Fading Memories & Nightmares

I didn’t want to speak. I really wasn’t sure what she meant and I didn’t want to ask. She looked at me with a steady gaze that cut through all my defenses, a stern look that demand authority and upmost respect. I gazed back as if it was a test of wills, and I wasn’t about to fold.

“Your majesty, if I may interject, she has no recollection of what you are speaking about. Perhaps you should give back what was taken from her.”

I looked over at Blitz. He was looking down as if not wanting to really be speaking (or giving advise) to the queen.

“I would if she would let me.” The queen spoke her words without so much of a blink, continuing her everlasting gaze. “Please Blitz, help me out here.”

As I was about to speak I noticed Blitz coming at me with a scepter, which he promptly knocked be in the back with.

“DAMN!” I cried, then clamped my mouth. I am pretty sure cussing in front of the queen was strictly forboden…

Suddenly I slipped into the darkest corners of my mind. That’s me trying to get around saying I passed out… I don’t want to sound like a wimp.

*   *   *

“Kill it!” he screamed at me. “You MUST kill it!”

A child in filthy rags looked up at me sobbing. “Please, spare me. I knew not what I did” the boy’s words were barely audible through the choking of tears.

“Don’t believe the lies! It is only trickery!!” more screaming “You know what it is! Destroy it!!!!!

“Perhaps leniency is needed here.” I heard the words being uttered from my own lips, “Perhaps, if we show compassion, it will be returned.”

I looked at the helpless child “I cannot destroy a child, no matter its identity”

“Then I will!” yelled my brother in arms.

“NO! I am in command around here and you will listen to me! There has been enough death! This child is spared!” I turned and looked down one last time at the child and gave him one command, “Run.”

fog

memories blurred

new place

new time

Fire was up all around us as I looked down at a village entirely in flames. Screams were echoing all around as people were being consumed by fire’s hunger. You could smell the burning of innocent souls. Looking up at us from the village was the boy, giving the look any child gives when caught red handed in the cookie jar.

“Look at what your compassion brought.” My companion spit the words at me. As if I didn’t feel horrible enough that we hadn’t made it in time to save these people.

more fog

screams echoing all around me

faded voices

*   *   *

“Thank you Blitz” spoke the queen.

“What the hell was that for?!” I yelled, forgetting the no swearing thing.

“You wouldn’t lower your walls.” the queen spoke without remorse whatsoever.

“Now back to my original question: Are you ready this time?”

“Ok. Obviously we are not on the same page here. What are you talking about?” I was getting tired of this and my pain was not helping my mood.

“I just gave you back your memories and you still can not answer my question! It is a simple one! But one that means the worlds future.” She nearly hollered at me.

“Those were memories? Those nightmares? I have been having those nightmares for years.” I raked my mind for some connection, some answer.

“Yes,” the queen was trying to keep herself composed, “You failed before so we stripped you of your memory. You failed to kill a Mimicry and in turn it slaughter villages upon villages. However, the court has decided you are indeed the one that has been prophesied and so they are giving you another chance” She didn’t seem to enthused. She confirmed my suspension of being unwanted by adding.

“Keep in mind, that it is against my will that you are here. Many of my subjects share this with me. You will have a hard time earning back their trust, but an even harder time earning mine back.”

“Are you ready?” she asked making it clear that this was going to be the last time she asked.

Wavering Silence

A song wafted through the air as we walked. Immediately upon the admittance  of a single sustaining note, I knew that it was a song of sorrow.

Where fore art thou, the soul which eyes can meet?Fore can not a soul burn a glance, but with a single defeat?

“That’s so beautiful,” I whispered, straining to hear more.

“Isn’t it though?” spoke Blitz. I glared at his thunderous voice disrupting my listening. Blitz chuckled all the more because of it. “Not many people live past such a song.”

…huh?

“The voice of a siren always weighs heavy with grief and disarray. This particular song is about a siren who fell in love with a human. The siren hid among the shadowy waters and spoke with him each night. He begged her to come up and meet his gaze, each night she refused. The man pronounced his everlasting love for her one night and she came into the moons light, so that he may take her. When he saw what she was, he cast her aside with disgust. Calling her a murderer of men and a beast whom none could love. Treacherous filth ”

Blitz broke the mournful silence with a hard laugh (and a weird snort) “That probably gave her even more reasons to destroy men with her voice!” more chuckling “The idiot is probably amongst the sea’s cemetery now.”

