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ticktopis_observatoriumThe Nightmares keep going after the Professor, relentlessly threatening their sleep with dreadful images, acts and feelings. On a successive series of nights, all the dreams started in the same way:
The Forgotten Quarter, unmistakable with its architecture, impressively preserved despite the many vicissitudes it had to endure, and the remnants of a once much more glorious Silver Tree visible and gleaming in the distance. But all I know is the comfortable darkness, the sweet taste of nectar and the soothing drone of so many daughters, dutifully building a hive that will survive...
Until that peace and contentment was broken by voices, human voices, echoing in the halls seared in burning symbols that change your children's songs and can end a life with the wrong move. They are careless in their giant steps, their heavy weights and clumsy flightless bodies. They kicked stones, roused the dust and shed light on the entrance of the hive. I had enough, and sent my children to teach them a lesson. If they can't carry their own bodies properly, they'll do well to learn how to carry mine...
There is havoc, screams, fire, death... It was expected, and worth the result. I can smell it in the air, feel it in the vibrations of my surviving children. They succeeded, the intruders fleeing, some of them with the scent marks of many eggs developping now within their eyes. Soon they will learn their lessons very well indeed...
From that point, the dreams diverge from each other. The second parts are as follows:
FIRST NIGHT: The Tailor of Identities
A Tailor is a good host. They already have a very developed sight, scrutinizing their surroundings like a predator who knows how to be a prey. A quick analyst of people, their signs, expressions, clothes... Clothes fill my mind without an end. The capability of feeling textures through sight is rare indeed, and so delightful. I could do so much for this Tailor, help them make me grow strong and abundant, nourished aplenty... And they wish to learn about how to represent identities through the burning symbols? So be it...
In time, I guide the Tailor towards their goals. Shaping their sight so they can no longer see expressions, colors and forms in people and their clothes, but symbols, all the information translated directly into Correspondence for them to doodle, dissect, embroider, weave, engrave and dye. It becomes so easy for them, to just understand a person (a prey) with a single glance of their by know swollen, reddish eyes... No longer a threat, any of them, as the Tailor knows themselves capable of disarming and breaking them with a couple of words, just like one makes an ill-fitting suit fall with a couple of cuts. Now if they only allowed the Tailor to show them how they truly are, how to present to be truly themselves, they would be so much happier... And they do, oh they do. The Tailor designs full attires delicately to shape a whole person's life, expression and ambitions, once and again, and again... No longer an Aspiring Tailor, not even an Anachronistic one, but a Tailor of Identities, who makes you become who you already were but didn't know. Humans, such silly beasts...
And when just writing isn't enough, the Tailor's gallblighted eyes guide them towards an even greater fabric. The hide of a singular creature, one whose touch already knows and craves. They corner it, hunt it, best it, then it is theirs... Punished to passivity, reduced to breeding stock and the witness of the skinning of every single one of their offspring, but only when its own hide doesn't grow back quickly enough. And this moment of triumph, this ecstasy of having reached the top, is enough to make their eyes burst in joy, and release a swarm of improved hybrids of them and I in an unsuspecting world of mindless drones.
SECOND NIGHT: The Morbid Saviour
A Socialite is burning with ambition, but won't be a proper host until he lets go of all the layers preventing him from pursuing it at full. Too many attachments, niceties, and complex relationships. He knows of bodies, he knows of death, he knows his own leans close by my fault... That will propel him faster towards his goal, that human -That girl- who fills every waking and sleeping hour- No. Sleeping no more.
I first tear the veil from the Socialite's eyes, allowing him to see who wants to be useful to him, and how much. No longer afraid of abusing them -Not as much as of death in defeat, at least- they know exactly which favours to cultivate, which words to speak and which proposals to make to get the needed people on his side. Scholars, speaking of esoterica trascending death. Explorers, telling of far away places where impossible reagents can be found. Academics, engraving burning pieces of Law within his mind to use when the time comes. A very particular friend, desperate of avoiding his own death, carefully guided towards becoming the most valuable agent in the river that separates the Socialite from his end goal.
No one else could have done it, spoken the necessary words, walked the necessary places, swayed the necessary people to be permitted among the Deathless. No alien kingdom found laws against his passage, no otherworldly creature could snap its jaws at its neck, and no desert could tempt him with unspoken delights, for there was only one left in his mind. And once all those seeds finally bloomed into a garden -The Garden- all its fruit was claimed and pressed, enough to fill a pool big enough to hold all the tears he'd shed out of loss. Enough to fit a tiny, dessicated body so carefully disassembled and ensembled again, so painstakingly engraved with symbols that threatened with something far more terrible than death: Life. Jagged knife of invisible blade in hand, once-haughty blood sacrifice bound and kneeling, enough candles to warm a frozen corpse arranged in almost-circles, ready to call for the rowing friend to come...
