Galen Vesa

Darkness. Darkness without a sense of being. Darkness without a slightest sound.

Void.

Everything always starts from there for what’s a better beginning then emptiness?

Before I came to be, before my “I” manifested, nothing but void existed. Void and him. Restless, silent, the Jailer watches over the void with his cold, cold eyes. Always.

Then it begins to bubble. The void, twists and turns and condense and there is me.

Out of the void first conscious thought emerges and it is mine. And the Jailer watches over it.

Sometimes I get the feeling he will grab me and cast me back into the void. But he never does. His eyes are devoid of emotions, only purpose marks his will. Perhaps he is the will?

Then come the voices.

Sounds and echoes of… me? For the most part of my life that is what others made me believe. It’s all in your head, you are sick, just take a pill and all would be hunky-dory. So, I did. I swallowed chemical rainbows, pharmaceutical marvels and where did it lead me? To a room full of blood and snow. Curious thing, really. I’ve been found inside my room, buried under three feet of snow during a midsummer heatwave.

At least that is what I remember. I opened my arm with a kitchen knife, one with a long and chopping blade.

Immediately after I pulled out the blade, fire gushed out. Sea of flames spread out burning me and everything else around.

I laughed, laughed madly, rolling on the floor in a blissful release when he came. And the frost and fear came with him. Flames dimmed and cowered, making way for his ice-covered boots.

The Jailer stopped above me, heavy chains bound around his arms and his chest. One of his boots crushed my arm and my wound while the other, his other boot crushed my face.

That’s about the last episode I ever had. Until now.

The Spell, this pain… I have not felt it for a long eleven years. I have felt nothing ever since I woke up in that hospital.

Sometimes, some of my memories brought back a familiar sensation or one of Erta’s dreams leaked enough feelings to reach me but at those times I knew. Knew those were neither real, nor truly mine but that pain...

The Jailer faded away as tiny bright spots begun spreading around all over the Void. It was time for the last part of the episode. The Vision.

When I was still a kid, I liked this part of my episodes. Always colorful. Always interesting. Always more amazing than a lucid dream.

Visions took me to see people and places. Some were far away places. Some were fantastic places. Some had people that were not people. Some had no life or time at all.

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That is until we run out of pink pills. I tried the blue ones, but they did not work on me. Then my father died, and I had no pills at all.

When that happened, the voices grew stronger. The episodes more frequent and the visions, visions no longer showed me any happy places. The red room became all I ever saw.

A room full of red. A room with an altar of dripping crimson over which man-beasts, raped and killed the beast-men, shouting the name of the bloody one. And I felt her gaze upon me.

And then I would awake, unable to move. Unable to open my eyes. Unable to scream. Locked inside a nightmare.

But that was then now, the dream would not end. Forced to endure screams of the sacrifice, time and time again, I stood and watched. Watched unable to do anything. Watched until the blood reached my ankles.

“You’re not from around, aren’t you?”

A woman’s voice pulled me away in an instant. Suddenly, endless blue sky stretched above my head while my bare, bloodied feet, brushed against fluffy, green moss. Next to me, a young woman in a plain leather dress, sat cross-legged on a mossy stone. Her short brown hair danced in the wind.

“That’s okay, I think.”

She gave me a heartful smile.

“Time and space in this place tend to go a bit wonky out here. Too much magical junk buried alongside their owners. Like, once I took a wrong turn in the tomb and poof, a week had passed since my breakfast! I always tell them to dispose of the artifacts and make copies if they want to bury the fancy trinkets alongside their owners but no, Stop complaining and do your job, they say. Haaa… All that rouge magic. ”

“Oh, by the way, what’s your name? My name is Alirea.”

Her plum eyes sunk inside my soul. Was she really asking me?

“Not very talkative, are you? A?”

And why exactly should I talk to a delusion? Although, this one seemed quite pleasant to be with.

“Galen.”

I spoke after a while, making her jumped up. She lost balance and almost fell off her stone.

“Whooo?! So you can speak! That startled me.”

Sudden wind brushed the green moors, sending ripples like waves through the see.

“Beautiful.”

I felt mesmerized.

“Haa, of course it is! That’s why I come here all the time! It’s the most alluring place in the whole empire! You should see it bathed in the moonlight…”

A maddening howl broke the silence of the moors.

“Eh, I take a break and here they come again.”

Annoyed and visibly tired the girl took off her bracelet. It turned into a long staff in her palm.

“They?”

I asked, watching the crimson glow of the jewel mounted at the top of the staff.

“Dooh? The Undead? The result of what happens when a quack of a wizard fiddles with immortality. They tried to cheat death by binding a soul to a body. All they got was a spirit going mad inside a rotting corpse. Nasty stuff I say. Not to mention how cruel the curse is. You cannot leave this world until the last bits of your earthy shell crumbles to dust but even then, who knows?”

“Saaaaay, you’re not one of them aren’t you? You know, one of those ghosts? I hate ghosts! They are so creepy! Especially the male ghosts! All those perverts want to do is peek under my dress!”

Accusingly, she stabbed my chest with her finger. Or at least that what’s she intended. Instead, her arm sunk deep inside me. With a poop, the bubble that I was shuttered, and tiny glowing bits no longer held together, begun drifting off with the wind.

Suddenly, there were tears in her eyes. As if through that touch alone she come to know me more than I ever knew myself.

“I’m sorry… so sorry… I didn’t know!”

She cried trying to hug me.

“I’ll make sure you’ll get it, yes, you will need it. Just be careful! The northern passage is the worst!”

Another gust of wind pushed me back into the void. She cried out some more words which I could not grasp as the darkness took me.

I woke up later, with an unpleasant headache and painful throbbing in my arm. My butt still felt as nagged as before. My pillows as annoying and cumbersome as any pillows their size and the dragon lady crying her eyes off in my head signaled I was back.

“Hey roomie? Still alive in there?”

*Galen! Thank heavens!*

“Does that mean you missed me?”

*Get up you dolt! Something is coming! *