Ironically, due to how much I love the genre, I rarely write horror stories. Seriously. This premise kinda came to me while I was having a desperate urge to do something terrifying, but decided that hiding out in the dorm laundry room, staring creepily at people and drooling, might be a little too extreme. Though I've yet to bring it up in the Eternal Wings novelization, I've always liked to play with the idea of Kalas being plagued by nightmares, especially since a little fic called "Fear" by Young Roy popped up. Even though anything goes as far as post-game events, I still consider this AU as it deviates from how I picture things in the aftermath. By the end of this story, you'll know why. Hopefully the characters (and all of you) will forgive me, and won't assume I'm on crack or anything.
This is dedicated to all of my night terrors. Thank you for all the years of reminding me that I still have a keen Fight-Or-Flight response. And while I'm at it, this is also dedicated to a Mr. F. Krueger, with love.
Oh, and Happy Halloween/Samhain/Best Holiday Ever.
"Someone's in the Wolf"
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."
-H.P. Lovecraft
Gaicomo died, Malpercio died, but the nightmares didn't.
That is, if you could call them nightmares; in real nightmares, you actually saw something—a murder, a ghost, some demon you could run from before waking up, drenched in your own sweat, frozen horror lodged in your gut as you search the darkness for its white face and strain your ears to catch the sound of nails as it drags its bloated body across the floorboards. Sharp intake of breath, and it's gone. The world returns to empty night, just the way you left it.
What plagued Kalas was far worse, though it might not seem possible. In his dreams he saw nothing; heard nothing. No claws raked against metal, nor did a ghost turn a gaping mouth to groan garbled pains at him. His mind sat in emptiness, and so deprived of a world to scrutinize, it turned on itself, like the lens of a telescope collapsing, moving inward for lack of stars. Something would rise from him—a sudden feeling that oozed up the spine of his sleeping body, and seeped into his throat to crush his chest with its cold weight. The raw terror—for in the hierarchy of fear, terror is the highest—would clutch at his lungs until he screamed and, if he was lucky, awoke seconds later.
He could only wish he had something to scream at, for how can you kill that which you can't grasp?
… … … …
"Kalas, may I speak to you a moment?"
The swordsman glanced up from his spot on the steps of Kaffaljidhma, his head propped up by one hand that cupped his increasingly gaunt cheek. As his gaze met Barnette's, he knew the old witch could see the shades of purple that circled his eyes like old bruises. "Oh, hey. What's up?" he replied, mustering a weak smile as he rose to his feet.
Barnette made a gesture indicating they should talk somewhere else, and led him to an empty guest room nearby. "The Queen has informed me that you haven't been sleeping well lately..." she began once they were alone.
"Heh, not that it was hard to tell anyway," Kalas said, leaning heavily on the wall of ice behind him.
"...She says you've been having nightmares. Awful ones. And that some nights you refuse to sleep at all."
"Why try? I'll just wake up again." he muttered bitterly.
"Kalas, I don't mean to intrude upon your personal business like this, but this is a serious matter. As you've probably noticed, the people of Wazn regard dreams as spiritual entities which must be heeded for the dreamer's sake. If you keep on like this, you will surely die."
"Spiritual entities, huh? So what am I gonna do about it? I can't control that kind of thing, otherwise I wouldn't be talking to you right now."
Barnette cast him a pitying look. He had lost weight at an alarming pace, so that now his clothes seemed more disheveled than usual, draped as they were over the deteriorating young man. On several nights she had spotted the queen slipping into the room he used during his frequent visits to Wazn, an expression of worry in her majesty's eyes. The dreams frightened Xelha almost as much as it did Kalas, and Barnette could see the guilt etched on the swordsman's face.
"I...I have something that might help you. Her Majesty cautioned me against it, for it's made from a very powerful and potentially dangerous spell, but..." Barnette sighed. "If it works, whatever force that's been giving you these visions will be purged."
"And no more nightmares?" Kalas said. His blue eyes were bright with hope.
"None like the ones you've been having, anyway," she replied with a small smile.
"So what do I need to do?"
"It's a potion, which I will administer to you once you are ready. It will put you in a deep sleep for several hours, during which you will have vivid nightmares. Nothing will be able to wake you up until the magic has run its course..."
Kalas paled. "Are you...are you sure? No one can wake me up...?" He laughed nervously. "So have one big dream and it all runs outta steam, is that it?"
"I know this is something you'd rather not face alone, but you may have to if you want to put an end to all of this suffering—yours and Queen Xelha's."
