[Dream Weaved]

"Imagine there's no sunlight... I wonder if you can? No source of warmth or guidance.
The darkened state of man."

-Duckie’s first words after some six years of silence

It was dark. It was so dark.

After days without sleep it got harder and harder to move around. My body was sore and every step was beginning to feel like a serious chore. I had to stop driving around after I clipped another car trying to turn and ended up speeding off through a one-way street to get away from the accident.

I didn’t spend more than a day in one place at first but didn’t last. Even if I could muster up the mobility, I had started seeing things. People, actually. Victims. With every passing day I felt the world slowly grow darker around me and as it grew darker I started noticing the dead walking the streets among me. The darker it got the more of them there were and the more of them that took note of me. I could feel them following me.

As all light slowly drained from my world the cold began to set in. There was no warmth. I could feel my body trembling, after the first few days I think I was trembling at all times. I remember crumpling over and screaming at one point from frustration at how difficult it was becoming to do anything. I screamed only to realize I had been surrounded by those I had damned and had to cut through several of them just to escape, bolting at full speed to anywhere they weren’t.

There was fire littering that blackened place. No warmth and they provided very little actual visibility but they gave me a safe direction to move in and kept the damned at bay… for a little while at least.

When the fire went out, or when a fire went out nearby, I knew it was time to move. They were coming.

And that went on for… ummm… well I don’t actually know. It felt like an eternity though. I had almost nothing to draw a point of reference from by that point.

…I knew it was over on that last day. All the fires suddenly went out at once.
I could hear them approaching from all directions. I ran in the direction of the closest extinguished fire. I was shit for shape through and through at that point but I managed to cut through a few the damned as I barreled onward. The dead aren’t exactly sporty.

I was hoping, with everything I had, that maybe, just maybe, the fire hadn’t gone out. That the flames had only dimmed. I was greeted at the extinguished flame by the only thing hope has ever brought me, pain and regret. There was no fire and there were even more damned there waiting for me than I had ever seen gathered before. I fought. I gave it everything I had but they were too much. They held me down, many digging into my flesh to make sure there would be no escape. And that’s when it got bad.

She showed up. She was so angry she began to burn into her own flame when she started screaming at me. As she approached the other damned let go and backed off, driven back by her fire.

“Is this it?!”

She stepped closer. I couldn’t move. I was so cold. I think that made her angrier.

“All your promises. ALL YOUR LIES!”

She lifted me up by the throat. It burned. I could feel her fire spreading, slowly engulfing me.

“AM I WORTH SO LITTLE THAT YOU WOULD SPARE THEM?!”

I could barely see her over the flames at that point, I had been entirely engulfed. I used what little strength I had left forcing one word out.

“N-No!”

And then her fire suddenly burnt out leaving me as the only one still covered in flames.

Softly she spoke.
“Prove it.”

And then she lifted me higher and I felt the Masters embrace. Tendrils engulfed me… and the world was no more.

No more sympathy. No more doubt. No more empty words.
Everyone deserves to die. I’m going to make sure everyone gets what they deserve.

When the Masters done with them of course.
You all should count yourselves lucky I’m leashed.
Swan out.