Reminded why I’ve gotten in the habit of placing myself at certain “safe spots” as soon as hypnagogia hits. To just float off into sleep without tying my ass down somewhere is always asking for trouble. It didn’t help that Horatio was suddenly in my face, trying to surround me.
“No, dammit. I thought we settled this. Knock the shit off. The fuck you doing this for, and why are you doing this now?” He didn’t answer me. He didn’t say anything. The normally snarky and impudent backtalker didn’t have a syllable of defiance. That was my warning. One I completely ignored. Because I’m Weaver, and I can go anywhere I damn well please.
Oh, hubris. Fuck you.
I commanded him to retreat to his trinket, held in my right hand. I felt resistance at first. A “You sure about that?” hesitation. Then swift and silent compliance. Too swift. Too silent. Leaving me alone in a strange world. The sunlight was so bright, the glare was so intense, I could only make out I was standing on white dirt. Everything was white. Including the trees in the distance. I’ve never been here before. Where the hell did I float to?
“Fancy meeting someone like you in a place like this.” The deeply androgynous voice was soft with a hint of predator. I just made something’s day. The voice came from a sudden humanoid body in front of me. Glassy and semi-transparent, the form refracted the sun’s rays, blinding me. I noted it did not have a head, and wondered what kind of mythos was this.
“I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Guess I better head back the way I came. Didn’t mean to intrude. I’ll be going now.”
Before I could form the desire to backtrack, the voice was behind me. Something soft was gripping my right hand. “You put it away? I’ve never had something just offer themselves to me for devouring before.”
On the one hand, I was surprised it saw Horatio as a threat. I’ve been learning how Horatio isn’t the simplistic bitchy spirit he had allowed me to perceive him as. On the other hand, this wasn’t the time to turn over the implied information. The speaker is slowly sealing my right hand, and with it Horatio’s trinket. It did not want him to come out and play. I’ll have to play with the new puzzle piece some other time. Right now, I need to leave.
“I make a horrible appetizer, I’ll have you know. I’ve been known to give would-be diners a vicious attack of flaming indigestion.” I tried to pull away gently, only to find the rest of the speaker’s mass had surrounded me and was trying to flow over me. A brilliant white, sentient, blob.
My legs and arms were quickly pulled in deep to the mass. I bent forward to keep my head free and considered summoning my wings to fly me free. As soon as I formed the thought, I dismissed it. This thing is a morpher, and its instinct was to grab extremities. It would grab my wings at once and pull me even deeper.
I considered my usual defense of self-immolation. Then noted how cold my hands and feet were. The blob wasn’t trying to intentionally chill me. It was absorbing my warmth as part of its feeding. Why would something be intentionally transparent in this bright world? To allow heat to penetrate to the inner core. If I flamed up, it would feed off that and drain me even faster.
“You look tired. Just relax. You’ll rest soon enough.” Aw hell, naw!
“Do you always consume folks you just met? You sound like someone fun to verbally spar with.”
“I’ve had the company of several human magi lately. Their knowledge is still working through my system.” It’s answer did not make me feel better.
Wait. It ‘eats’ humans, but is making a hard shell around my right hand and Horatio’s trinket. What’s the difference between me and Horatio? One is alive. The other is dead. One is growth, the other is…
I called to mind a scene from a horrible nightmare. One of the few that made me wake up screaming. In it, I had been infected with a horrible disease. My body was rotting but I was still alive. Everything I touched decayed at once. Every living creature I touched died and fell apart in seconds. I had become an embodiment of blight.
I became it, again.
Surrendering all sense of my humanity to the memory, I felt a sudden connection to the Boneyard. I heard ravens in the thousands, cawing in my head. I smelled the burning bones and the ever present ash. I tasted the decay of exposed flesh. Tasted, inhaled, and wrapped it around me.
The blob suddenly shuddered around me. It let go of me so quickly, I fell backwards fully into the receding creature. It was like falling back into a giant-bean bag. I heard a high-pitched squeal of pain and shock. I opened my eyes to find my skin had turned a shade of greenish black, while my veins stood out in streaks of red and green. Where the blob had made contact with my body, horrible streaks of brown and virulent green were spreading through the blob’s mass.
Still gripping Horatio’s trinket tightly in my right hand, I shook off the soft decaying remnants of imprisoning shell the blob had tried to form. I turned over to get to my feet, planting more of my blighted body into pristine areas of the creature. More high-pitched squeals came from it.
It’s membrane had been ruptured in several places, and it was leaking internal juices as it slowly moved away from me. I knew it was as good as dead. It had suffered too much damage from my blight. I watched green streaks advancing towards its interior.
I was worried I had inadvertently unleashed a plague into this world. My blighted body was not affected by the intense sunlight. But when I saw what happened to the blight that oozed from the blob, I was placed at ease. Once sunlight hit it directly, it darkened to black streaks that dried and crumbled into ash.
The blob was now several feet away from me. It had ceased making the panicked noise. I could feel death embracing it. I waited until the blight had consumed it all, then having nothing more of the blob to feed on, was destroyed by the intense sunlight of this world.
I remained blighted in case others were watching. But I wanted to make sure I left nothing behind. Once all that remained of my would-be predator were strange stains on the white dirt (biologically inactive and not a threat), I hung Horatio’s trinket to my belt, extended my blighted wings, and left this world.
I went to the Boneyard, still blighted. Once there, I shook it off me like so much dusting. The ravens that watched me nodded in approval. My humanity restored, I bowed to the ravens and left the dream entirely.
Guess I better get on with my day.