I was at a party in some large, irregular house that my brother and his friends were hosting. I spent some time wandering around, watching men drink heavily and women laugh too loudly. The dream went on for some time without much happening besides me exploring the house. After a while, I found the back of the house, which was protected by a large growth of bush on one side, a giant, wooden skate ramp on another, and a dilapidated fence on the next, all of which U-shaped around the back wall of the house to create a sort of courtyard. There were twinkling lights strung around the dark trees and a gaggle of men were sitting or lying around, drinking from their cups and joking.
I was watching them when one man came up from the shadows at my right side, his face unshaven and mindless. He grabbed me roughly by the arm and threw me to the ground, my head bumping against the cement comically. He held me down with large, clumsy hands and pulled down my pants. The men I was watching before stood up to get a better view, and three or four lined up behind the man, waiting in line for their turn. I realized my arms were manacled to the ground above my head with great, black chains, their stakes sunk deep into the concrete. My legs tried to kick out, but the man's strength was surprising, and he held them down thoughtlessly with a single hand. He began to unbutton his trousers, and the men surrounding us started to laugh. I could hear cruel laughter behind me, above me, aside me, and I snapped. A deep, violet-colored strength coursed through my veins, visible to everybody in the room, and I swelled with righteous anger. My arms, still tethered to the ground, glowed mauve beneath my skin, my dark veins still clear to the eye, and the light seemed to grow so fully that the chains surrounding my wrists burst off with an explosion of metal while my voice screamed with a low, animal sureness.
My arms felt heavy and powerful hanging at my side as I stood up. Lifting my hands to my face, I watched as the glow under my flesh swirled and pulsed, the lilac and crimson light marbling together in a storm beneath my skin. The twenty or so men who were crowded around me began to run away in a confused panic. First, my arm shot out and grabbed the man who had chained me up. Working on what felt like its own accord, my fist plummeted into his greasy neck. I watched my arm do the work unconcernedly and felt his windpipe crush beneath my knuckles. His eyes widened in fear, his breath grew ragged, and my fingers dug easily into the sides of his neck, burrowing beneath the skin and muscle. Blood ran down my wrist, but I kept digging as his eyes finally lit up with emotion. I pulled my hand out with a clean tug and he collapsed to the floor.
The first man who had been waiting in line, waiting for his turn to rape me, was still standing nearby, and I walked up to him calmly, cupped his cheeks in both of my bloodied hands, and twisted sharply. I could hear his neck crack, as well as his ribs and spine, and imagined I could see his ribcage shatter like tiny chicken bones. I let go and let him fall to the floor, as well. A third man who was there, one I knew who laughed the loudest earlier as my assailant tried to begin the assault, stood some ten feet off. My body seemed to float directly toward him, and as I lifted my hand to his face, was surprised to see I was wearing a lobstered steel gauntlet on my right hand. I pulled it off and heard it clang as it hit the ground as my bare fingers dug gently into the man's eye sockets. They wormed slowly further, pushing aside warm bits of wet tissue to find their way in. He didn't say a word as I wiggled my two fingers deep into his eyes, well to the last knuckle. When I pulled them out, his blackened eyes wept tears of blood, and he keeled over, his mouth a perfectly pious o-shape.
When the gaggle of people had cleared off, I could hear the rest of the party was in pandamonium. Voices were screaming and shouting, japing, crying out, and cat-calling. I rubbed what blood off my hands I could and made my way toward the noise. Inside, there was a wooden walkway ringing a large, shadowy room, some twenty feet up in the air. I wound around the ramp that led to the walkway, spying a chubby man in a sweat-stained, gray t-shirt and the small woman he had backed into the end of the walkway. I knew the girl, she had been a best friend of mine throughout high school (Jen), but she cowered in the corner in a way unlike her real-life counterpart. I hurried along and saw him lift her in the air, his grubby hands preparing to throw her over the edge of the walkway. Before he could, I reached him, stayed his body easily with my left hand, and scooped Jen out of his reach with my right. When she reached the ground, I turned to the man, who looked more confused than afraid, grabbed both of his hands, and sidled lightly around his body, tangling his arms around his bloated torso and binding them tightly behind his back. As we marched back down the walkway, I considered hauling him over the edge, but seemed to have satisfied my bloodlust for the night, and we walked on. Back on the ground level, I left him with a pair of armed guards outside a dank, makeshift cage and was given a stout salute.