"Yeah..I know. I owe Xelha more than one by now." He paused and stared at the floor for a moment. "Sure, Barnette, I'll give it a shot. Since when has some dream really hurt anyone anyway?"
"Don't be so quick to speak," Barnette said gravely. "A few others have used the potion to cure their night terrors, and were forced to withstand unthinkable horrors. This is why Her Majesty was so hesitant to allow me to offer you this."
Kalas went silent. "I dunno." He said finally. "But I'd rather risk the potion than have to go on dealing with this for the rest of my life, you know. I still want to do it, just tell me when."
A soft knock interrupted them as Xelha opened the door and peered into the room. "Oh there you are..." She glanced between Kalas and Barnette, her expression grim. "Kalas, are you...? I mean, I don't know if what you see will be..."
"I said yes. Might as well get it over with right?" He straightened up and offered her another brittle smile. "I'm sure I'll be fine. We've lived through worse."
"I'm not sure Kalas understands the magnitude of the situation, my Queen," said Barnette, "But I think he's right, for all his brashness."
Xelha searched Kalas's face for a long time. "If you say so. But please, Kalas..."
"It'll be alright, Xel. I promise."
Xelha sighed. "Give it to him during the day, so everyone will be alert should anything happen." She said to Barnette, though her eyes remained on Kalas. "I'll watch over him myself while he sleeps."
"Of course, Your Majesty. I'll prepare the potion right away." The old nurse nodded to both of them and left the room. When she had gone, Kalas wrapped an arm around Xelha, pulling her to him.
"Hey, don't worry. What's the big deal anyway? I know you guys take stuff like this pretty seriously around here, but a dream's a dream, right?"
"I suppose so..." Xelha replied after a beat. "But what if it isn't? What if it's something else?"
"Then I'll kick its ass." Kalas laughed and squeezed her waist. "Besides, you'll be there to keep an eye on me in case I sleepwalk or something."
Barnette returned several minutes later holding a vial of glass (or ice—it was often difficult to tell) filled with a reddish liquid. "Drink all of this," she told Kalas as she handed the vial to him, "It needs a few minutes to take effect."
"Thanks."
"Good luck." Barnette gave him a final reassuring smile. Kalas waited until she had shut the door behind her.
"So what is this stuff?" he asked, turning the vial over in his hands.
"I don't know, really." said Xelha. "It's a very ancient recipe involving magic the witches of Wazn don't often practice with anymore. It may have even existed before the Nations left the Earth."
"Figures. Well, cheers..." Kalas knocked back the flavorless liquid until the vial was drained of its contents, then he stretched out on his back on the bed nearby. Xelha stood at his side, wringing her hands as she watched him.
"You don't have to stand there all day, you know," Kalas held out his arms.
Xelha managed a gentle smile and climbed into his embrace. She pillowed her head against the crook of his neck as he held her tightly.
"Be careful, Kalas."
"I will..." His vision had already begun to blur, the soft weight of exhaustion falling over his body. He barely felt Xelha's kiss as he sank into the mattress and faded away.
… … … …
The shack at the top of the Celestial Alps seemed darker than he remembered. The flock Caplans was gone and the grass near the shack had browned like the hands of an old man. The air was still and cold, and tinted with a harsh sepia, as if the clouds were made of dust.
Kalas looked around. This isn't bad, he thought. A little creepy, but not bad. It's just Gramps's old place on a Fall day.
He examined the trees, which had also withered and turned a faint orange color. The longer he stared, the more vibrant they seemed to become, until the leaves looked as though they might flicker and grow into flames. He shook his head, but the color remained, expanding with sudden heat. A loud rustling broke through them, snapping the branches before the leaves could reach out to touch his face. Kalas stumbled back at the sound. Twin points of blue flashed through the foliage, then disappeared as something ambled away into the bushes.
"Maybe I should go inside," Kalas muttered to himself. He tore his eyes away from the trees and clambered up the hill to the shack. It's wooden surface had become even more rotten and gave slightly as he pressed his palm against it. The moss that coated it had decayed as well; it seemed to drip down from the roof like pulpy tar, staining the fibers of wood black. Kalas tried the door, but it stuck fast on rusty hinges. Damn, now what?
He searched the shack for a second entrance, all the while thinking about his old Guardian Spirit. He wasn't sure why, but he suddenly missed Horatio. In the silence and stillness of the alps, he had never felt so alone, without the voice from the air above his head to assure him. The more time he spent in this place, the more he felt its ashy tinge sink into his bones and take hold of his lungs. He almost wished the bushes would rustle again, and save him from the silence that fell around his ears.
