Page 7 of The Shadowed Oracle
Three repulsive white visages with black fangs and black tongues came barreling at her. The shadow of a bent-kneed, rapier-thin figure hovered over her shoulder. A pallid, bloodless ghoul with a gash the size of a tennis ball where its left ear should’ve been widened its mouth as if to scream, but no sound followed.
The nightmares came one after the other, like they had minds of their own. They never spoke. They did not have clear enough voices to do so. Yet they always seemed to convey that one devastating message:give up. End the misery, admit she was broken, once and for all.
This was where the visions would come in. At their worst, snippets of her past would flash before her eyes. She’d see the nearly empty apartment she lived in with her father. She’d see the shell of a man that her father became at the end of their time together, passed out in a pile of empty bottles. She’d see herself sitting on the cold floor of the living room, no electricity, the sparse amount of food in the fridge already spoiling.
It was like the nightmares were trying to remind her—she’d never known love, and never would.
But she didn’t give up. She never had.
Years earlier, she’d gone to all manner of doctors for help. Even those who didn’t call themselves doctors who practiced things from faraway places and long-forgotten times. Acupuncture, exorcists, strict dieting and exercise, seances and spiritual rituals. They all proved futile, of course, but even then, she didn’t quit. She turned to temporary fixes instead. New poisons, both street and pharmaceutical, then washing it down with alcohol for what was already poisoning her from the inside.
The inebriation didn’t solve anything, but it did dull the senses enough to instill a healthy amount of carelessness. Due to her impossibly high tolerance (inherited from her father, no doubt) it was easy to work while under the influence, making it far from a cry for help.
It was a screaming mantra of “fuck it” to the world.
She would never give up.
“Fuck off,” she whispered through her teeth, smacking her head a few times before graduating to a full slap across her face, causing her ears to ring, the heat welling in her jaw, her eyes.
“Fuck off!” she demanded.
“FUCK OFF!”
Almost in answer, the shower curtain fluttered and the lights seemed to dim. Her eyelids jolted open, watching breathlessly as she sank further into her crouch, peering over her knees.
The curtain shifted again.
It wasn’t a waft of air. It wasn’t a shadow. It was a pitch-black hand appearing from behind the white fabric, pulling it open slowly.
“No,” she whispered. “Go away. You can’t hurt me.”
The visions didn’t comply. That dark something wormed its way inside and showed her more suffering, more hopelessness. It enveloped her whole before expanding into a dark and twisted landscape in every direction. Her eyes were still wide. She was awake. She was lucid. Still in her shower, but nothing else about her surroundings looked like home.
Ingrid saw rotting trees toppling to the ground and being devoured by the soil. She saw deformed creatures feeding on rancid flesh. She saw everything good and full of life perish under unstoppable nothingness. A void swallowing the Earth and all of humanity.
She saw the end of the world. The end of everything as she knew it. In every way that mattered, it was real. Looked real. Felt real. Just as real as her drive to work every day, and just as believable as the people she interacted with. It was real, for the moment.
They can’t hurt me, she reminded herself.It’s only in my mind.
Her sick, uncooperative mind. That was all. It couldn’t touch her. If the nightmares could reach out and harm her, they would’ve.
“Please,” she said under her breath. “Please go away.” Not begging now, nor pleading nor cursing, but requesting. As if she’d become so familiar with the monsters and the visions that she felt she owed them some social decorum.
Just for tonight—please not tonight.
Come back tomorrow.
Tomorrow I can take it.
Just not tonight.
No more tonight.
But there would be no respite.
That night, there was no rest for the hunted.
Chapter Four
