I can see my eyes large and afraid, I see my mouth open and in shock. I look down at the weight in my hands. A girl with a broken jaw, bloodied and ravaged, bitten off and slack. I look at my new hands, black and shiny, covered in her blood. I am now the beast I sought to be.

                The scream returns. Closer this time. My ears adjust, it is not my voice but a woman’s. My eyes are caught in a haze. I blink to release the film that has covered them. I feel a presence in the room with me. Not the shadow, not my sister, someone else. Someone alive.

                Another scream and it is as if a veil has been lifted from my mind. I blink and the world is crisp and clear in front of me.

I am awake.

My sister lays at my feet in a heap. Blood on the floor, on my hands, on my face, in my mouth, on my clothes, on the bed, on her white dress hanging by a hook on the wall. There is blood everywhere. I hear my mother screaming behind me, a witness to this crime. My sisters jaw lays in pieces, with broken teeth, on the floor next to her. The chalice and the knife sit next to the window where I placed them when I came in. When did I get here? I can’t remember. All I can remember is falling asleep and praying everything would go right in the coming morning.

My mother in her outrage faints from exertion. I stand and claim witness to what I have done. The beast is nowhere to be found. I am awake. This is not a dream any longer. The blood starts to dry on my hands. I rush to my bedroom and look in the glass armoire. It is there under its protective container; my red gem. My sister did not steal it again. I see my reflection in the glass. Blood coats my mouth and stains my teeth. I catch a glimpse of a smile.

Raised voices are outside the house. I was not as stealthy as I had hoped I would be. I burst with speed out into the failing night. The woods are my shade, the trees are my protectors. I emerge from the brush at the cliff where the single tree stands in defiance of its inevitable doom. I see the rising sun emerge from the surf in the distance and feel the wind pushing against my body. I will surpass this. I will emerge anew.

The dogs barking is closer now, the men’s voices in pursuit aren’t far off. I lean into the wind. I will disappear. I will become more than I am. I will ascend. I feel a pull. I feel weightless. 

I feel…
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