“You have a weird sense of humor….” I replied, then added, “Why can I hear her voice when I am a girl?”

“Sirens love to show off their superior skills. They like to show other women that they are better than them.” He quickly added, “Take heed though, what you hear is nothing compared to the darkly convincing songs they throw at a man’s mind. You would be dead already if it was the same”

At the end of that lovely sentence (with all sorts of warnings and cautions dripping from it) we had reach a large sapphire gate. It opened but a sliver for us to squeeze through. We were then lead by a guard of all sorts of interesting creatures (some of which I wasn’t too sure they could do anything in the terms of protecting another….)

“Wait here” boomed the voice from the little dwarfish looking creature. He had us waiting in an area no bigger than my living room, but the walls went enormously high with a crystal dome covering it. As I looked up I realized the walls had little slits in them halfway up. In the slits were shadows of something, I couldn’t really pick out what, but they were definitely armed with bow and arrows. How easy it would be to massacre a group in here….

Before I could study things too closely the door in front of us opened and the doorknobs said we could enter. (yes I said that the doorknobs spoke). Walking into the HUGE throne room our eyes were instantly diverted to the attention of the magnificence of the queen in her throne made of a tree’s knurled trunk. The Queen looked at me with startling ice blue eyes.

“Are you ready this time? You must be ready.” The words were so heavily weighted.

A walk to remember

He led me down a path through tall sky blue grass that sparkled ever so slightly, as if incrusted in dew drops. As I followed him through the ridiculously windy path I asked him a few of the million questions I had.

“How does a place this big go unnoticed?” I said, not quiet believing the reality of it all, and quickly added on “How does it even fit in the lake!?”

“Well it is put in a lake so small, no one would really bother to look. The lake is also so small that no one comes to go swimming in it. For the most part we don’t have to worry about visitors, but if someone were to look all the would see is muck, like any other lake bed. We are protected by an illusion” Blitz said with a smirk and with an air of cleverness he continued. “This lake was created by us. We dug down deep into the earth and spent years making this city. We dug tunnels even further down that would wind up to where the lake would eventually be, to created entrance and exits. The dome is made out of a type of algae we had discovered. You can mold it into any shape and it ‘eats’ water and produces oxygen.”

“Algae isn’t strong enough to hold up all that water!” I said knowing that someone was trying to trick me.

Blitz laughed so hard he snorted a couple times. “Well we are always told that humans want a logical response to their questions. If we simply said it was magic they wouldn’t believe us.”

“I am not so unfamiliar with that response”

“I know,” Blitz said. Then in a very serious voice with a just a touch of sadness (the kind that makes you wonder what they are really implying), “That is why you are here.”

An eerie conversation and a hybrid

“What do you mean by that? I chose to come in after you.”

“You didn’t have a choice.” He replied smirking. I suddenly got very uncomfortable with this boy and a little irritated that a boy was making me so creeped out.

“What is your name?” I asked, mostly to break the awkward silence.

“A name is of no importance, it has know meaning of who I am or, more importantly, what I am.”

Riddles! Why is it always riddles! He is too young to even have a hair on his armpit, so why is he so intimidating?

KNOCK, KNOCK. Thank God!! An interruption!!

“Faolin, you are needed immediately! You know you are not to be in there! Her majesty knows you are in there!!” The yelling was then proceeded by more pounding on the door. “Faolin! Open the door NOW!”

The boy ran over and opened the door with an easy whisk of his hand. Light flooded the room so that I was temporarily blinded. When I opened my stinging eyes a  centaur was towering in the doorway, and Faolin was no where to be seen.

“I am sorry about that my dear” The centaur was an older man with streaks of gold through his white hair (and tail). His eyes showed wisdom of the years and his weathered hands told of a hard life. His horse part of the body was black with a white lightening bolt patch on his rump. “My name is Blitz. I know I probably scared you half to death with my pronouncing, but you have no need to fear me.”

“I don’t fear you,” I responded, “It’s just I don’t quite believe you are real.”

Blitz chuckled and said “Come with me if you want a real trip!” and walked out the door.

