I have these dreams that I'm free...

~

I haven't always had the horns atop my head.

Nor much of a head at all, if I'll be honest.

I think I really realized that when I was lying at death's door on the cold, hard ground with no clue where I was.

I'd just woken up after who knows how long, only to be stuck in a dark, rocky void of an empty nothingness, surrounded by what I imagined to be a giant stretch of open space.

Part of me was terrified. Like wanting to crawl in a corner and hope not even God remembers I exist. Not that he does anyways.

Another part of me felt at peace. Not just in the fact that I was finally alone, but in knowing that my life wouldn't last for much longer.

The top of my head was touching a hard surface, presumably a wall, and I used my hands to sit myself up and lean against it.

Using my core, though? Big mistake. Something was either broken or badly damaged, and I immediately wished I hadn't moved.

The scuffling of my shifting and the grunts of my pain echoed for what seemed like an eternity, faintly ricocheting in what I now imagined to be a vast and endless space.

Where am I?

As I drifted into consciousness and left the hazy limbo of confusion I was in, I started to notice one thing: I hurt. I really hurt.

Why was I in so much pain? What did I do??

I felt my mouth start to salivate - well, try to; I was dying of thirst, and probably quite literally dying of something.

My hands were wet, presumably with blood. I mean, even I'm smart enough to know that. Yet, I couldn't bring myself to remember why I was in this state, or what got me in this wherever I am.

As my heart began to speed up, I looked out into the cold and empty darkness in front of me. I could truly see nothing - not even my hands or any of my wounds, which were starting to radiate with a dazing pain.

I could hear my blood in my ears, and even my breathing echoed off of hundreds of surfaces.

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But I heard something else beginning to power over the quiet feedback of my panic... it sounded like... a growl. And it was loud. There were two distinctly different sets of growls, and it reminded me of cats or dogs fighting.

The only problem was: it was getting louder very quickly, and I'm in no room to avoid whatever damage they're going to cause.

Surely enough, the growling became full-blown snarling, and I could hear the scraping of claws and an occasional yelp. I knew for sure that the animals sounded like wolves, which wasn't reassuring at all, and by now I was almost certain that they were just a few feet away from me.

I held my breath as my heart raced. My blood pressure was rapidly pounding into my abdomen and a few other places around my body, and I thought I would die if I spent another second holding in the tears and screams I so badly needed to let out of me, but I couldn't draw attention to myself.

The fighting animals were practically tearing at each other now, and after a minute or two of them brutally ripping each other apart, I heard a loud yelp, a splatter of blood, and the thud of a body hitting the ground.

One of them had won the fight, and was huffing like a victor, not an injured animal. It was ready for more.

Its breathing slowed, and it went quiet. I could hear its paws ever-so-gently touch the floor as it turned towards me.

Please don't know I'm here.

The tiniest rumble began to emanate from its throat. The beginnings of a growl.

Please don't know I'm here.

I didn't have long to panic, because a light creeped out from the distance, illuminating what I suspected I was in all along: a cave. A long, endless cave, and I seemed to be at the center of it, in a large and narrow cavern maybe half the length of a football field long and just as wide, while being maybe 10 feet tall.

I had to look away because my eyes had adjusted to the dark, but from what I saw through my squinting, a humanoid figure with brownish-black, curly horns - a demon - wearing a strange, multicolored outfit, wielded a long sword that burned with a bright yellow flame.

I hadn't seen a demon since Lockwood, and I hadn't seen that sword since then either.

Maybe that guy is responsible. In which case, I shouldn't feel any safer.

And it is safe to say that I definitely didn't feel any safer whatsoever.

The demon blitzed around a corner, cackling like a wild maniac with his flaming sword raised and the brightness of the blaze reflecting in his red eyes which were wide with joy. He was sprinting towards the animal, which looked like a wolf, but a bit wider and its fur was in small clumps.

Despite the wolf-looking creature's best efforts and all of its snarling and growling, it stood no chance against the demon, who had fun poking and prodding at the beast until he eventually realized it was tired and just slashed it right in half like he took a sharp knife to paper.

After so effortlessly demolishing the creature, he turned to me, his sword still dripping in sizzling blood, and my heart sank.

How did I get here?

The demon reared back and raised his sword once more, flicking the blood off of it with two clean swipes. Then, with a third swipe, the flames that once illuminated the whole cave were put out, and I was left in total darkness and fear, not knowing what would happen to me next.

As the demon before me cackled once more and the last of the flames vanished just as I was sure my life soon would, as time stretched out infinitely, the past few days sort of flashed before my eyes.

And then I remembered everything.