I haven't written in a while. Years maybe? I'm feeling rusty. Probably am.
I wrote a little snippet of something. Not sure what it is, but I have an idea.
Gonna post it here since I'm not entirely sure where it goes, and hope people can toss me some general opinions.
I'm not looking for anything specialized since I'm well aware it's probably not even close to polished. Grammar, punctuation, or whatever, I know it's not up to code. I just felt like it and it came out. Think of it as the beginning to a Dark Fantasy.
He was having the same dream. He always had the same dream. It haunted him. It pulled something precious out of him each time he awoke from it. The scenes portrayed weren’t always the same. Sometimes the woman is screaming for mercy as the maul cracks her skull open. Sometimes she’s laughing. Sometimes she remains conscious as a long and narrow trail of blood slides down and across her eye, along the corner of her mouth, and then drips down her chin onto the pink dress she wears. Sometimes her skull caves inward and Jaereece can see her….insides.
Sometimes the dress is a pale, sky blue. Sometimes it has white splotches on it resembling clouds on a clear, scorching sunny day. Sometimes the splotches aren’t white. Sometimes they are red. Sometimes it’s blood.
Either way, the dream ends the same. The woman is beaten to death before Jaereece’s very own eyes. He screams and he fights and struggles against numerous shadowy figures who restrain him. He pleads, he begs, he howls. They don’t respond to him. They ignore him.
Sometimes he can recognize who the shadowy figures are. Sometimes he knows them so well, that the intense, agonizing pain of the betrayal unfolding before his very eyes leaves him unable to speak. Unable to howl. Unable to plead or beg. Unable to react. Sometimes its too much.
This time however, something different happened in the dream. Something that had never occurred before.
Jaereece is still being pinned to the cold stone floor, something hard and heavy against his back making even his fiercest struggles nothing more than futile desperation. Torches burn somewhere in the background, the lights flickering as an unknown source of wind makes the flames gyrate, giving the scenery a grotesque and unholy quality about it.
The woman. She lies beaten and battered, her pink dress torn and ripped, dotted with holes and bloodstains of her own making. She has no strength, the only thing keeping her from collapsing onto the ground is the man holding her up by her long, once beautiful and once blonde hair. With her mangled face, she’s gasping for breath, the sounds turning guttural as she slowly chokes on her own blood. A single tooth slips out between her lips and falls onto the stony ground below.
The man beating her is shadowy and Jaereece can make nothing out about him in this iteration of the reoccurring dream. Those restraining him are equally unfathomable. Then the change comes. As the man raises the maul with the metal spikes to land that final blow on the woman, the spikes still dripping her blood from previous blows, the woman’s lavender purple eyes turn to him. In that moment, they seem to glow.
Immediately recognizing something is different, even in the dream-space itself, Jaereece’s breath catches in his throat.
Then she begins speaking. Her mouth moves, but Jaereece can’t hear her. He strains against his captors, trying to move closer, trying to hear her words. This has never happened before! He must know what she’s saying!
“Mother!” Jaereece screams as he suddenly and inexplicably slips out of the dream.
No longer is he face down, pinned to a cold stone floor, instead he is lying on his back on top of a thin mattress of straw and something else, cold sweat beading on his forehead and then dripping down the side of his face and neck.
Heartbeat thudding in his chest, Jaereece bolted upright, wiping his face as he tried to calm his shaky breathing, only to remember there were others around him. Many others. Dozens of other matching mattresses were spread out around a dark room with no windows, the only light being the weak embers of dying lanterns hung on walls. Each mattress held another child of similar age to Jaereece, and he had woken them all up once again because of his nightmare.
Groans and curses abounded.
“It’s that bastard again….”
“Man I was having a wonderful dream about Minavee….”
“Someone shut him up!….”
“He needs to be gagged and put somewhere else at night….”
“I swear it’s punishment of some kind…”
“Gods my head hurts….”
“I’ll kill him I swear it!.…”
“Damn you Jaereece!….”
Before Jaereece could get a word out, someone threw a pillow that smacked him in the mouth and silenced him. Turning to see who threw it, Jaereece was met with an unfortunately familiar person that he would’ve recognized in even the poorest light simply because of the long darkly pink scar across his neck that was his most distinguishing feature. Jaereece’s heartbeat started picking back up again as a new source of fear made itself known.
