TW: Death, graphic imagery, ommetaphobia, claustrophobia. Please proceed with caution! It gets, uh, intense. ~ Soulfaith had promised he’d try. He had promised Abyssalabsence that he would give this dream-navigating strategy a shot. His nightmares were bad… they were always bad. But they were still his. With some willpower and a bit of luck, could Soulfaith change a terror into something as light and playful as a party? Soulfaith stared at his mossbed, hesitant and unsure. If he laid his head on that moss, he knew a forest of lightless skies and starry grass awaited. A chase that almost always ended with Soulfaith screaming, begging for help, begging for freedom from his own mind. Maybe not tonight though. Abyssalabsence seemed confident their strategy could pull Soulfaith out, or at least help mitigate it. Soulfaith mentally rehearsed the dream again. While he was running, he’d stumble across a den where his friends had gathered for a surprise party. That was it. That was all it would take. Soulfaith gently laid down, staring at the ceiling for a moment. He was worried. But he knew he couldn’t stay awake forever. The temping lull of sleep eventually took him, and the Dustrunner faded into unconsciousness. ~ … Soulfaith was on his paws running. This was always how it started, wasn’t it? A sprint for his life, the breathing of /something/ chasing him from behind. Soulfaith hissed lightly, his distress echoing through his head. He had slipped into a realm where reason held no power, and he had to rely on the strategies he had employed in the day to help through the night. Soulfaith leaped over a fallen log. The wood of the log warped and bent, and suddenly, a crimson eye was staring out from the wood, blinking silently. Soulfaith’s heart hammered as he kept running. The grass beneath his paws kept reaching for him, trying to hold him down, begging him to stay for just a little bit longer. But he was too swift for their simple calls. Soulfaith hissed lightly, the hiss seeming to echo as he dashed. His vision was turning grayer, everything was narrowing into a single point in front of him. A single point of hope, a single spectral point of a possible escape. The trees around him opened their eyes, blood slowly dripping, seeping down the oak as the eyes blinked, watching his flight. Merciless. Careless. Compassionless. Soulfaith could hear it catching up to him. He knew he had to hide, but where? Among the bleeding wood? Beneath the grass that would likely hold him down if he chose to stop? It was a near miracle when Soulfaith saw it. A den. A den that he felt in his heart would be safe. He barreled into the den, and suddenly, an excited uproar met his ears. He couldn’t hear it though. He looked around the den. Abyssalabsence. Albatrossmoon. Scandal. Memoryspectre. Fuzzy faces floating among the crowd, all seeming overjoyed that Soulfaith was here. Soulfaith almost felt himself relax. But something was wrong. Even as they spoke, even as Soulfaith watched them open their muzzles to form words, he couldn’t hear a thing. He couldn’t hear anything aside from his racing heart. What was happening? Everyone who made him happy was standing right here… why wasn’t he happy? Why wasn’t it enough? Soulfaith glanced over his shoulder. The outside… was gone. Where there once was an entrance, there was now dirt. Soulfaith looked around frantically. No exits. The den was sealed. But all his friends continued to smile contentedly, unaware of their confinement. Soulfaith started yelling. He couldn’t hear his own words, it was as if his ears were underwater despite being completely dry. But he knew what he was saying. Run, he yelled. We need to get out of here, he screamed. The den felt so tight, as if the walls were getting closer. Then, one thing shattered Soulfaith’s scattered mind. The hiss of the beast. The same beast that had haunted every nightmare, every night, every time. But where?! Wasn’t it outside, hadn’t Soulfaith escaped? He yelled, louder, tears tinging his vision. Please, he seemed to scream. Don’t you see the danger? We need to go! We can’t stay here any longer! All his friends, gathered together in one place for a party. All his friends, gathered together in one place for their demise. The ground shook. The hissing of the beast, a sound that should’ve been impossible. It felt like it resounded through Soulfaith’s spirit rather than his ears. He turned frantically. The den was so much smaller than before. Even still, his friends wouldn’t run. They just kept speaking, speaking words Soulfaith couldn’t hear, all with that placid smile on their face. Until it wasn’t.
(Seriously guys. This is where it gets bad. If you’re a squeamish reader, it is OKAY to not read this. PLEASE stop reading if you might be made uncomfortable by depictions of death and blood. PLEASE. Thank you!) Crimson eyes. Soulfaith was petrified against the back wall, watching the scene in horror. How could his mind betray him like this? How could his own mind force him to watch something as terrible as this? A splash of blood smeared across Soulfaith’s cheek as he stared at the massacre, gaze hollow and horrified. The beast ripped through the crowd— how had it gotten in?— tearing pelt from bones, painting the den the color of the evening sunset, but so.. much… darker…… Soulfaith watched as all his friends, gathered together for a party, screamed for help. He watched as each one fell to the ground, writhing in a pool of their own blood. Soulfaith couldn’t move. His paws were stained red, all he could do was watch in horror. The stench of blood was pungent as the beast finished its last prey. All the bodies— because they were no longer recognizable as friends— laid perfectly still. Then, it turned to Soulfaith. It stood on long, lanky legs. It had thin, brittle arms that extended in front of it, and the beast appeared emaciated from all angles. On the end of its paws— were they even paws?— were claws the length of Soulfaith’s tail, dripping crimson. The beast, despite its uncanny, unnatural body, had the head of a fox. A fox of terrifying design. There were no eyes, merely sockets. The muzzle that Soulfaith stared down was long and powerful, dripping even more than the claws. It was horribly disproportioned, fur where it shouldn’t have been. All that, and it had a single, Soul-claw sized mark across its nose. Despite the grisly feast it had created, it didn’t stop to eat. It only turned, and /smiled/ as it looked at Soulfaith, as if it had just noticed him. The creature crossed the den at terrifying speed. Bodies and bones were cast aside in the creature’s haste. It grabbed Soulfaith by the scarred chest, lifting him off the ground as he squirmed pitifully. The creature tilted its head. A terrible series of clicking and cracking sounds as it continued to tilt its head, further than any fox should’ve been able to. The creature carefully— almost ceremoniously— lifted its claw to Soulfaith’s scarred chest. Soulfaith whimpered. In his heart, he knew what happened next. An instant later, Soulfaith was dropped to the ground as he screamed in agony. A long, unforgiving slice, chest to stomach. He twitched, staring at the scene of death around him. He should’ve known he couldn’t escape this fate. And now he had brought all those he cared about with him. Suddenly, his view of what was left of his friends was blocked, as he stared directly into the sockets of the beast, as it stared directly back at him. A soft hiss, one that sounded almost like cat language, but overlayed with so much muffled static that the loner couldn’t make it out. Please, he thought. Make this end. Get me out of this terrible place. The creature happily obliged. Like a snake, the horror unhinged its bottom jaw, wrapping its muzzle around Soulfaith’s neck. A single snap that Soulfaith never got the chance to hear, and he was dead. ~ Soulfaith shot awake in his nest, claws unsheathed as he hissed and yowled. It was the middle of the day, and the den was empty, but he was sure his distress would attract attention. He snarled, he hissed, he bit back oaths and sobs, and before any cats could come to his den to investigate, Soulfaith abandoned his claw-shredded nest and fled his den.
