Since ancient times, I believe it was once said by the Greek, Homer—dreams are the whispers of the soul. Another saying that has been adopted is that a dream is a wish your heart makes. But I'd like to think a little differently—dreams are nothing more than the reflections of one's inner mind and soul, cryptic shadows of one’s mind. A dream can carry one's intentions towards another, but it can also be a recording of a deeply engraved memory from one's past—be it good or evil.
***
For a fleeting moment, the suspended man was pulled into a dream—a haunting memory that bled from the very marrow of his past. It wasn't just any dream; it was a shard of a time long since buried, forgotten for as long as it existed—a life that had slipped through the sands of time like a forgotten echo.
Within this vision, he stood in the heart of an abandoned alleyway, where only he and a certain young man existed—locked in a moment that stretched beyond the natural world. The boy towered over him, his presence an overwhelming force, his body pressing down with unnatural weight while jagged blades of cold, cruel steel bit into his throat.
Fury burned in the boy's obscure eyes—a seething tempest of rage and determination. A certain glow emanated from his pupils as well.
"Ah... So you're just like me, eh?" the suspended man's past self pointed out, noticing the mana that flowed through the boy's eyes.
"I'm nothing like you, you detestable wretch," the boy replied, his animosity rising up like hellfire, his voice dripping with the sophistication of a Victorian-era aristocrat.
"Oh, don't say that—yer gonna make me hard~! And I didn’t get even get a taste of the last specimen," the suspended man sneered, his Irish brogue thick and menacing.
The suspended man moaned.
"Psycho, don’t you dare…" the young man spat in disgust, his blades pressed further into the suspended man's neck, but the man didn't so much as flinch. His full attention was placed on finding out who this young man was.
The suspended man fought to bring the young man's face into focus, but it eluded him, cloaked by the shadows of a night so tempestuous it seemed to tear at the fabric of reality itself.
"Damn it, have we met by any chance, ol' boy?" the suspended man questioned, intrigued by the character that had him literally by the neck.
But the boy kept silent, his hands shaking—every fiber of his body screaming to slash the suspended man's throat, but no, not just yet. The boy wasn't after some silly revenge by death; he was after the big fish.
‘What’s going on? Wasn’t I tied to chains in some kind of metal basement? How did I get here? And why can’t I control my own limbs. This is weird, it’s like I’m a passenger in my own car. Where am I? Some old ass alleyway and who’s the kid holding me down with a couple of dangerously designed knives and why can’t I see the boy’s face, it’s right there but for some reason his face could not be exposed. ‘This is weird, I can see the person as clear as day, but fer some reason I can’t see the bloody arse’s face. Could this angry kid be…?’ The suspended man wondered.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
The more the silence built, the more the suspended man wondered what was going on with his past self—Why were they in an abandoned alley, what transpired before now, and why did this person truly want from him? The mystery of a single night seemed endless.
Try as he might, the suspended man couldn’t make out any clear details about the boy’s features. Only fragments of their exchange remained, bitter whispers that echoed in the corners of the suspended man’s mind.
Then, all of a sudden, his past self broke the silence. “Kill me then,” he suggested with a wicked smile. His voice, heavy with defiance, rasped like a dying breath. "Kill me then, end it all now! But I swear on me soul—nothin’ will change. Let me guess, one of me, or me, killed one of yer people, like a loved one an’ such.” He then pushed his head forward to say, “So?” His crazed purple eyes showed no remorse or sympathy whatsoever. And the pressure alone he had exerted on the jagged blades made it so that his flesh was pierced, blood dripped down his throat and the crevices of his collar bone like a faulty faucet, but it was still nothing but a simple scratch.
He nonchalantly continued, “Everyone dies, one way or another, be it slow or quick, agonizingly or without even knowing what hit em’, people die nonetheless and that’s just the cold hard truth.” He looked like a man that had danced with the mistress of the end, Death, and was ready to embrace it once and for all.
