. (lostrequiem) wrote in solsticerp, @ 2009-12-18 16:28:00 |
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Current mood: | indescribable |
Saturday: Something's Coming
Who: Sorcha
Where: Ft. Walton Beach, FL
When: the wee hours
Warnings: R for gore, imagery
The children were fresh-faced, most of them young, all of them healthy-looking, dressed in clothes that were clean but nonetheless patched and handed down several times. They ranged from a toddler carried on the hip of the oldest girl to a young man who looked to be fifteen or sixteen, and their hair was varying shades from light blonde to deepest red. They laughed and played on a rocky shore, and the sound of the ocean was loud in their ears. Seven children, four boys and three girls. They'd never had any real reason to be afraid before. They were innocent.
The sky overhead began to darken, subtly. A low rumble of thunder echoed in the distance, but it was not enough to disturb their play. They didn't know, had no warning. No hope. She wished she could tell them, could scream for them to run, to hide. Something's coming.
The wind picked up, blowing their hair around their heads, and they continued to laugh, to spin in circles to chatter in the unselfconscious way of children... until the sky turned black. Lightning broke the sky, and it began to rain with no slow build up but an instantaneous deluge. It wasn't water, she realized as she watched from somewhere overhead, as if she were a god or maybe a ghost. It was thick and warm, staining the clothing and hair of all seven like high velocity splatter. Blood. It was raining blood, and something was coming. Something bad. And in the background, a decrepit stone lighthouse loomed, and the light that poured from its fresnel lens was red.
Sorcha was slicked with sweat as she pitched in her bed, the covers long shoved off to the floor, and her eyes rolled beneath her lids. Her lips moved, but they produced no sound as she mouthed, Darkwater. Dark, it's so dark. A pause as she struggled to awaken, but she was in too deep. A shuddery sob tore from her throat as she descended again.
The road atlas on her bookshelf was lying on the front seat of the car, open to the map of the Oregon coast. The page was dog-eared, and there was a section of the map circled in what looked like a red grease pencil. The smeary circle encompassed a dot on the map labeled 'Darkwater' and another dot out on the water which was labeled 'Eldritch Island'.
The dreamscape changed instantly and abruptly to what looked like a forest with a high security fence topped with barbed wire at its edge. There were sirens shrilling and people running and a long brick building nearby. Another shift, and a slender girl with long blonde hair walked down a street, a street near the water, past a sign that read 'Sandpiper Marina, Darkwater OR'. Her stride was serene, the sun shone, and as she drew closer and closer in the dreamview, she recoiled even from her from-above vantage point as she saw that the girl had no eyes. There were bloody holes in her head, gore streaming down her cheeks, and still she smiled through reddened lips.
Jane. Jane, her name is Jane. In the dream she could not remember why or how she knew who Jane was, but she was filled with a low, creeping terror regardless.
There was a flash, a strange mental shift, and then she saw him, standing outside a door that seemed to be made of glass. Huge, menacing, he lifted a hand and touched it with a finger, and the glass shattered in all directions. He stepped through, and from over his shoulder she could see the limp, eyeless body of the blonde named Jane hanging from a noose in a gnarled, ancient tree. The brutal stranger, hands splotched with blood, pinned her with his gaze and said, "Something's coming. Coming for all of you."
Sorcha flew out of the bed in a near-roll, one slim hand instantly sliding beneath the bed and pulling out her pearl-handled pistol, which she cocked and aimed at the half-open glass door of her condo's bedroom; it led out to a small balcony overlooking the ocean. In her crazed and half-asleep state, she thought she saw someone standing out there, and it was only by employing the utmost restraint that she managed not to shoot through the glass. The slim redhead, hair pulled back in a sleep-fuzzed braid, stood there for nearly five minutes before she put the safety back on and padded out to the living room.
At the bookcase, she pulled out the big road atlas and sat down on the couch, flipping the lamp next to it on and setting the gun on the end table. She opened to the page for the Oregon coast and stared thoughtfully at the section of the map she'd seen in her dream. The dreams had been coming constantly now, more and more vivid each time, and this had been the worst one yet. Now that she was fully awake, she knew who the Jane in her dream had to be. "Something's coming," she whispered, a shudder seizing her as she dog-eared the page. She'd been trying to deny it, trying to pretend that she wasn't being pulled across the United States for a reason of which she couldn't be sure. But she couldn't anymore. If she didn't intercede, something was going to happen to Jane, the sister she hadn't seen in fifteen years. Sorcha knew that as well as she knew her own name.
She sat, stunned and uneasy, on the couch for close to half an hour before hauling herself up to start packing. Most people wouldn't believe her if she told them, but she didn't have a choice.
It was going to rain blood.