“What did I tell you about fucking waking me up so early with all that screaming huh Jaereece? Come on and tell me. What did I say?” said Tricario through gritted teeth that conveyed the anger in his voice.
Tricario was thirteen years old, taller and bigger than most others, and possessed by far the nastiest temper of any of the other kids Jaereece had come to know among the orphans. Only a few had ever been brave enough to stand up to him, and none had ever done so successfully.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, Jaereece was not one of those brave souls that had tried and failed to stand up to Tricario. He had never been that kind of brave.
For the most part, Tricario would have likely been willing to ignore him since he probably found nothing about Jaereece even remotely interesting….
If it weren’t for the nightmares...Jaereece sighed inwardly.
Tricario, as usual, was flanked by his usual cronies, though that meant absolutely nothing when it came to him. He was a cruel bully, but he was no coward. Tricario had proven his courage, harsh as it was, more than once. If anything, the hangers on were a statement of his influence among the orphans, his dominance. But he didn’t need them. He could and would fight his own battles.
Jaereece’s silence seemed to annoy him. Running his fingers through his short and dark hair, Tricario shook his head and sighed dramatically, as if he were a teacher who felt he wasting his time trying to explain some difficult problem to a particularly dense and foolish student.
“L-look I c-can’t help it,” Jaereece stuttered even as his palms turned sweaty and his throat turned dry.
He was aware of numerous eyes watching him, most of them probably having the same exact thought of better him than me. Jaereece didn’t look around for assistance. He knew none would be forthcoming. The Preparation Station wasn’t that sort of place. Orphans weren’t those sorts or kids.
Pain bloomed and burst within Jaereece’s mind as a flat-open palm struck the side of his face. Before he could even fully register the first blow, a second took him across the side of the head and knocked him over onto his side. A few footsteps followed, and then a kick to the gut knocked the little wind remaining out of him as his vision swam and tears pooled in the corner of his eyes.
“I like my sleep Jaereece. Sleep is fundamental to growth and maintaining one’s mental and bodily strength. You remember the lectures right?” Tricario said with a calm and even tone, Jaereece hardly hearing a word as he had his back turned to the tyrant, his pulse pounding in his ears.
Equal parts of fear, shame, and rage warred within, but the rage fell aside quickly enough as the fear took control after concluding a beneficial alliance with shame.
I wrote a little snippet of something. Not sure what it is, but I have an idea.
Gonna post it here since I'm not entirely sure where it goes, and hope people can toss me some general opinions.
I'm not looking for anything specialized since I'm well aware it's probably not even close to polished. Grammar, punctuation, or whatever, I know it's not up to code. I just felt like it and it came out. Think of it as the beginning to a Dark Fantasy.
#001
He was having the same dream. He always had the same dream. It haunted him. It pulled something precious out of him each time he awoke from it. The scenes portrayed weren’t always the same. Sometimes the woman is screaming for mercy as the maul cracks her skull open. Sometimes she’s laughing. Sometimes she remains conscious as a long and narrow trail of blood slides down and across her eye, along the corner of her mouth, and then drips down her chin onto the pink dress she wears. Sometimes her skull caves inward and Jaereece can see her….insides.
Sometimes the dress is a pale, sky blue. Sometimes it has white splotches on it resembling clouds on a clear, scorching sunny day. Sometimes the splotches aren’t white. Sometimes they are red. Sometimes it’s blood.
Either way, the dream ends the same. The woman is beaten to death before Jaereece’s very own eyes. He screams and he fights and struggles against numerous shadowy figures who restrain him. He pleads, he begs, he howls. They don’t respond to him. They ignore him.
Sometimes he can recognize who the shadowy figures are. Sometimes he knows them so well, that the intense, agonizing pain of the betrayal unfolding before his very eyes leaves him unable to speak. Unable to howl. Unable to plead or beg. Unable to react. Sometimes its too much.
This time however, something different happened in the dream. Something that had never occurred before.
Jaereece is still being pinned to the cold stone floor, something hard and heavy against his back making even his fiercest struggles nothing more than futile desperation. Torches burn somewhere in the background, the lights flickering as an unknown source of wind makes the flames gyrate, giving the scenery a grotesque and unholy quality about it.
The woman. She lies beaten and battered, her pink dress torn and ripped, dotted with holes and bloodstains of her own making. She has no strength, the only thing keeping her from collapsing onto the ground is the man holding her up by her long, once beautiful and once blonde hair. With her mangled face, she’s gasping for breath, the sounds turning guttural as she slowly chokes on her own blood. A single tooth slips out between her lips and falls onto the stony ground below.