The young man’s sneer was sharp as a blade, his words flowing with the calm precision of someone born to command, yet carrying an undeniable edge. "Don’t you get it? All the chaos you’ve caused is nothing compared to the hell that awaits you, I will be you judge and executioner.” For a moment, the suspended man caught the glimpse of a wide smile. “I’ll find each and every last one of you wretches, even if I have to go to hell and back, I assure you, I will find you—and I’ll make sure you pay for all the pain you’ve caused…"
The cruel man’s laughter filled the air, cold and hollow, like the sound of metal scraping stone. "Haha, I’d like to see ye try. Ye might’ve caught Slot, Envy, even Gluttony and Greed—hell, ye even caught me, good ol’ Lust. But I promise you, ye don’t wanna try Wrath or Pride, especially Pride. Wrath may be alot to handle and ya’ll probably lose something fighting him but you see Pride—I’d advice ye to start running fer the hills, cuz he ain’t no normal being. He may be docile, calm and collected but he’s the one who kept us split in the first place, and fer a good reason. Yer gonna die boy, an’ I’ll be waitin’ for ya right down there…” Then made a thumbs-down gesture before releasing a barrage of maniacal laughter, “Hahahahahahah…!!”
"You… You bastard…!!" The young man’s voice cracked with fury, a sound that tore through the stillness like a thunderclap. With a single motion, he had slashed through the wicked man’s throat. Blood spurted, dark as sin, flooding the ground in a torrent of crimson. The world seemed to freeze in that moment, the air thick with the sickly sweet scent of blood.
The world seemed to freeze in that moment, the air thick with the sickly sweet scent of blood. The dying man’s laughter bubbled from the gaping wound in his neck, his voice twisted with a dark, feverish thrill. “Hahahahahahahahahaha…! You can’t stop me,” he spat, his violet pupils burning with twisted exhilaration. “I fear nothing fer I am many, ye can’t end me ‘cause I am a curse that lingers till the very end. I am yer never-ending nightmare!!”
His body slumped, lifeless, but his smile remained—contorted in its last mocking gesture—as he bled out on the cold, unforgiving stone of the alleyway.
Then the suspended man woke up with a start. “Ah…!” he screamed in fright of his dream-like death, his voice hoarse from dehydration. He was back in the bloody, iron chamber, still suspended, still a prisoner of pure torture and torment, of which he had no knowledge of why he was being punished or what crimes he had committed in his past.
The suspended man felt dehydrated and starved, his lips as well as his inner mouth completely chapped and dry from the lack of fluids, so much so that he could hardly speak. His purple eyes were sunken and lifeless—devoid of the glimmer of life that gave them colour and contrast, engulfed in the one colour, red. His body had taken the worst of the torment—from his wrist to his dried, bloody stumps for feet, his wrist's ulna and radius, thigh's femur and even his spine were bold and striking in their position, even his ribcage bones poked out from his flesh. He was no different from a living mummy.
The worst imagery of them all was his heart, which was drained of all its blood, yet still beating vibrantly nonetheless. As the suspended man glanced across the room, he noticed a few changes—the lit candles, casting flickering shadows on the walls, giving warmth to the dull atmosphere of the room. The new candles flared and burned ever so slowly, and there were less and less of the floating orbs of light in the iron chamber. The room was bathed in an eerie silence, the only sound the soft crackle of the candles and the distant whisper of the morning breeze that filtered into the chamber via the dark hallway.
The suspended man was tired and wanted more than anything to be free from this nightmare, but he sighed a breath of relief at the fact that, at the very least, there was no sign of the mysterious hooded man in sight…
Or so he thought.
Suddenly, the air seemed to thicken, and the suspended man felt a presence behind him. He tried to turn, but his body wouldn't move. A menacing whisper breathed against his ear, "Did you have a sweet dream…? Or… Perhaps a nightmare…" The suspended man's heart skipped a beat as the hooded man's hot breath sent shivers down his spine.
---