Betrayal of the Light

Three

    Pain awaits my eyes to open wide into predawn darkness. I stand up from the bed, a bad move on my part which intensifies the headache. It now resembles the feeling of having spikes embedded on the inside of my skull, piercing through the matter of brain.

    “This is insane,” I whisper through my teeth. “No darkness of this world can be as dreadful as the one that slithers through my mind.”

    Those bloody doubts loom in my head, still. Cold sweat runs in trickles down my temples and neck. I run my fingers through the strands of hair that were hanging over my eyes, slicking them over the crown of my head. The wet, almost greasy, texture aids them to stay in place. My vision thus freed, I ground myself in the reality surrounding me. Have I dreamt? I must have. Though it seemed so real to me only moments before, my sudden awakening opened a rift between me and the bloody image of that man. He, who stood upright in front of me; whoever he was, for his head turned away. His features… blurred beyond the point of recognition. But his body I recall clearly, for it was dismembered at every joint: neck, shoulders, elbows… wrists, hips, knees… and ankles. Every cut clean and precise, the limbs held together as if through invisible wires. Whenever he moved, ever so slightly, those wires would cut again, creating chaotic bloodlines across the grey skin. There was no blood pouring out of them, still I heard a rhythmic drip over an echoing surface. After what seemed an eternity, he violently turned his head to face me.

    “I know who you are,” it sounded, neither a whisper nor a growl.

    Then, the pieces shifted and fell broken to the ground, splashing blood on my face and leaving nothing but a dark nebula behind.

    I light the candle to deepen the post-oneiric rift. That skull seems to follow me pacing around the room from the depth of its empty sockets. No chairs; there is no place to sit down around the room. So, I rest my weight on the palms pressed against the edge of the desk. Withdrawing them after a moment, I find them to be covered in dust under the flickering flame. No one has taken a breath in here since forever. I wonder how long I have been dreaming myself into oblivion between timelines.

    On the wall, above the table, a single word was scrawled in what appears to be blood; though long since dried. I raise an eyebrow at the sight of it. “Death” seems to stare me in the face. Underneath, a map has been sealed to the wall, covered in unintelligible notes of… mine? Or, so I presume, as I have no recollection of writing them.

    I bring the candle closer, to study the clearest line, dividing the waters I find myself in from other drawings. Settlements and forests spread out; dots and scribbles covering the land until they turn to the emptiness of some deserted plains. Though, the ink faded, and the paper darkened. Where is that damn, God forsaken church?

    Resign, I move my attention away and start going through the drawers, until I find stacks of sketches. Hundreds of faces framed in warnings. I take this as a bad sign, an incentive justified when I read the notes that allude to them being wanted murderers. Disappointing, however, that my scrutiny of them awakens no more memories or visions. The one I remembered hours ago is not among them. Would I even be able to recognise him? I think back for a while. No, impossible; his face was drenched in shade.

    Sigh. I throw them on the desk, where they scatter between ashes and pieces of graphite. I must have either killed them or was about to from this point in time onward. Their faces roam through my mind in search of stories. Blank. Never mind. If I am right, then any one of them could have been the horseman I am here to hunt. That righteousness in lack of compassion I felt was duly justified. The fate of humanity is at stake.

    Their murderous past, yeah, that haunted them to death and that is laid out in front of me. Gathering from the past unravelled in form of sketches and notes, I can be certain; somewhat certain. Though my memory has in part failed me long ago, I refuse to search beyond what lies before me out of the contempt I feel enshrouds them. This truth is as real as the sunlight that once burned my eyes: they died so they can do no further harm. They died so Death could not rise. But, if so, then many have died by my hand in this quest where does that leave me?

    I know not what I am to this world, neither evil nor divine. It seems I have shed enough blood for both. In the end, those are such relative terms; who am I to define them?

    Sigh. At least I found a place to rest these weary thoughts. There must be something else…

    From under the desk I pull out a drawer with an impulse that felt not mine, as if I had prior knowledge of it being there. I did not. Besides, it was well concealed, I must admit. Inside it lies the treasure of this ship: an extra stash of daggers, the same as the ones I keep up my sleeve, an ornate sextant and a diary. I move the objects atop the dusty wood and hold the latter up against the warm light. It is bound in dark, gnawed leather with barely a hint of sheen. The thing is foreign to my touch, accompanied by a feeling of impending doom; as if it was about to uncover something that should not be. But, if it be mine, how can such a feeling be attached to it?

    I chase away those doubts as I make my way through the room, candle in one hand and diary in the other. The flame throws shadows so long, at times I wonder if they still belong to me. I place the light where it would enable me to read and throw myself on the bed. The mattress welcomes the collapse of my body as a sacred tomb. Suppose I am as determined as ever to go through more nightmares, albeit on paper and not in my dreams. Truly, nothing sets the mood as that blood-stained wall across from here.

    I part the covers, unleashing a torrent of words, some at which the light seems to flare up in a brighter glow. Are they ones I wrote?

«I crave for the night. »

    Yeah, I think I remember them so.

«When it brings her darkness, arousing death with such a dry and sweetly withered perfume… »

    In any case, they are in the same handwriting as all the other notes around this place. The sole deduction to be made is that they are mine. Too bad the tattoos were done by Kain, or else, had I done them myself before all this, I would have had a certain term of comparison. But my mind was altered and there has been nothing I could trust as a certainty since I first opened my eyes to this world.

    Flipping through the pages, I find details of a murder, I think: a dated corner and initials. These I have not noticed on the other pages. The words go on about a severed neck… but, still nothing about the horsemen. I roll up my sleeve and hold my arm against the light, so warm that the ink is darkened through it.

    “The truth is staring me in the face,” I whisper spiteful at my own ineptitude.

    I turn back to the diary; something I can read, if not fully understand. Though the graphite smudged on every page I flipped, there is some relevant information about Death, that means every confirmed killed proved a failed mark. The hope of having arrived here on time diminishes when I reach the last pages. There, the writings seem to be derived from… madness? They speak of dreary worlds… oneiric demons made of nothing more than bones and smoke; faceless ghosts of my nightmares which scream, but do not speak. They must be derived from dreams.

«I hear a desperate choir. Their voices entwine with a distant organ to which the shadows dance, cast on the stone walls… She is waiting for me, still as an obelisk.»

    I wonder… Who is she that made me dream of her? If she be real to any extent, and not solely a figment of my past imagination.

«Dressed in black lace, leather and sorrow; just as I adore her… She took her mask off this once, whispering from her pale lips that I should follow. Upstairs, she takes off her heavy guise and is left wearing nothing but a torn dress of thin, funerary veil. How desperately I wish for her to turn around and beg to be taken and kept for eternity in my arms, but she does not. I can wait no longer to feel the scent of her skin lingering on mine. I gently brush her hair to the side, so I can kiss her neck. The greatest sin she is, but she is mine alone to bear, so why not let my sin be sealed tonight…»

    I had the strangest of dreams. In the end I throw the diary to the other side of the room. Broken from the spell of those realms alive only in pages, I catch a glimpse of sharp light reflected from the candle. I stand up, immediately recognising a mirror. Intrigued to see with my own eyes how messed up I ended up here, I dart across the room.

    I look at myself, but instantly take a step backward in disbelief. The blood… all over my face and hands. My gaze averts as my knees fall weaker. I drag the back of my hand across my eyes before facing the mirror again. The blood… is gone. How the hell does this even make sense? I question with weary eyes the image of black hair strands falling over some reminiscent scars.

    Deeper into the shadows behind me, I retreat away from a dying reflection. This conscience of mine must be wrong; I am not a bloody murderer as its haunting befall me.