I followed him into the light and saw the most spectacular sight. I was in a city, trapped in a glass dome, under water. The entire city was made of a white marble with gold streaked artfully through every twist and turn. Every building was artfully made and flowed easily into another.

The city was so big that it even had ponds and rivers that ran through it. In the ponds, and outside of the dome, there were mermaids and water nymphs and fish that literally had rainbow scales. There was every type of fairytale creature I had ever read about and a whole lot more. Fairies streamed through the air, unicorns grazed in a nearby field, and I was pretty sure I saw a dragon just a moment ago. The funny thing was, out of all I could see, there was not one “human”.

“Welcome to Havenland” stated Blitz grandly. “Please forgive the weird looks you might receive, they have only read about you.”

“But of course!” I laughed.

“Follow me this way. The queen needs to speak with you. She has been waiting for several years for you.”

A short bit more

 

I saw a fish! A HUGE fish!!! I had no idea that the water in this small, pathetic excuse of a lake was this deep!!! I was then suddenly reminded of Jonah because the fish opened it’s mouth to come eat me.

…….

When I woke up there was a bright light coming in through the window. What a dream, I thought. I rolled over, away from the sun, to face the coolness of the wall. I begged to fall back asleep, but once awake I can never fall back into the comforting arms of nothingness.

I continued to lay there for a second then let out a sigh and sat up. “I was wondering how long you were going to be out for" said a voice in the corner, “I had feared you had drowned. ….they would’ve had my head for that one.”

It was then that I noticed that I was not at home, that it was not a dream. I scanned the room for who the voice belonged to and saw the boy with the missing ear.

“So am I captured?” I asked, a bit confused I might add because I had voluntarily gone in to the lake.

“Well I guess that is up to interpretation” He added with darkness to his voice.

That’s one way to start a day!

 

So this morning, after i forced myself out of bed and stumbled through a shower, I came across the weirdest sensation. It was as if a million things were happening at once and i was just snared on a web unable to move. I shook my head to clear the overwhelming sensation and found all three of my cats staring at me, lazily. Then George, one of my kitties, cocked his head to the side and i swore i heard him chuckle and whisper something to Dustfinger, my other kitty, about how I was acting psycho. Artemis, my last kitty, agreed and ran off not wanting to waste her time on me.

  Well, needless to say, I brushed off this whole incidence and quickly grab an apple and ran out to my car. If I didn’t hurry up I was going to be late to work. Of course whenever anyone is rushing everybody, and every traffic light, gets in your way. As I was stopped at the bottom of the hill, begging the light to change, A person ran up to my car. It was a very odd person, especially since this is Duvall and nobody is abnormal here.

Now before I continue my story I must say that I am no stranger to a world that many know not of. That is all I will say for if I continue I would give away the whole feel of this event.

The person was a boy of , perhaps, thirteen and he was missing an ear. I don’t remember a whole lot more of what he was wearing, etc. because I was so enthralled by the fact that he was missing an ear. And it wasn’t as if it was cut of or something morbid like that. It just simply wasn’t there.

He looked at me though long lashes and with a bit of a tearful eye and ran off. At this point a green light had already come and gone. I could not help but to follow. What if he needed help? What if something was horribly wrong? Or maybe he just needed someone to talk to. As I followed him in my car ( he ran really fast now that I think of it) he ran towards a little lake near my house. I parked my car and got out to follow him towards the lake.

As we got down near it an strange howling wind pierced through the trees. The trees danced and screamed in protest to the winds abusive force.

The boy seemed very startled by all of this and dove into the lake. He popped out looked at me and seemed to plead with me to follow. “What in the world are you doing? You’ll freeze in there!” I hollered over the wind. He continued to motion for me to come in, without saying a word. The wind blew harder and harder, trees in the surrounding forest were shaking and falling apart. That’s when I noticed something funny. All the trees branches were directed at me! Well at that point I decided I would plunge in because obviously something was going on and the boy seemed more reasonable than the rest of nature at that point. 

When i dove in, (yes, it was freezing!!) I was swept up by a current that no lake should have and was dragged down to it’s dark depths (of which no lake should have as well). I was almost out of air when a light struck my eyes and I saw something that no one would ever believe……… to be continued.

I saw one, I wanted one, so I made one.

Here I am world!!!

Singer, chick, rocker, bass player. Hard worker.

Yup, that's me.

I'm Kayla.