Dark Dreaming

My body flew backwards, hitting the brick wall with a resounding crack. I dropped to the ground, blood roaring through my ears as I panted, the pain thrumming through me like a glissando of shimmering musical notes played on a harp. I could feel the blood seeping from numerous small cuts decorating my body. My eyes were filmed with red as the blood wept into them, and my hair was matted with sweat, blood and dust.

“Get up,” his voice demanded coldly, accompanied with a kick to my already broken ribs. I tried to suck in breath to scream at the burning agony of it. “Get. *Up*.” I whimpered brokenly. “I said, get up.” I scrabbled at the ground before he picked me up by the scruff of the neck and shook me roughly. The ends of broken bones ground against each other with a sickening noise and cloth rasped across the whip cuts on my back. I moaned, half senseless with pain.

I could see the echoing, lonely emptiness of the abandoned warehouse, ceiling arching high above us and capturing perfectly the echoes of my screams and his icy voice. Grey concrete floors, spotted with crimson pools of blood. A table was laid out with surgical precision, metal gleaming against the black drop cloth but occasionally dulled with blood. He hadn’t really used the knives and so forth. The curling black bullwhip coiled lovingly next to the table had been more to his taste today.

“You know, this is all your fault.” He moved my head to face the crumpled wreckage of the bodies of my family and friends. I sobbed in denial; he’d been saying that all through the pain. My fault, all my fault, but if I believed that, I’d go mad. And I won’t allow him the satisfaction. “Yes, this is *your* fault. You need to be punished for that.” His tone was stern, but darkly amused. He laughed at my agony, as if it was all so terribly funny in a way that only he could see. Cold metal encircled my wrists and I dangled, toes barely touching the floor as he paced in front of me.

“Let me go,” I pleaded. “Please…”

“No, no, I don’t think so. Not yet.” The whip was in his hands and he ran it tenderly through his slim fingers, my blood coating them. He raised it and sent the end snapping towards my face. “Wake *up*.”

~*~*~*~

I sat bolt upright in bed, gasping, sweat drenching my body in a slick cold. I slowly slid out of the clammy sheets and padded over to the bathroom. These dreams…were they even dreams? Every time I woke up, I’m surprised to find that the blood wasn’t sliding down my face, that my bones weren’t broken, that my skin was unmarked. I splashed cold water from the bathroom vanity on my face and stared blindly at my reflection as the water dripped down into the sink. Hollows lay under my eyes and my always visible bone structure had become more pronounced, a new white pallor emphasizing the green of my eyes, my face all sharp angles. It was like watching rain eat away stone.

Slowly, slowly, I’m breaking down. You know, you aren’t supposed to feel pain in your dreams. But I do. Every whip lash, every broken bone, every stinging cut. All. I leant my hands on the edge of the sink and let my head hang tiredly. So, another day of hell. I was looking forward to it, strangely enough. Somehow, today was the day it would change. I felt it in my bones.

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