Brooks’ heart raced, his breaths coming in quick succession as an invigorating burst of adrenaline coursed through his veins.
It unlocked something so deep within his soul that the blood sizzled within his veins. Shadows pulsed around him with every labored breath as his mind tunneled into chaos. Brooks squeezed his eyes shut as his fractured mind cracked further and opened the floodgates to the whispers lost in between the stars.
He screamed as voices forced their way inside and converged all at once, becoming louder…
“….I give myself…”
And louder…
“…take me to the void between the lights…”
And louder…
“…the chaos filled night…”
…until he was wholly consumed by pandemonium.
***
Brooks rocketed back to awareness with the grace of a train wreck. His eyes sprang open, pulse throbbing and sweat coating his clammy skin only to realize in abject horror that his body was still experiencing the paralysis of a waking dream.
Bile burned his throat as his paralyzed body lay prone to the stalking shadows. Soft feminine whimpers drifted through his door, but his mind was too preoccupied with the swirling shadows blackening the room to listen in.
Sobs choked him as the nightmare stepped from the darkest corner of the room. The demon flashed in and out, its form shifting between one physical plane and another– first human and thenother. Its smile sent shivers of dread down Brooks’ spine. He wanted to beg it to leave him be, or bargain with the desolate gods who never cared to answer, but his body turned to ice and his eyes refused to close.
The mass of swirling shadows stopped at the foot of the bed and stared intently. All sense of time vanished, and what he found looking back was scarier than any demon from the depths.
It was like staring in a mirror.
Shaggy raven locks, defined cheekbones and a slim athletic frame hid under baggy tan scrubs. Eyes the color of burning blue hellfire illuminated the dark space and black, webbed veins wriggled under glassy skin. Ethereal power rolled from the demon and it made Brooks’ clammy skin crawl.
Sharp pain lanced through his mind as he tumbled toward unconsciousness.
A familiar baritone voice whispered a million light years away. “Tick Tock…”
“What–” he choked, “What do you want?”
“I want you to wake up. You’ve been useless long enough.”
The demon sneered, its voice edged with cruelty like humanity had never touched its soul.
“We have recovered a missing piece of our chaos. She has sacrificed herself to us and it is time to make them all pay. We gave them everything, and they shit on us like ungrateful swine. The darkness calls for blood, and it will not be ignored.”
Hellfire flared in its eyes before as he raised an ink-dipped hand and called forth the shadows. One flick of the wrist and they bolted toward Brooks’ paralyzed body.
The shadows barreled down his throat, forcing his back to arch off the bed as they assaulted him. The darkness seeped into his bloodstream and overcame his senses, shrouding his mind and stealing his awareness until nothing but the void called his name.
Pain.
It was all Brooks could feel as his mind rallied to wake. Cold heavy tile lay atop his prone form, pressing unbearably at every point of contact and pinning him to the bed.
Wait.
Brooks opened his eyes and realized that the tiles weren’t on top of him. Quite the opposite as he was lying on the scuffed floor of his room, the scratchy hospital-grade blanket carelessly wrapped around his torso. His cheek was plastered to the yellowed tile, saliva gluing it in place. He did a quick inventory of his body and, once he deemed himself mostly unharmed, pushed into a sitting position.
He leaned back against the metal-framed bed, stretched his stiff limbs, and pondered just how the hell he had ended up on the floor.
“Good morning, sunshine,“ a beautiful, sleep-laced voice rang. “Did you sleep well?”
