Secret Desires & Fears (K-5)
Timing: A bit after the second time the girls take the magic from the realms. ('A Great and Terrible Beauty' pg. 334-338).
Unnerving images and thoughts flash before me, not even giving me a chance to fight back from them, to free myself from their talons. I circle about the same terrible events in my mind, helpless to break free.
Amar and I run through the crowded Indian streets. I am barely a boy and Amar is quite young himself. The sight seems familiar, maybe it is a memory of my own? In a flash everything is changed. On a cold floor lies Amar's lifeless corpse, below me. His eyes are bloodshot and mouth agape in what must have been a scream. My hands quiver uncontrollably as I observe him, I am unable to calm them. His eyes seem to move onto me and pin me to the spot.
Fine red strands curl in the wind's hands. They are pulled forward, cloaking the figure's face. She stands in a barren field alone. The wind ruffles her skirts, sending an odd sort of tingling up my spine. She turns, now can I not only be denied her face, but everything except her back as well. The grass is twirled around by the wind almost violently yet she seems at peace. Her calmness steadies me.
I'm in an abandoned corridor of some sort, blood pours from a large gash in my chest. I find my hand there, holding a dirty rag to the wound, trying to staunch the bleeding, though the attempt proves hopeless. A high pitched scream makes me half jump. My hand clutches onto the rag tightly and my teeth clench together. The ache of the wound begins to dwindle as I fight to stay awake. When did they become so heavy? I let them close for just a moment, what harm could it cause to have just a moment's rest?
"Watch out," a softened voice beckons me.
My eyes snap open to the girl in the field again. She turns slowly yet somehow at a quicken pace at the same time. Widened eyes as green and beautiful as emeralds penetrate mine, I know her. Gemma's right hand points somewhere behind me and a notch to the left as her other hangs limply at her side. Her skirts are stained green from the grass that dances franticly below her. Her skin is like porcelain and a slender silver dagger extrudes the patch of skin above her breast.
"Gemma!" I attempt to call to her, but my voice comes out as a choked whisper.
"Kartik."
My name echoes from her lips and her eyes are now a warning. They stare straight past me to something else, darkness reflects in the jade orbs. Try as I might I cannot pull my eyes from the region that is now drenched in crimson. My heart's pace matches that of the wild's blind movements.
Then everything grows dark. A definite chill goes through the air that I feel is somehow directed at me and fog erupts from an unseen corner. Her face is one of sympathy, which confuses me furthermore, for she is surely the one dying. I want to say something, point that out to her maybe, but my mouth will not cooperate. In less than a moment her face is swallowed whole by the thick fog.
I hear a low purring sound and turned only to see what Gemma had been pointing to. A massive shadowed beast smiles at me, his teeth are sharpened into perfect points. He nears closer to me and I tried to move my legs to run away, try to escape, but I was suddenly sinking.
I blinked in confusion and my mouth opened sub-conciously only to be filled by salty water. I coughed and closed it again as I fell further. I could see seaweed clouding the water around me, it seemed to be strangling the water. I blinked and before I could fully comprehend the situation the seaweed encircled my own throat.
Then I was back at the beginning, over my dead brother's body. His hair was gray now and eyes shut. My hands fiddled with one another, bickering like little children and when I looked down they were covered with blood, his blood. It was then that I began to feel the pressure on me.
It pulled on me, as if stretching me as far as I could possibly go, or it could possibly pull. The same images flashed over and over with small changes in each; Gemma's eyes reddened, the creature letting out a low howl of delight before pounching onto me, giving a failure of an attempt to fight the seaweed off of me, and not only having my brother's blood on my hands, but a knife in them as well.
By now the pressure had increased and I felt it would rip me apart before I could escape the horrid nightmare. But just as it peaked into true pain, it ceased completely. I had had my eyes tightly closed, but opened them carefully after a moment in the sudden stillness. I was suprised by a simple darkness. Labored breathes errupted from me as I regained myself.
And thankfully the dream then ended with only one more imagine, the last. It was not as dark natured as some of the others in my opinion and it had no violence or gore, but it somehow managed to disturb me the most of any.
I leaned against a tall oak watching the girls with the protection of the shade. Gemma was not among them this time, but I was oblivious to the fact at the moment. They sung in delicate voices and their feet moved gracefully in a sort of dance. Their hands were connected in an uneven circle, each girl trying to pull the one behind her. The wind blew at their skirts, pushing up just an inch above their fair skinned ankles, which they refused to give any mind. Strings of heavy wooden beads were hung around each of their necks, reminding me of the gypsies.
After a moment or two I recognised three of them, they were Gemma's friends. Ithal's was there, with the meak and beautiful one. Pippa's face holds a coy yet knowing smile. My mood seems to grow slightly more serious at this observation and the hair at the back of my neck pin prickles as if it knows and undersrands what my subconcious will not allow me.
The words they sing are slurred and few giggled, but the last few come out clear enough for me to make out.
"Ashes, ashes, we all fall down," they sing, all smiling at one another knowingly.
Their hands split and they all fall back in laughter, time slows as they hit the ground. As they reach the grass the smiles disapear... as do they.