A man with a clean haircut dressed in an elegant charcoal uniform fell in line beside me and we walked together as he rattled off the day's reports. He never spoke, but waved his hands artfully in front of our faces and conjured up images of what he was trying to express. Two townsfolk were caught and jailed for stealing, another for molesting an old woman, and two for attempted kidnappings. As he told me about the last incident, I watched vividly as grown men tried to wrestle scared children to the ground: one of them was a squalling Gabriel, his fists flying like angry crows around him, and the other, a small, strawberry-blonde girl with welts on her face. I could feel the rage begin to brew inside me again, and gestured for him to place the kidnappers in a special, electric current-ridden room.
We continued through the building, stopping here and there to check on guards and receive their reports. Finding ourselves facing a simple, heavy door, I held my breath and entered the "special" room. The size of an average one-car garage, the room wasn't spacious, but entirely alive with visible waves of electricity. The voltage fanned across the walls, making its way gracefully upward or sideways. It undulated over the floor in small curls, white-hot and pierced here and there by a bright lavender light.
The two kidnappers were near the door, sprawled face-down on top of two sagging dog beds. Their bodies were motionless, perhaps dead. The furthest prisoner's body looked as if it was collapsing in on itself, deflating and decaying from the inside. His flesh looked like butcher paper, brown and brittle with sharp wrinkles and peaks. I was hit with a jolt of guilt when the man closest to me stirred. He lifted his head slowly, jerkily, and swiveled it to look up at us, his body remaining face-down. A beautifully sweet friend looked back at me (Dom), and I met his gaze uncertainly. I remembered back to the report given to me, as I watched while this friend, this gentle, quiet person tried to wrap my son's flailing arms still in his own clothing so he could be easier carried off. I swallowed down my guilt, my love, and gestured for a guard near the door to increase the voltage.
My officer in the gray uniform stood with me in the middle of the room, our bodies unaffected by the electricity cresting all around us. The face of the prisoner, however, began to mottle and dry as the white currents grew more intense. I watched those eyes I once knew roll around uncontrollably and warble in the heat. The officer watched with pale eyes, nodding in approval. Her Justice, I could hear my officer thinking agreeably. Dom suddenly looked up at me, his gaze straight and set, and smiled kindly. "Are you here to save me?" he asked in a hopeful voice, the first words spoken in the entirety of my dream. I felt the guilt like bile in the back of my throat. "Are you my spirit guardian?" he said as his hands shot out and curled around my ankles lovingly. "My soul Queen, my sweet Grace... I have been waiting for you so many lifetimes..." he smiled as he said it, both his grip on my leg and his voice slackening as his body simultaneously melted and charred apart in the heat of electric currents.
I was watching them when one man came up from the shadows at my right side, his face unshaven and mindless. He grabbed me roughly by the arm and threw me to the ground, my head bumping against the cement comically. He held me down with large, clumsy hands and pulled down my pants. The men I was watching before stood up to get a better view, and three or four lined up behind the man, waiting in line for their turn. I realized my arms were manacled to the ground above my head with great, black chains, their stakes sunk deep into the concrete. My legs tried to kick out, but the man's strength was surprising, and he held them down thoughtlessly with a single hand. He began to unbutton his trousers, and the men surrounding us started to laugh. I could hear cruel laughter behind me, above me, aside me, and I snapped. A deep, violet-colored strength coursed through my veins, visible to everybody in the room, and I swelled with righteous anger. My arms, still tethered to the ground, glowed mauve beneath my skin, my dark veins still clear to the eye, and the light seemed to grow so fully that the chains surrounding my wrists burst off with an explosion of metal while my voice screamed with a low, animal sureness.
My arms felt heavy and powerful hanging at my side as I stood up. Lifting my hands to my face, I watched as the glow under my flesh swirled and pulsed, the lilac and crimson light marbling together in a storm beneath my skin. The twenty or so men who were crowded around me began to run away in a confused panic. First, my arm shot out and grabbed the man who had chained me up. Working on what felt like its own accord, my fist plummeted into his greasy neck. I watched my arm do the work unconcernedly and felt his windpipe crush beneath my knuckles. His eyes widened in fear, his breath grew ragged, and my fingers dug easily into the sides of his neck, burrowing beneath the skin and muscle. Blood ran down my wrist, but I kept digging as his eyes finally lit up with emotion. I pulled my hand out with a clean tug and he collapsed to the floor.
