Outside the Dream: Nightmare and Darkness

AN: To be read after Inside the Dream: The Breaking Point

Ailac’s body thrashed upon the stone floor of the burrow den, where it lay after being transported back to the tranquility of Moonglade from the descent into the dream. His back arched, his fingers clutching against the stones, shattering his fingernails with the sheer force of the tremor.

Crimson droplets of blood seeped down off Ailac’s form, now frozen in that unnatural arch of pain. Tiny rivulets ran from down his face to stain the stones crimson and mat his hair with its sickly hot substance. With a sudden crash his back collapsed, his mouth flying open to let forth a gurgling scream of pain, hot blood flowing forth to splay upon his naked torso. Blood filled the air with its stench, polluting the tranquil glade with its presence.

Blackened incorporeal tendrils seeped up from the open eyes of the bleeding druid, light and nebulous threads with twisted leaves tipped with talons, the tip of the vines with wreathed with the gaping teeth of the Nightmare. They grew forth, snapping at the air about them before swelling to burst into a fine mist to fill the air about the slumbering druid, clinging unnaturally to his. Blackness pooled about him, flecks of violet swirled in its midst, coiling and pooling together, before thrashing out to lunge towards the sleeping figure of Xaneria, like a coiled snake springing upon its unwary prey.