I dreamed. I mean, I always dream. When the Voice is in charge of my dreams, I don't really remember them. I just know they're sick and disturbing and I always wake up feeling dirty and desperate. When the Voice isn't in charge, it's just the usual crap – naked in front of an audience, playing golf with Batman, that shit.
Tonight it was different. The dreams were so vivid and powerful, it was like watching a movie, and even in my sleep, I knew "dream" wasn't really the right word.
The landscape around me was nowhere on earth, I knew that much. Twisted black trees with greyish leaves gathered outside the house like mourners at a funeral. The sky was heavy with rust-and-bile coloured storm clouds and the light filtering down through them was weak, like I was standing at the bottom of a filthy pond. A hot, dry wind whipped round me and the dead trees, tossing decaying leaves into my face.
The house was impressively huge and built like Dali and Lovecraft got together and took bad drugs. I stared for long, painful minutes, trying to understand the architecture, trying to follow the arches and angles, and felt like my eyes were gonna bleed.
I knew this place.
I mean, I didn't. But part of me did. Some piece of shrapnel in my brain, the war wound I called the Voice, that knew this place. I felt a strange tug of emotion stir in the demon and realised it was yearning.
Arcis. The word drifted through my head and I moved forward. Walking felt wrong, like my legs and my tendons were suddenly different lengths. I didn’t look down to see what the problem was. I didn’t want to know.
Close up, Arcis didn’t look any better than it had from a distance. The dull grey brick work was choked in twisting red vines. The windows were all dark, no lights on inside. I shivered despite the heat. The house was set in the middle of nowhere; the path I’d walked to reach it was long and wound off into a smoggy distance. I had a feeling I was on an estate, like this was some grand Olde Worlde manor house where it was uncouth to have other buildings nearby.
Arcis, I heard again. Arcis is the unreachable.
Was it the Voice? I wasn’t sure and because this was a dream – just a dream, right? – I decided it didn’t matter. I went to the front door. It towered over me, the blackened wood carved with scenes of torture and mutilation: demons raping angels, broken wings, severed limbs. The images sent a sick thrill through me.
There was a heavy iron knocker and it took all my strength to lift it and slam it back down on the wood. The sound echoed in the dry air and sent a spurt of panic through me. I glanced around, suddenly afraid of what would answer the door.
- Current Mood:
creative
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