A/N: This poem isn't in rhyme, so perhaps it's better than the previous one...? Well, here's hoping, in any event.
I wrote this to follow the patterns of the song Requiem for a Dream. Everything's music with me.
- ~ -
Rippling heat, and foul crooning voices that sing of dark magic and terror,
low and deep, whispering words of warning and fear,
a strange feeling of foreboding in this terrible new-old
half-real-half-false
world of darkness, despair, death-
dark brilliance lighting up the senses, brightening the world with danger,
and my heart beats loudly in my chest.
A stalking presence just behind me-
There! There! There-!
And each time I glance, it flees, is gone, and then returns.
I begin to walk, fleeing but slowly,
preserving my strength for some later challenge, I realize unconsciously, and
not knowing where I go, but knowing
that I have to move-
move or die.
Those are my choices.
I am trapped in this semblance for eternity-
or is it just minutes?
And then everything fades away,
to be replaced by a fiendish hunt, a cunning trap- I am being chased.
I can feel it.
First we move slowly, drivers and driven,
but then the monsters pick up pace, and I must as well,
or be caught. Caught-
a ghost choir is muttering behind me now, growing slowly in number and volume-
and then I flee faster,
running, headlong, stumbling, seeking some haven in the foulness,
past memories of evil, and darkness, and carrion flash by me, just enough to chill me to the bone.
Foul sickness I feel in my living flesh, and great heat and cold mixed, and a deep, smothering darkness-
lightning flashes. My life flashes, all the brighter, for a moment,
then fades down into darkness once more.
My last stand.
I cannot run much longer-
then things stop again, and for a moment, light holds the darkness back,
and there is another man with me in this accursed place.
There is music reaching from some far off place-
he is beckoning urgently, and I follow quickly, sensing, somehow, that he is good.
There is a wholesome light about him, that shines like starlight- starlight!
What a foreign, forgotten thing, the coolness of those silvery night lamps!
He looks like someone I know- but who?
We walk at first, while the man's light pulses brightly, but-
slowly the danger rises again, and the man's light fades, and he gasps in pain and the
ever-present possibility of defeat.
The ghost choir starts again, whispering
-run- run- run- run- run-
urging- pleading? – commanding- run- run-
The monsters taunt me again, and the man's presence holds them back no longer.
We begin to run, moving with mindless panic, our hearts and lungs and heads throbbing-
on and on-
through dark, unlit places of foul being, back into mere shadow, into darkness once more-
I trip on some unseen obstacle, fall-
the man sees, hears, stops,
comes back for me, and I try to tell him
-save yourself- save yourself-
but he pulls me to my feet, his grip strong and unflinching despite his weary face,
and we continue.
I gasp, feeling myself giving into the darkness,
my life being sucked away by something much stronger than I-
and the man's grip tightens.
- I will not let you go-
he holds me up as we stumble through fire-
and the demons, catching at us-
and the mad laughter of someone I once knew-
no hope, no hope, no hope-
towards a faint glimmer of light on the horizon, where the dawn should be-
and it grows slowly larger.
Too slowly.
We are running out of time, and the monsters are right behind us, reaching for me with
burning hands of darkness and pain-
but we are somehow at the light, and without hesitation,
the man pushes me through, and I half jump,
and I glance over my shoulder to see him following.
I awake.
