Note 1: This short story is based on a dream a friend of mine had. I've added a lot of my own details about characters and descriptions of scenes and whatnot, but the basic story is from her dream.
Note 2: None of the content of the story is meant to be offensive, because like I said it was all a dream.
She walked purposefully toward the main road. She didn't look to either side. It was a crowded and dirty street and she did not wish to spend long there. Suddenly a figure dashed into sight and stopped right in front of her. She tripped , startled. She looked up at him. He seemed vaguely familiar. But she couldn't recognize him. He held out something in his hand. Without a word. No explanation, nothing. She saw a screen. A rather large mobile phone. There was some movement on it. She looked closer. She saw herself, standing on the side of a road.
She backed away in surprise, her expression incredulous. The road was the same. The very road she was standing on just now. She was wearing the same clothes. The whole situation seemed alike. Even the colour of the sky, the light, everything. She stared at him blankly. “What is this?” she gestured with her hand. He pushed the phone toward her and nudged her to watch further. She continued watching, both reluctant and fascinated. As she watched herself, her attention slowly turned to another figure in the middle of the road. She watched closely and realized with some surprise that this other person was her very self. She was just beginning to get used to the surreal feel of watching herself when a truck abruptly entered the frame. It was huge. And looked even more alarming in when compared to the lone figure on the street. It was moving very fast. The figure in the middle of the road was unmoving. It just stood there, no reaction, as the truck came hurtling down the road. A scream rose in her throat as she watched. As both of her watched. The truck came closer and closer.
There was too much blood. Everywhere she looked, the shiny red of it assaulted her eyes. The road looked war torn even though there was a only a single body. It was a mangled, red, oozing mass now. Unidentifiable. She watched in horror as a strange crowd began to form around the body. People were approacing from all sides. Concerned, scared, hysterical, shocked, indifferent. They all had different expressions and movements. But they were all the same. Identical. She saw herself. So many of herself. Her head was spinning. She didn’t know what to register first. Her disfigured body lying there, or the teeming clones, all gathering so matter of factly, completely oblivious to each other.
As she stepped back, unsteady on her feet but in some relief, thinking it had ended, a sudden crash sounded. A tall apparition in black had descended right in front of her. He was beautiful. And dark. And alien. He had long dark hair and a kind of staff in his left hand. He didn’t fit in with anyone around. Even the kindness in his eyes seemed so other worldly, so sincere, but clouded with worry. He had a strange mark on his cheek. A star shaped tattoo of some sort. She stared at him, fascinated, moved, and momentarily forgot the trauma of two minutes ago.
He spoke. Softly. In a deep voice, smooth and calm like black velvet. It seemed to awaken her, his voice. She came out of her trance and listened. “They are coming for you,” He said. “They will hurt you. They will leave you for dead. You must not speak. Do not echo what they say. Do not.” And he clicked his fingers and was gone. Silence filled the air, as if his leaving had created a void.
She stood there, transfixed, the urgency of his words unacknowledged. She was still, as if waiting, expecting.
And then they came. Like a sheet of white. From heaven knows where. They seemed to spread. The white and their voices were like a cancer, wherever it was empty they seemed to apparate, filling every crack and crevice with their screaming breath and their pale robes. They came towards her. Sweeping up to her. As they neared she saw glints of silver. Sharp, shiny, strong silver. They had spears. They brandished them, slowly seeking her out. The glint appeared one minute and disappeared the next. She didn’t know what she was imagining and what was real. They threatened. They laughed cruelly. They hypnotised her and then let her snap out of it. She swung from one state of consciousness to another. She felt in a limbo. She felt liquid.
They seemed to be saying something. No they seemed to be shouting something. “Hallelujah!” they screamed. “Praise the Lord.” They wouldn’t stop. They kept screaming shrilly, rhythmically, in unison so perfect that she wondered if it was one voice or many. Their cries rose, higher and higher and when they reached a crescendo they sank and started again.
They were untiring. She did not know what they wanted. She did not know where to turn. She picked up a large metal shield from somewhere. She didn’t know how it came to be there. She felt a little like Alice in Wonderland. But she had no time to fantasise. She held up the shield to protect herself. She cried and cursed and shouted. She ran and hid and ran some more. She was breathless, tired, frightened, defeated. She finally lowered her head, as if to give up. But there was a sudden, deafening silence. Louder than the chanting. As if death was sounding its approach. She looked up slowly and saw each figure in white launch into the air as a brilliant crimson flame and come down again as lifeless grey ash. Ash rained from the blue sky, turning the air to smoke.
Through her watering eyes, she saw the black apparition again. And she knew not if she had imagined it, because it disappeared immediately.
In an instant she was elsewhere. She hadn’t felt herself be transported. She hadn’t felt such a long time pass. But she was somewhere else. She was standing in a room. Steps led to a door. Two girls sat on the steps, reading a book. She walked upto them and asked if she could look at the book for a moment. She felt a strange, pining fascination for it, but she didn’t know why. She started turning the pages, reading softly to herself, and realized that written in it was every detail of what she had just experienced. The sequence of events was described so perfectly that it was as if she had written it. She kept reading. Word after word. Page after page. She reached the last pages and started reading even more feverishly. She wanted to know who the black apparition was.
This was the only part that she did not know anything about. The book told her very simply that she must at some point fall in love with this figure in black. But this man would not love her. He would deceive her. He was sent to end her. To kill her. And all under a beautiful pretence. She turned in shock, finally to the last page. The ink was smudged, the words unreadable, as if washed away by water, but in the midst of the blur one word stood out clearly. “Terrace.” She repeated it to herself. She could not for the life of her fathom its importance, or why it was there.
She eventually forgot about the book, but the movie she had seen still came back to her.
She met the man in the black robes who had saved her. She began to know him, and love him. And even though she had shut out most of it, the threats came back to her. His villainy seemed to her so bizzarre and yet his gentle affection scared her. Everytime he touched her she felt a strange mix of feelings. She thrilled under his touch, yet flinched in fear. Her body was as confused as her mind.
Slowly the confusion receded. Her trust grew, their love grew.
They sat one day, as the sun was dying. They were talking over their evening coffee. They teased and spoke and laughed. They declared their general contentment without really saying it. They asked questions. They seeked answers. They wondered and thought and dreamt together. Then they fell into a peaceful, comfortable silence.
He then stood up slowly and held out his hand. With his beautiful smile he whispered, “Let us go up to the terrace, the view is beautiful from there.” She smiled and was about to lay her hand in his, when she abruptly froze.
“Terrace.” The word echoed in her ears. She didn’t know what to do or what to think. She didn’t want to look at him, but she didn’t want to turn away. She looked up. He was still smiling, patiently waiting for her to stand. She waited a moment. And then she decided. “if die I must, then I shall die by his hands.”
They walked together up to the terrace and went and stood by the edge. The city was twinkling with all its little lights. It was as if the night sky with all its stars had opened up beneath them. He kissed her slowly and then drawing back said, “I brought you up here to take your last breath. To take your last look at the world when it is at its most peaceful.” She nodded, understanding every word he said. Her eyes filled with tears. Of fear, of disappointment, of heartbreak. “But I cannot do it,” He said. “I cannot see you leave me.”
He let go of her hand and stepped back. He clicked his fingers, and in an instant his radiant self burst and rose up in a beautiful flash of flame and then settled slowly as soft grey ash. She saw a rain of ash for the second time in her life. But her tears were for a different reason.
