Shrike's Heart (#2)

[idolpro]

The woman before you is beautiful—fair of features, with lovely golden skin and luxurious long black hair, petite. You have the immediate and distinct impression that she's just let go of your hand, and she steps back, and smiles.

It's not quite a happy smile.

"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."

You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—

—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.

> Wake Up

Comments

Re: > START

[handpuppets]

The voices grow louder as you attempt to follow the sound of the water, occasionally parsable as distinct words in a wide array of uncanny voices—the odd thing is, they feel different and memorable, but trying to describe what sets each one apart feels impossible.

They rise in an overwhelming crescendo, but the louder they get the more impossible it seems to turn from your path. And then you see the hole.

It's only the rush of water that gives it away, in the darkness—a wide, circular hole in the ground ahead, the dark water falling down the edges in sheets, the roar blending with the voices until it's overwhelming. You feel compelled—allured, maybe—to walk up to the edge, and look, frozen in place, at the infinite darkness below. ]

Re: > START

[nihilmancy]

[She takes a couple more steps forward, closer to the edge.]

Re: > START

[handpuppets]

[ It's a complete, pitch darkness—not even that. It's nothing, on the other side of the hole.

There's something strangely beautiful about it.

The voices, rising around you, continue whispering—they ask for your name. ]

Re: > START

[nihilmancy]

[She remembers something like this. This allure, this beauty. It makes her sick. It thrills her.]

Hlasoh.

Re: > START

[handpuppets]

[ Your voice emerges, but the words are muffled, garbled, warped, and swallowed into the nothingness that surrounds you.

What was your name? You can't remember, now.

But then— ]