The first man who had been waiting in line, waiting for his turn to rape me, was still standing nearby, and I walked up to him calmly, cupped his cheeks in both of my bloodied hands, and twisted sharply. I could hear his neck crack, as well as his ribs and spine, and imagined I could see his ribcage shatter like tiny chicken bones. I let go and let him fall to the floor, as well. A third man who was there, one I knew who laughed the loudest earlier as my assailant tried to begin the assault, stood some ten feet off. My body seemed to float directly toward him, and as I lifted my hand to his face, was surprised to see I was wearing a lobstered steel gauntlet on my right hand. I pulled it off and heard it clang as it hit the ground as my bare fingers dug gently into the man's eye sockets. They wormed slowly further, pushing aside warm bits of wet tissue to find their way in. He didn't say a word as I wiggled my two fingers deep into his eyes, well to the last knuckle. When I pulled them out, his blackened eyes wept tears of blood, and he keeled over, his mouth a perfectly pious o-shape.
When the gaggle of people had cleared off, I could hear the rest of the party was in pandamonium. Voices were screaming and shouting, japing, crying out, and cat-calling. I rubbed what blood off my hands I could and made my way toward the noise. Inside, there was a wooden walkway ringing a large, shadowy room, some twenty feet up in the air. I wound around the ramp that led to the walkway, spying a chubby man in a sweat-stained, gray t-shirt and the small woman he had backed into the end of the walkway. I knew the girl, she had been a best friend of mine throughout high school (Jen), but she cowered in the corner in a way unlike her real-life counterpart. I hurried along and saw him lift her in the air, his grubby hands preparing to throw her over the edge of the walkway. Before he could, I reached him, stayed his body easily with my left hand, and scooped Jen out of his reach with my right. When she reached the ground, I turned to the man, who looked more confused than afraid, grabbed both of his hands, and sidled lightly around his body, tangling his arms around his bloated torso and binding them tightly behind his back. As we marched back down the walkway, I considered hauling him over the edge, but seemed to have satisfied my bloodlust for the night, and we walked on. Back on the ground level, I left him with a pair of armed guards outside a dank, makeshift cage and was given a stout salute.
A man with a clean haircut dressed in an elegant charcoal uniform fell in line beside me and we walked together as he rattled off the day's reports. He never spoke, but waved his hands artfully in front of our faces and conjured up images of what he was trying to express. Two townsfolk were caught and jailed for stealing, another for molesting an old woman, and two for attempted kidnappings. As he told me about the last incident, I watched vividly as grown men tried to wrestle scared children to the ground: one of them was a squalling Gabriel, his fists flying like angry crows around him, and the other, a small, strawberry-blonde girl with welts on her face. I could feel the rage begin to brew inside me again, and gestured for him to place the kidnappers in a special, electric current-ridden room.
We continued through the building, stopping here and there to check on guards and receive their reports. Finding ourselves facing a simple, heavy door, I held my breath and entered the "special" room. The size of an average one-car garage, the room wasn't spacious, but entirely alive with visible waves of electricity. The voltage fanned across the walls, making its way gracefully upward or sideways. It undulated over the floor in small curls, white-hot and pierced here and there by a bright lavender light.
The two kidnappers were near the door, sprawled face-down on top of two sagging dog beds. Their bodies were motionless, perhaps dead. The furthest prisoner's body looked as if it was collapsing in on itself, deflating and decaying from the inside. His flesh looked like butcher paper, brown and brittle with sharp wrinkles and peaks. I was hit with a jolt of guilt when the man closest to me stirred. He lifted his head slowly, jerkily, and swiveled it to look up at us, his body remaining face-down. A beautifully sweet friend looked back at me (Dom), and I met his gaze uncertainly. I remembered back to the report given to me, as I watched while this friend, this gentle, quiet person tried to wrap my son's flailing arms still in his own clothing so he could be easier carried off. I swallowed down my guilt, my love, and gestured for a guard near the door to increase the voltage.
My officer in the gray uniform stood with me in the middle of the room, our bodies unaffected by the electricity cresting all around us. The face of the prisoner, however, began to mottle and dry as the white currents grew more intense. I watched those eyes I once knew roll around uncontrollably and warble in the heat. The officer watched with pale eyes, nodding in approval. Her Justice, I could hear my officer thinking agreeably. Dom suddenly looked up at me, his gaze straight and set, and smiled kindly. "Are you here to save me?" he asked in a hopeful voice, the first words spoken in the entirety of my dream. I felt the guilt like bile in the back of my throat. "Are you my spirit guardian?" he said as his hands shot out and curled around my ankles lovingly. "My soul Queen, my sweet Grace... I have been waiting for you so many lifetimes..." he smiled as he said it, both his grip on my leg and his voice slackening as his body simultaneously melted and charred apart in the heat of electric currents.
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