There were only two other Chevi recognizable to the dreamwalker without really having to search the vastness of the Chevena. Rae, here sister, and Sairque, her monkey soldier. She walked amidst the countless Chevi, randomly reaching out here and there to let her fingers glide along brightly glowing threads. A gentle touch of one such thread stopped her in her tracks, and her pause gave it all the opportunity it needed to coil around her wrist in a desperate attempt to be seen.
As she was about to disentangle herself she felt a touch of something familiar. Sai? Quickly her eyes searched the Chevena for the familiar thread, there she was, but the light that usually glowed with a known warmth was harsh and blinding. From her experience, there were only a few situations that would lead to this change.
Fear or anger. Gold ringed eyes followed the length of her arm to look at the Chevi, she did nothing to shrug it off, curious as to what Sai's involvement with this desperate soul was. As the thread continued to climb along her arm like a clinging vine, the definition of the Chevena faded only to be replaced by a room populated with fear, an endless supply of ghoulish mirrored faces, two men who seemed lost and terrified and a muck covered figure that had to be Sai.
For a few moments that seemed only to pass for her as she was fully insinuated into this place, Chemar looked around, doing her best to find some sense of this macabre horror. The shadowy sludge that seemed to envelope everything within sight did not touch her, held away by the glowing gold rings in her eyes. She snatched a rose from the murky black to save it from being devoured only noting the tortured soul who had been reaching for it as though all life depended on it. One of her angled brows quirked for a moment as she looked for the man to the rose. "too slow... She whispered, letting the crawling man be the only recipient of her words. She twisted the stem of the rose between the pads of her fingers, taking care to avoid the thorns. This taunting brought a look of sheer hunger to the man's face and her head cocked curiously, wondering why he held so much attachment to the flower.
With slow and deliberate motion she crouched before him, curling her body over bent legs, the petals of the rose brushing her full lips. "Is this yours?" With a quiet motion, she lowered the head of the rose, now brilliant and flourishing as though it gained life from her hand. Keeping the flower just shy of his grasp, she watched the man. "I think it's mine. Sai? Don't you agree?" With an extension of her free hand she reached to touch the leg of her friend. It was only a whispered touch, and when she withdrew, the murky slime followed in a long dripping thread. A brisk flick of her hand shot the goop across the room as though she'd thrown it, and Sairque was left free of it's bonds. Chemar looked up at her friend with a smile, a line on communication sent into her mind without effort.
"What a mess."
Though Chemar was clear and at ease, everyone else, including her friend, seemed strained, at best, and manic, at worst. She didn't wait for a response from Sai, but instead, turned her attention to the third man. He appeared wholly consumed by this place. Tortured as he sought any feeling of comfort or understanding. In one fluid movement, she uncurled to standing, again, stealing the rose just as the man on the floor seemed poised to grasp it. Eyes cast to the floor, she watched him for a bit before tearing one petal free to let to waft toward him. "Watch the thorns." The dreamwalker turned away just as the petal lit upon the palm of the man. At first there was a flash of joy on his face, but as the petal became two, then three, quickly retaking the body of the full rose, he seemed scared. But even and the stem of the rose began coiling around his arm, thorns driving into his skin, he did not move. Within seconds, he was encased in a thorny coffin, any movement driving a series of jagged thorns into his flesh. The blacky murk had dissolved, but the vicious beauty that was left seemed the greater of the two evils. A lowered look back over her shoulder confirmed that he had reclaimed his rose, so Chemar turned back to the other man, saving Sai for last.
He seemed the least affected by the clinging goop, but the most troubled. His fear had engulfed him, his confusion isolating him from the other inhabitants of this place. Chemar approached and he flinched away from her, and even as she repelled the black threads of ooze that had begun to spiral up his legs, the man recoiled from her. The more the man sought to escape her, the closer she got, crowding him until his back was pressed against his gaunt counterpart in the mirror. The reflection's arms emerged from their mirrored bonds and encircled the man, and starving teeth bit hard into the shoulder of his captive. Before the reflection chewed through to bone, Chemar pressed the flat of her palm against one mirror. She looked down at her shoulder, and as though it came from the glowing rings in her eyes, a golden pulse traveled the length of her arm and crashed into the mirror, shattering all in the room. The cannibalistic reflection shattered as well, falling into a jagged pile at the man's feet,covering the pool of blood that had formed there.
Chemar appeared before Sai with a movement that was not seen, she curled gentle hands around her shoulders and stared into the monkey soldier's golden eyes.
"Why are you here?" |