The world was shades of grey. Even the sky was grey, like midwinter heavy with clouds that blocked the sun, but still gave a diffuse sort of light that killed fine details and shadows.
Her chest felt tight, like someone had wrapped bands of metal around it and ratcheted it until she could barely breathe. There was somewhere she had to be, something she had to do... people who needed her, but her feet felt like lead and every step was a stumble that threatened to pitch her to her knees so no matter how much she wanted to run, she couldn't. Time sped by as she struggled, but she barely made it any where, the barren trees lining a path that forked every couple hundred feet to places she wanted to go. They weren't the place she needed to be though and she needed to hurry... people were counting on her to make it there, to save them from some threat she couldn't remember, but feared anyway.
I have to hurry... I have to hurry... I'm going to lose them. All of them.. Fear choked her, thick as sludge in her throat. She didn't want to lose anyone, but the more she rushed, the less progress she made.
A column of darkness swirled like a cyclone past the trees, rising up forever into the sky. She could hear it rushing as it sucked the world into it in great droughts, stone flying through the air to sink into its darkness. Even the ground was cracked and split, great slabs of concrete jutting up at odd angles and making footing treacherous. She fell and cried out as a bed of broken glass cut her palms and made her bleed, but when she lifted her hands, it was not her blood that coated the broken skin... Everywhere she looked, bodies lay sprawled in positions of death, their eyes and mouths open and staring at her, filmed over like days old corpses.
Her mouth worked as horror ripped through her, but no sound would come out. Something blocked her voice. Throwing out her hands, she knelt and reached helplessly for the last of the people who stood with their backs to her.
No! Don't leave me! I don't want to be alone... don't leave me alone... They couldn't hear her heart breaking as it cried out for them and one by one they crumpled and fell like marionettes with their strings cut. One moment standing as a person stands, the next flopping to the ground, boneless. The tang of fresh blood bit at the back of her throat, but there was no escaping the smell of death. She knew it far too well... how many bodies had her hands passed over in her time? She'd lost count... or stopped counting when the weight of the numbers threatened to crush her.
One by one the last of the people died before her and she could do nothing, but watch them fall. Something kept her there, chained to the broken-glass ground and made her watch them die. Made her know that no matter how many left, she would remain... each life a sword through her heart, ripping it to shreds. There was always some small bit left though, because each person that died cut a new part of it away with the same pain as the first... and still she had to watch, unable to do anything to stop it.
The faces of the people she loved lay in a sea around her shuddering form, their expressions blaming her for their deaths and begging her to save them in equal parts. She wanted to lay down beside them and die too, follow them into that other world, but this one would not let her go, her chains glowing with light around her wrists. The metal bands around her chest glowed too, armor she once thought would protect her now damning her to this living hell. If they couldn't reach her life, they couldn't take it and it trapped her soul like a bird in a cage, longing to fly free to where the others waited for her.
She was alone, so very alone... wrapped in silence save for the rushing of the dark column of destruction as it ate the world, inches at a time. Everyone was gone and she was so alone... She screamed, soundless and steeped in despair. I want to die... I want to die... Please... make this agony end...
A man came and ran his taloned finger across the bars of her cage, producing a sharp tap tap tap sound. His smile was fangs dripping with blood below a bone mask, feathers blotting out the sky and the world outside the glowing bars of her cage.
You haf' no idea what youf' done... Youf' caused all of zis. Stupid girl. Weak. Useless. They died because of you. You FAILED. His voice was thick and husky as it had been in the midst of his pleasure, when words had failed him and he'd spoken only things she didn't understand. Tar burned down her arms, over the curves of her chest and thighs, echoing the paths of fingers. Her flesh was purple with bruises, but the pain was welcome. Pain was punishment, pain was what she deserved for what she had done, for the things she had failed to do.
I can't do this... I can't. I'm not strong enough. She collapsed into herself and the world broke apart, sucked into the hungry column of darkness as she fell down and down and down...
...
Orah woke with a grasping cry, jerked upright in bed as she panted for air past the loosening of imaginary bands around her chest. Strands of brown hair stuck to her damp face, caught in the corner of her mouth as her eyes slowly focused on her dark room. Her night shirt felt tight and confining, twisted around her waist from her tossing and turning. Impatient and shaking, Orah pulled it off over her head and threw it onto the floor, stripping off her bottoms the same way and sending them to join it in an untidy pile.
The hum of traffic through her open window was low and comforting, a bit of normalcy that eased the sharp edge of nightmare. A stray finger of wind wandered through the opening to tease across damp skin and Orah shivered, suddenly chilled.
It had been a dream, just a dream. There was no prophecy in it, only day time fears worked into her subconscious. Her skin was clear and unmarked, save for the trio of scars long since healed. Even the cast she'd worn was gone and the burns from tar healed earlier than that. The doctors had been amazed at her speedy recovery from the fracture, but it had been unsurprising to Orah. She healed faster than any normal person, faster even than a normal senshi or knight after the glow had appeared on her skin.
Slender, tan fingers ran through tousled locks, catching in sleep-wrought tangles. She sat that way for a while, moonlight highlighting the curves of shoulder, hip and cheek until the sweat had dried and the chill of autumn air grew too much for her. Rolling onto her side, her back to the door, Orah pulled the fluffy comforter up to her neck and drew her knees up, burying her nose into down that smelled still of the wash.
It was just a dream... everyone was alive still. She had watched them all die, but she had gotten them back. They were safe, and if it took even the last spark of her life to keep them that way, she would. Curling up tighter, Orah wished sadly for arms to wrap around her, shield her from her fears, but there were none. The only arms that had ever held her were a lie, long since buried in a grove of silver barked trees with pink leaves. The only arms that would ever hold her would only be borrowed for a time... she would learn to live without them, even if the aching want never really went away.
Warmth crept slowly back into her curled form and with it came sleep again, this time dreamless and deep. The finger of wind rolled a dark curl across her forehead, but she never noticed, lashes black smudges across her cheeks.