At the top of the shack, through a curtain of dead moss, he spotted an opening he had missed before, leading to what looked like an attic. Funny, the shack never had an attic before...
Kalas tried to find a foothold on the planks to help him climb. As he jammed the toe of his shoe into the wood, the bit of wall sank inward. He grabbed at the planks above him, and they did the same—collapsing around his fingers, pliable as clay, but strong enough for him to hoist himself up. He reached the second floor with ease and crawled into the opening, the moss enveloping his face in an oily caul before he quickly tore it off.
The attic smelled of decay. Sparse light from the opening filled the floor, leaving the corners in shadow. Kalas waited as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He could make out medical diagrams, like the kind Dr. Larikush kept, hanging from the walls. Dusty boxes lay stacked around the small space, filled with crooked tools. A work bench he recognized as the one his grandfather once owned sat at the far end of the room, half-concealed by the shadows.
It took a full minute before Kalas saw the thing staring up at him on the bench.
Sunken blue eyes—the same color as his—gazed blankly from either side of the hatchet buried in its forehead. Its twisted body lay slumped over the bench at an unnatural angle, its legs and misshapen wings merged in a mass of stringy flesh and sinew which coiled into a single limb. Blood crusted in a trail down its neck and bare chest, staining the stray blue hairs that sprouted along its warped musculature brown.
Kalas stiffened at the sight as his breath caught in his throat. He leaped back, nearly falling out of the opening and to ground below. The being on the bench remained still, obviously dead. Kalas relaxed slightly and edged toward it, horror and curiosity overtaking him. The head of the thing was the sole appendage that seemed normal, though almost bald, with patches of that same blue hair across its scalp. Kalas's throat went cold as, even in the scarce light, he recognized the shape of the face and the ears which came to a small point at the tips.
His gaze shifted to the wall behind the work bench, where a sheet of paper typed in Imperial script was tacked. Someone had smeared "DISPOSED" across the document in black ink, covering most of the lettering. On top of one of the drawers were several more papers like it, all with the same message scrawled across them. Kalas hesitated before reaching over the body to grab one of the papers.
"TO MESSRS. GEORG AND LARIKUSH, BY ORDER OF THE EMPEROR...EXPERIMENT...LIGHT OF YOUR RECENT FAILURE...SHALL BE DISPOSED OF AT ONCE..."
Kalas gripped the paper until it crumpled in his hand. This made no sense...he was the first one, and then Fee. He was the first one, the failed one. But the body and the papers...
He whipped around and frantically searched the room. Where were the others?
One box, the largest, caught his eye. With a pounding heart he pulled at the lid, which became the dead moss and fell away in his hands. Inside was another body, curled like a fetus in a dusty womb. Its face looked more like his this time, pressed into the cellophane bag that surrounded its misshapen head and filled its gaping mouth as it lay frozen in a scream.
As if compelled by some morbid force of nature, Kalas turned to the boxes next to it and ripped off their lids as well, throwing them over so the limp monstrosities inside fell out onto the rheumy floor—this one with his nose, that one with Fee's hands and ears, but all deformed, grotesque; joints askew and bones mismatched. Once all of them were opened, Kalas crouched among the shapes, clutching his head until his nails broke through the skin.
An idiot god...an idiot god who tried to make the perfect world and botched it...that is what we are...
Something rustled beside Kalas's foot-another document. Written across the front in the same ink was "ESCAPED." The fine print was too faded for him to read.
A sudden clatter broke the silence and sent Kalas bolt upright. It sounded like someone had forced open the front door. Kalas found the trapdoor leading to the first floor and gently pried it open as footsteps thudded against the planks below. He caught sight of a familiar blond head making its way to the angel statue above the mantel.
"Fee!" he croaked, hoarse from the dust.
His brother stopped at the sound of Kalas's voice. The boy looked older than he was the day he died—he was taller, his chest and shoulders filled out like a young man's. He wore an adult's wool tunic, with a cape resembling Kalas's.
Fee jerked his head in Kalas's direction. His eyes widened in terror as he saw him.
"Oh, god...you...you do exist!" Fee cried, his deepened voice unnatural to Kalas's ears. He stumbled away, clutching at the mantle behind him.
Bemused, Kalas emerged from the trapdoor and leaped down to the carpet in front of the terrified young man. They stared at one other for several moments. Kalas extended a hand to him.
"Fee..."
"I thought you didn't exist..." his brother choked, interrupting him, "But the papers I found in the lab were right. I do have a brother..." He began to sob as he continued to brace himself against the fireplace. "A monster...I have a monster for a brother...Oh, god..."
