Storm

The pitter patter of the rain on your window had been a lullaby as you drifted off to sleep, thunder rumbling in the distance. Stormy nights had always been your favorite, when you could feel the stirring of an ancient strange magic in the air around you.

That night, as you’d gotten ready for bed, you hadn't noticed the darkness curling into the cobwebs at the corners of your dusky room. You didn’t feel the slight chill in the summer air. But as you had peered out into the blue-webbed sky one last time, something was looking back and it was hungry.

~~~

You woke slowly, groggily recognizing that the hard slab beneath you was not your bed. Your eyes snapped open and you peered at the cavern around you. There were ancient looking sconces on the wall holding what looked like green flames rather than the harsh white light of lightbulbs. The waves of the eerie green light danced on the walls, casting strange nightmare shadows along the cavern. Where are you? Some sort of ruins or maybe a cave? There is nothing that you know of that would make fire burn green…

It would have been cold, judging by the cool stone beneath you, had it not been for the large fire roaring in a pit in the center of the room, but it was summer time so how is it cold here? This fire was not green, but burned in the usual shades of orange, white, and red. Curved metal stood around the pit as if standing guard over the flames, to make sure none escaped. If these flames were normal fire, then what was casting that green light? As you look around the cavern, you notice that there are no modern lights around, no familiar structures like electrical outlets. It was like you were in some sort of medieval setting. What is this place?

It was then that you realized that you were naked except for a sheet along your lower half. In a panic, your head swiveled to the right and the face of a beautiful man was before you, far too close for you to just now be realizing he was there. His porcelain skin held deep set rich burgundy eyes, but that wasn’t possible. You had never seen a human with burgundy eyes. It must be the lighting. His full lips curled into a cruel sneer as he straightened, looming over you. Only as he raised his hands did you realize that he had some sort of black claws attached to his fingertips. It was with a look of almost childlike glee that he brought those claws down to your abdomen and started ripping at your flesh. He howled with maniacal laughter as your black blood coated his hands. It was like he was waiting for you to wake up just to do this… But why?

You tried to scream but nothing came out. Your body tried to wrench away from the talons digging into your flesh, but you were held in place as if bound, yet there was nothing physically holding you down. Still, you were unable to react as you saw yourself being torn open, your skin and muscle seemed to fall away before those dull black claws tipping his hands giving way to so much blood you thought you would surely faint, and yet you were kept awake like you were under some sort of spell. Why was he doing this? Who is this man and where are you?

His hands reached inside of you. Pulling out intestines and other organs you couldn’t even name. And blood, so much blood. You heard a grisly crunch and felt acid running through your chest and knew that he had broken your ribs. You felt something like ice and fire in your chest as he slowly moved those claws along your heart, just barely slicing. Breathing felt impossible. You were gasping like a fish out of water as he dug chunks out of your chest. Who was this man and why was he doing this to you?

Blood began to bubble at your lips, your thoughts scattering and misfiring. Fire burned its way through every part of you, your body screaming when you could not. He brought his fingers to your lips, tracing the blood along their trembling outline. Through the pain singing in your veins, you distantly felt the bite of cold from his touch. Sharp incisors gleamed as he bent in to lap up the droplets of blood slipping onto your chin. Through the ringing in your ears, you heard him moan as he gently licked up your blood, so perverse when mixed with his brutality.

The edges of your vision were finally fading into sweet darkness, curling and writhing around you; your release from this hell. You felt strangely warm. You had always heard death was cold, but it was as if you were being consumed by flames. You were being pulled into a warm river of darkness and you happily floated into it.

Just as your vision faded and you felt yourself being pulled into the warm embrace of death, you felt your mouth being forced open by what felt like a cold rock. Icy liquid slid down your throat, tasting oddly sweet mixing with your own blood, causing you to sputter and choke.

The lights in the room came back into sharp focus suddenly, their light burning your eyes after the darkness you had been floating through. You wanted to shield your eyes or turn your head away but you were still not able to move. Invisible iron hands held you to the rough stone beneath you. You heard a grisly snap as the bones of your chest knitted together. An obscene squelching sound rang through the otherwise quiet room as the madman above you shoved your organs back into place before your skin closed, as smooth as it had been earlier that night.

It couldn’t be true. You had to have died or lost your mind from the pain. There was no way your skin could just sew itself together without a scratch. No this wasn’t possible.

The weight of those invisible hands eased finally and you scuttled back, shaking your head and whimpering against the rough rock at your back. The pain had felt so real, the feeling of the blood in your lungs. Your hands shakily probed at your stomach, feeling it was indeed intact. Had you imagined it all? Had you been drugged or something? How had you even gotten here?

“What are you?” Not who; he wasn’t a who. This thing that stood just feet from you, smiling with a feral intensity of a cat with a mouse, couldn’t possibly be human.

“Oh, I love this game. What do you think I am, pet?” He purred, tilting his head. His excitement was almost palpable. A shiver spider walked down your spine. A strange light shifted in his eyes as he tilted his head, watching you; reflective like a cat’s.

You couldn’t think straight; it had all seemed so real and you couldn’t move. Why hadn’t you been able to move? Nothing had been holding you down. Maybe you were going insane and all of this was your mind breaking into a million crystal pieces. Were you dreaming? Maybe you were at home in your bed and this was all your imagination. You weren’t in this cavern at all and this was just a terrible nightmare.

You dug your nails hard into your upper arms where they wrapped around you, hoping to wake yourself up from this illusion. The creature in front of you seemed entranced by this action, his eyes not leaving the half moon shaped indentations in your skin. A quiet gasp left him as he licked his lips, its eyes still locked on the small beads of blood that rose to the surface of your skin where your nails had dug away the skin.

You weren’t going to wake up from this. You weren’t going to make it out of this place alive, whatever this place was.

He still watched you with a tilted head before speaking. “We are going to have so much fun together.”

His manic smile stayed plastered on his face as he reached up above you. You were too afraid to look away from this creature standing far too close again. You heard a rattle and knew he meant to chain you here.

You couldn’t allow yourself to be held prisoner. Who knows what this thing would do to you. Bring you to the brink of death again and again in some sort of sick sadistic torture ritual or worse. You madly scrambled away, reaching the edge of the slab and landing roughly on your feet. You immediately started to run as fast as your now weak body could carry you toward the only opening you could see in the stone lit by those odd green lights, not looking back for fear that he would be right there when you turned.

From behind you, you heard him call in a sickeningly sweet voice “Oh darling, I do love the chase.” His voice took on a dark tone as he finished “You’ll taste so much better when you’re terrified.”