Cruel Fate

[Heuschrecke]

Despair.

It didn’t matter how she died in each nightmare, she always woke up into the next. And it continued, this time a fang of her assailant remaining lodged into her arm. She prised it out, whimpering from the venom and the damage. Her brother watched her there in the dream state, stood as he was in the room with her. His smile never faltered, even as she raised the fang still oozing the toxic substance and plunged it into her own heart. The pain, for a moment, stopped. She felt nothing. For the first time in the seeming endless cycles, time ceased to exist.

Are Your thoughts to become one and bound by Us?

“No… I just want to die…” A breath of wind, a conjuring of a scene in which time stood still. There was a dull throbbing in the back of her mind, a reminder that her state could return to the endless loop if this being grew bored. It became clear that it was here to offer her something, a way out. At a price.

He gave Himself willingly; He watched His crew perish

She sat there, staring out into the stars, a swirling mass of light and colour. The hues were far more vibrant than she remembered, especially the blues and pinks of the scape. Everything she thought she felt was twisted to cater. The thought echoed all around her, as though its very being was both within and without, though it was never in sight. “What do you want…?”

Bear Our light; share in Our song; shed ‘mortality’ in thought; serve Our purpose

“I don’t want to serve you…” As soon as the thought echoed into the scape, the flood of pain washed over her, multiplying to the point where she thought she would die, and relief of passing beyond this creature’s reach peaked. She fell forwards, back into the nightmare, with the fang pressed against her heart. It pierced true, and her lungs filled with the warm blood from the still beating muscle. Coughing and spluttering, torn and broken far beyond what anyone could withstand, she awaited death. But death did not come.

Cycles continue, Shadowbearer. Become reborn into torment of Your fears

Its amusement resonated in her mind and she blacked out once more, repeating anew the suffering a thousand fold.