The man beating her is shadowy and Jaereece can make nothing out about him in this iteration of the reoccurring dream. Those restraining him are equally unfathomable. Then the change comes. As the man raises the maul with the metal spikes to land that final blow on the woman, the spikes still dripping her blood from previous blows, the woman’s lavender purple eyes turn to him. In that moment, they seem to glow.
Immediately recognizing something is different, even in the dream-space itself, Jaereece’s breath catches in his throat.
Then she begins speaking. Her mouth moves, but Jaereece can’t hear her. He strains against his captors, trying to move closer, trying to hear her words. This has never happened before! He must know what she’s saying!
“Mother!” Jaereece screams as he suddenly and inexplicably slips out of the dream.
No longer is he face down, pinned to a cold stone floor, instead he is lying on his back on top of a thin mattress of straw and something else, cold sweat beading on his forehead and then dripping down the side of his face and neck.
Heartbeat thudding in his chest, Jaereece bolted upright, wiping his face as he tried to calm his shaky breathing, only to remember there were others around him. Many others. Dozens of other matching mattresses were spread out around a dark room with no windows, the only light being the weak embers of dying lanterns hung on walls. Each mattress held another child of similar age to Jaereece, and he had woken them all up once again because of his nightmare.
Groans and curses abounded.
“It’s that bastard again….”
“Man I was having a wonderful dream about Minavee….”
“Someone shut him up!….”
“He needs to be gagged and put somewhere else at night….”
“I swear it’s punishment of some kind…”
“Gods my head hurts….”
“I’ll kill him I swear it!.…”
“Damn you Jaereece!….”
Before Jaereece could get a word out, someone threw a pillow that smacked him in the mouth and silenced him. Turning to see who threw it, Jaereece was met with an unfortunately familiar person that he would’ve recognized in even the poorest light simply because of the long darkly pink scar across his neck that was his most distinguishing feature. Jaereece’s heartbeat started picking back up again as a new source of fear made itself known.
“What did I tell you about fucking waking me up so early with all that screaming huh Jaereece? Come on and tell me. What did I say?” said Tricario through gritted teeth that conveyed the anger in his voice.
Tricario was thirteen years old, taller and bigger than most others, and possessed by far the nastiest temper of any of the other kids Jaereece had come to know among the orphans. Only a few had ever been brave enough to stand up to him, and none had ever done so successfully.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, Jaereece was not one of those brave souls that had tried and failed to stand up to Tricario. He had never been that kind of brave.
For the most part, Tricario would have likely been willing to ignore him since he probably found nothing about Jaereece even remotely interesting….
If it weren’t for the nightmares...Jaereece sighed inwardly.
Tricario, as usual, was flanked by his usual cronies, though that meant absolutely nothing when it came to him. He was a cruel bully, but he was no coward. Tricario had proven his courage, harsh as it was, more than once. If anything, the hangers on were a statement of his influence among the orphans, his dominance. But he didn’t need them. He could and would fight his own battles.
Jaereece’s silence seemed to annoy him. Running his fingers through his short and dark hair, Tricario shook his head and sighed dramatically, as if he were a teacher who felt he wasting his time trying to explain some difficult problem to a particularly dense and foolish student.
“L-look I c-can’t help it,” Jaereece stuttered even as his palms turned sweaty and his throat turned dry.
He was aware of numerous eyes watching him, most of them probably having the same exact thought of better him than me. Jaereece didn’t look around for assistance. He knew none would be forthcoming. The Preparation Station wasn’t that sort of place. Orphans weren’t those sorts or kids.
Pain bloomed and burst within Jaereece’s mind as a flat-open palm struck the side of his face. Before he could even fully register the first blow, a second took him across the side of the head and knocked him over onto his side. A few footsteps followed, and then a kick to the gut knocked the little wind remaining out of him as his vision swam and tears pooled in the corner of his eyes.
“I like my sleep Jaereece. Sleep is fundamental to growth and maintaining one’s mental and bodily strength. You remember the lectures right?” Tricario said with a calm and even tone, Jaereece hardly hearing a word as he had his back turned to the tyrant, his pulse pounding in his ears.
Equal parts of fear, shame, and rage warred within, but the rage fell aside quickly enough as the fear took control after concluding a beneficial alliance with shame.
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