Kalas started forward with arms outstretched as if to embrace him. "What're you talking about, Fee? It's Kal, remember? You know I'm not a monster..." But his voice came out as an eerie snarl that sent the boy scrabbling for a weapon. He looked down at his arms to see that they had become gnarled and filthy paws, clawed fingers stained with muck and gore. His body was suddenly bare and skeletal, and marred by alien strands of hair and flesh. Worst of all were the feet, which were bent, scaly talons the same dark shade as the raven's.
Kalas screamed, and Fee with him; the shriek of a man mingling with the croak and roar of a beast. He made to jump back through the attic door, but it soared out of his reach as the roof swelled above him. The hooked end of an iron poker caught him in the jaw. His brother swung at him again with the makeshift weapon, missing by a fraction.
"Fee, no..." Kalas moaned through a mouthful of blood. The boy seemed to hear the pain in his voice, for he paused and looked at him with mild pity.
"I'm sorry, but you've caused so much grief already...All those you've doomed..." He trailed off. "Gramps should've never let you get away. Now I have to finish what he didn't."
We are the failed realization of a perfect world...
"No, please!"
Kalas caught the poker as it came down and wrenched it out of Fee's hands. He reared to full height, the single twisted wing on his back beating furiously. He was suddenly aware of the orange leaves licking at the sides of the shack, swelling once again with heat and belching smoke.
Fee shrank away from him, grasping his chest and moaning in terror, as Kalas lurched forward with the poker between his claws.
Why me and not you? Perfection is a greater abomination than failure...the most unnatural...
Kalas snarled. He thrust the iron hook through Fee's ribcage, into his perfect heart, and twisted. Fee's body shuddered and cracked like porcelain. For a moment before the pieces scattered onto the floor, amidst the writhing leaves which crept up onto the carpet, his face was once again that of the bleeding boy he held in his arms as they both died in the forest. The illusion soon fell away shimmering before the statue, which beheld the whole scene with empty eyes.
Kalas felt the leaves begin to singe his skin as they overtook the roof, flowing into the trap door to engulf the corpses above. He dodged a snaking branch and crushed one of the fragments beneath his feet. The front door was choked with vegetation, preventing his escape.
A familiar rustling and snap of branches caught his ear. From the leaves that blocked the doorway, Kalas saw the two points of blue—perched above what appeared to be a snout-and immediately lunged for them, their coolness drawing him onward. They grew as he fell closer, swelling to immense size and converging—from two small lakes to a vast ocean—until he hit the surface of the water and sank.
Kalas continued to sink, deeper and deeper, curled into a ball. His hands were no longer claws; his body returned to its original form. The salt stung his wounds, but the pain soon faded into a pleasant throb.
Something soft and warm pressed against him. He burrowed into it, feeling his skin brush against its. A voice murmured in his ear.
"I promised you...that I'd never leave you..."
"I'm so glad to see you..." he whispered. "It thought it would never end...that I'd never be safe...And Fee..."
They saw the ocean as a symbol for madness, for the dark, roiling parts of the human mind...and that's why they sent their ships of fools there...
The throbbing spread through his whole body, nesting at his core and filling him with restless affection. He drove even further against the being surrounding him, a small noise of contentment issuing from his throat.
"Xelha..."
He felt a gentle hand grasp his chin and her mouth press against his. He only shuddered once as the tip of a needle-like fang grazed his lip, and the conjoined fingers of the hand clutched him a little too hard.
They parted, and the presence drifted away. Kalas opened his eyes to see the surface break around his ears as the waves pushed him onto a rocky shore. He rolled to his feet beside a raven pecking at the entrails of a fish. It croaked at him with its ensanguined beak as he passed.
Just beyond the shore lay Balancoire. Among the mass of buildings, his old home rose the highest, even higher, it seemed, than the Calbren Mansion. Kalas loped toward it, his limbs filled with unearthly speed, feet touching ground for less than a second before springing back into the air. For the time being, he felt exhilarated, powerful, unsure of whether he ran on four feet or two. He heard a hoarse roar, but could not tell whether it came from his throat or another.
Through the city, he sensed something following him through the alleys at the same rapid pace, though the streets were empty of life—could hear its panting echoing against the pink stones. Before it could close in on him, he was at his door, and all noise ceased.
Kalas hesitated as he reached for the knob. Though the memory of the shack had already grown hazy to his mind, a trace of the same fear remained burned into his brain. But this was home-inexplicably there. No monsters could find him under his old roof, Gramps's old roof, the one he once shared with Fee; not even the ones who used to jeer at him and his single wing.