Convulsions, tanned tendons snapping at sudden movement, hollowed bones splintering, atrophied muscles ripping, dry lungs coughing dust... A once rigid face emerging from the golden nectar, flesh filling the spaces between skin and bone, rubor running to her cheeks, a glow in her eyes, vitality, hope, confusion... A slowly moving hand with so smooth, pristine nails reaches for the now Morbid Saviour, healthy lips parting to speak words he will never hear... For the sight of that visage alive again is enough for my own seed to bloom, newborn children to partake in the immortal feast, leaving only a hollow vessel behind.
THIRD NIGHT: The Blood-Seeking Maven
This Maven isn't a good host. She is perpetually accompanied by a predator, a superior, whose lymph burns as much as his eyes. I need to play on both of them to assure the survival of my offspring: Have her believe I benefit her more than my absence, and have him believe she'll be better living a short yet fulfilled life than risking losing her entirely to the hatred for my children... Her thoughts are tangled, her priorities overwritten, but there's a constant line from which to pull.
The Maven's mercy and charity are easy targets, her heart beats to pump everyone else's blood. And blood is what she will receive. Her perception changes, allowing her to see other people's pains, sorrows and the loads they bear openly on their skins. Open, bleeding wounds for a doctor to diagnose in plain sight and develop the best treatment. She was already beloved, but now able to surpass any lie, facade, shame or secret she becomes a pillar of so many people, thankful enough to not focus on her progressively swollen, reddened eyes. Her houses fill with guests, her working hours of pilgrims looking for salvation, and her pantries and pockets of well-meaning gifts. It is when she develops her newfound sense for the blood staining other people's hands that she can pursue her true wish: Her sister.
She saw her, traces of her actions on a web of her patients. Wounds opened by her, hands stained red by her, winces, pains and festering infections bearing her mark. Easily establishing connections she ran in pursuit, following a quite unique trail now: Family bonds, forged in blood, the very same blood that runs on her veins and they shared before birth. And it is nothing but blood what she sees in her final destination. So many cuts, pierces, scratches, entire lifes escaping more wounds than a human body could hold, both within, without, and to others. Such pain would have been unbearable to any other, easily turning their back to a lost cause and continue a life already damned to be shortened... But not to this host, who took her time, examined each and every source of pain, every regret and despair, and nursed them to recovery. So many conversations held, so many well-aimed hits at her identity when needed, so many open bridges to burn, one after the other, until finding the right shore from which to jump the river keeping them apart. It was this Blood-Seeking Maven's last chance at fixing what little will remain of her family once she departs...
And right when she does, when her sister finally pronounces the words that would finally fix the Maven's heart for good, the droning in her eyes is too loud to hear. And a final trail of blood leads her to a final death. My released, dutifully nurtured offspring flies free, but do not seek the easiest prey right in front of them. Only one person saw any worth in her, and she existed no more.
FOURTH NIGHT: The Lied Masker
A Piper is a difficult host. Scrambled thoughts, unfocused wishes. A memory made of holes, adequate for nesting, not at all for nurturing. But when their own memory is lacking, I provider others. The mask will prevent anyone from noticing the blight, no one will think twice.
The Piper starts seeing masks all around, in every person's face. They look remarkably like faces, but faces don't have thoughts and emotions written at the front like a poster (or do they? They already forgot how faces used to look like). This makes so easy to be liked by others though, knowing exactly how they feel, what they think about this Piper, what they want to do, what they want to hear. Soon everyone trusts the Piper, and they can see it! Clearly writ on their masks, for them to never forget. People get close, close enough to grasp their masks...
Take them off their faces, put them over their own. And suddenly memories flow, organized, accessible. Whole lifes playing out in their mind. What if they grab another? And then another? So many beautiful masks -beautiful lifes- to choose! But what's that? All of these memories have one thing in common! Fragments, of a Lied Piper. Fragments, of who came before. A kaleidoscope of a thousand pieces, a puzzle to solve. And once enough pieces were found and linked the Lied Masker contemplated themself, for the first time (at least that they remember)... And found out they were no longer that person. Too many masks in the middle, too many holes hastily filled, too dead to do something to change it, as a thousand wasps bearing a thousand faces burst out their face which, in a last moment of clarity, knew it was their own. One that didn't wish for memory, nor even for friendship or love... But for identity.
FIFTH NIGHT: The Apathetic Pawn
This Pawn was already part of a hive before becoming host to my children. A human hive, greater than any mind could fathom, and absurd in all its purpose: Warring for the sake of war, making peace for the sake of peace, and hurting each other for pride. They call it "Game", yet those who play aren't the ones who have the fun. To shape him into a good host, I'll need to separate them from the human hive. So curious, then, that her ambition is exactly the same...
The Pawn is full of fury, raging against injustice, yet misguided, too entangled in human affairs to think like a hive. Revolutions don't destroy a hive, just create a new one. If a non-hive starts accepting orders within its rank, becomes a hive with a different queen. The only actual way of killing a hive from within is inaction, letting it collapse without its base. Apathy is the hive-killer, and it will kill the Game just fine. How? Well, soon the Pawn will become extremely aware of the strings binding all his peers' hands, even her own, and following those strings will signal the puppeteer. But what's that? The puppeteer has several strings attached as well! And so the ball rolls and rolls, soon discovering the so-called Pyramid is more like a spiral cobweb. The Pawn understands, no chance beheading a serpent whose tail has already eaten its head. And cutting strings? They are rewoven as fast, the Game doesn't lack industrious hands. But stopping those hands? It becomes so easy once they notice they already have the most powerful leverage at his grasp: Motivation.
Knowing who gave each player their orders, and which of their hands are held by what goal, promise and ideology, a Portentous Pawn disarms each of those arguments by virtue of truth, and knowledge. She knows who gives orders to the one giving them orders, to which goal actually serves the one promising to help them achieve their own, and who actually benefits from the deeds allegedly furthering their own plans. The Game's most industrious base soon loses pull in the Neath. Black, White or Red seeing their hands stopped by disenchantment, an Apathetic Pawn being their exemplar to follow. And once every voice within the once-hive of the Game is quiet, the true voices of silence can be heard. The voices of those who are not. Of those who want nothing. Those cold, dark voices whose echoes don't make each and every light flicker... Until none remains.
SIXTH NIGHT: The Somewhat-Eerie Man
There is a Mycologist-
No, that is no Mycologist. This is no Forgotten Quarter. I am no gallblighter wasp.
These are the Hanging Mountains, inverted, cold, overwhelming... And right in front of me awaits a Somewhat-Eerie Man. Dressed in formal black, blonde hair standing out together with a red, Melpomene mask the sadness of which did nothing to cover the wide, unsettling grin hiding beneath.
"So, you are his newest disaster..." A slight pause, the softest hint at what may be a laugh. "Really I don't know why I expected something more... Normal."
The weight of such an attention on me is almost unbearable. I can't move, I can't talk, not even the most obvious question. I barely can't think on anything else than that unsettling smile...
"No matter. The point is that beautiful man you were about to torture and kill in your dreams is my husband. And I know, I know, you're screwing each other while awake, he likes that, good job..." The spine-cheeling cheery tone suddenly drops into the most serious, sharp statement. "But this is my domain. I want to keep my dearest husband close and mine while I can, sure you understand..." And there it is, that smile, filling every last corner of my mind, holding any chance at movement far from my body- Do I have a body, even?
"But I know, I know, there's no way you can control what you dream, right? Well, that's why I am here now..." The Somewhat-Eerie Man steps closer, deliberatedly like a predator towards a trapped prey. "I can take this from your head. Call it a favor..." He suddenly has a long, brass needle in his hand, satisfaction gleaming in his eyes like the False-Stars.
"But no need to thank me..." The needle is aimed at my own eye, and yet I can't take my attention from that masked smile. "I am always happy to help." And with a skilled, merciless push, the needle slides right between my eye and socket, straight into my optical nerve, my whole oniric-self petrified, awaiting for the final, sharp blow that will plunge the dreadful tool (Pin, it is a pin, like those that could be at my wings...) into my brain...
I wake up, convulsing, with a stifled cry, a hand quickly raised to cover my assaulted eye, breathing far too fast... The soft, human skin feeling like a relief compared with the usual expected scaly touch, at least this once.
The terror lasts little, mercifully, as while I contemplate the bright gaslight of the False-Down and hear the worried whines of Noa below the bed, I notice the dreams -the Nightmares- that have been tormenting me all week long now are only present in the back of my mind, bizarre memories with no further meaning. And was he...? Oh my.
[Having Recurring Dreams: The Chitinous Conclave is increasing!]
[Nightmares has greatly increased before dropping back to 0!]