Then he was inside. A fire—a merging of all the fires from his past—burned brightly in the hearth. The stove, the cabinets and kitchen were unfocused in his eyes, all except the table at the center of the room. It smelled faintly of metal, like it always did. Even the sunlight that shone through the single window was a scent he remembered.
Two figures sat at the table—one an elderly man working away at some object laid out before him. A blue-haired girl sat across from him, sipping at a cup of tea and smiling. Neither looked up as Kalas approached.
"Gramps? Melodia?"
The pair ignored him. Kalas stood at his grandfather's side and tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey Gramps, what...?"
He saw the hooks that pierced the wrinkled skin of the hands, some pushing deep into the veins and curling around bone. Strings trailed from the hooks to some black space in the ceiling, an unknown force jerking them about, guiding the fingers in their intricate movements. Thrown about between his grandfather's writhing hands was a wrench, which he twisted around a crumpled Magnus.
Kalas balked. "What the hell? Hold on Gramps, I'll get these things outta you." He tugged at the strings in an attempt to snap them or pull the hidden puppeteer out from the shadows. The twine, made from some silvery metal, cut into his palms, forcing him to let go with a yelp.
Life is but a series of accidents, all leading to the inevitable.
"You don't have any."
Kalas spun around at the sound of Melodia's voice. The hooks pulled at her entire body, stretching the painted porcelain skin until it bled and soaked the fabric of her dress in red. Two strings at the corners of her mouth twisted her cheeks into a smile.
"You never had any." A single thread hanging from her tongue jumped. "No one made you do any of it. You did it yourself."
So much for free will...
"Please...Who's doing this? What does it mean?"
The hooks pulled Melodia's eyes to the right. "They've got your arm."
Sharp pain coursed through Kalas's right arm. He looked to the side and saw glittering white feathers sprout from his pores. He screamed.
"Now your leg."
Kalas's legs burned. The skin on his calves and feet puckered and hardened once again into that darkened, scaly flesh.
"They're inside you now," Melodia purred through his shrieks. "Because you chose them, didn't you? You never had any strings. You did it all yourself, you poor damned thing. And now not even your brother's soul can save you."
The threads holding Melodia and Georg suddenly wrenched backwards toward a hole that swallowed the ground in its gaping maw. Both of them were silent even as the hooks tore at them and dragged them to the floor. Dark beings crept out into the firelight, imp-like and whispering as they bumped and slithered. They grabbed at their clothes with ashy claws, dragging them away into the abyss.
"No!" Kalas leaped for his grandfather, but his burning limbs cut him short. The creatures vanished with the bleeding marionettes.
The pain spread to his lungs and crushed his chest. Kalas doubled over and began to cough. He threw back his head as thousands of ravens erupted from his mouth. They croaked and wheeled above him, flowing in waves as one liquid mass.
Rushing rushing rushing as the tides.
The ravens filled the house, blotting out the walls like ink smeared across paper. Red orbs pierced the blackness until it became a calm, faint blue. The orbs lit up the leafless trees that sprang up all around him. He was in Nekton.
Kalas staggered to his feet. The twin points of blue appeared before him, waving in the darkness as something padded towards him—the same muzzled thing that followed him through the streets and saved him from the fire. It rose up on two legs and continued forward, stepping into the light.
"Hey Kal." it said.
Kalas stared at the man who stood before him. The boy seemed barely a year younger than him, his features a perfect combination of Kalas and Xelha's—blond hair with eyes the color of the renewed Ocean. He looked as if he might be their child.
And his voice, so wry and familiar; Kalas knew it too well.
"You're here." Kalas gasped. "How? I thought I'd never see you again."
"I never really left, to be honest. A little bit always stays behind. That's how these things work, I guess." His Guardian Spirit replied, his tone forlorn. "Even the things you don't want to."
Kalas trembled as memories of the previous horrors emerged in sharp relief against his mind. "Make it stop!" he cried, "I can't take it anymore! How the hell do I get out of here?"
Horatio fixed his eyes on Kalas. Preternaturally clear, they saw everything.
They sent me here to tell you, Kalas.
"They won't leave. Those dark creatures, the things that infected Malpercio, they'll keep you here unless..."
They need from you one more thing—one more thing you love...
A cold lump of dread formed in Kalas's gut. His arms stiffened, curling into circles that embraced the air. He felt an invisible warmth against his chest, and a gentle weight in the crook of his neck. Its presence drove him into a frenzy of panic as he remembered.
"No."
"I'm so sorry, Kal. But they won't let you go until..."
Kalas's arms contracted, snapping together in a single violent spasm.
Between them, something crunched wetly.