[Whatever dream Vicious had been having, wrapped around the smaller body of the wicked little Goblin he had spent the night with (again, again, again), it is yet again...interrupted.
Fire roars through the trees, melting reddened snow from gore-spattered earth. Wine grapes hang nonsensically from burning trellises. They bleed. It smells of apricots. Your stomach churns. He's dead. The vineyard will die too.
There is a burning in the skin of your chest. You want to rip the flesh out. You can't. Your hands are too caked with flesh and blood to find purchase. Your mouth feels unlike your own. You choke and spit out a tooth. Another has grown in, long and wicked. Your neck throbs. You can taste dozens of people on your tongue. You knew them. You can taste the tears running down your cheeks, too, where they burn at your lips. You look at your hands. Shreds of lamb's wool and tattered flesh on glassy black claws.
A building stands before you. It's half burned away. You don't know what it is, a shack, crooked and wooden and old and rotting and fading and sticking barb-like in your mind's eye. You can't get near it. It burns too brightly. The cross scorched into your chest sings with agony.
But...wait. Is it yours? Your chest, your burn, your cross to bear? You know whose it is, don't you? You know that already.
A young man stands in the doorway, silhouetted by the flames. He wears robes, and the ends of his long dark hair are burning. You can't make out his face, but it is full of sadness. He looks exhausted. The fire around him seems to bend around him, moving with him, breathing with him.
He points at you, drawing himself up to speak...but then he stops. He lowers his hand a little. It shakes.]
...You...Mă puteți auzi?
Vicious.
Can you hear me?
[Your identity reasserts itself. It isn't your pain, after all.]
Action - February Time Loop, a few loops in - cws: burning, gore, blood, religious trauma, etcetcetc
Fire roars through the trees, melting reddened snow from gore-spattered earth. Wine grapes hang nonsensically from burning trellises. They bleed. It smells of apricots. Your stomach churns. He's dead. The vineyard will die too.
There is a burning in the skin of your chest. You want to rip the flesh out. You can't. Your hands are too caked with flesh and blood to find purchase. Your mouth feels unlike your own. You choke and spit out a tooth. Another has grown in, long and wicked. Your neck throbs. You can taste dozens of people on your tongue. You knew them. You can taste the tears running down your cheeks, too, where they burn at your lips. You look at your hands. Shreds of lamb's wool and tattered flesh on glassy black claws.
A building stands before you. It's half burned away. You don't know what it is, a shack, crooked and wooden and old and rotting and fading and sticking barb-like in your mind's eye. You can't get near it. It burns too brightly. The cross scorched into your chest sings with agony.
But...wait. Is it yours? Your chest, your burn, your cross to bear? You know whose it is, don't you? You know that already.
A young man stands in the doorway, silhouetted by the flames. He wears robes, and the ends of his long dark hair are burning. You can't make out his face, but it is full of sadness. He looks exhausted. The fire around him seems to bend around him, moving with him, breathing with him.
He points at you, drawing himself up to speak...but then he stops. He lowers his hand a little. It shakes.]
...You... Mă puteți auzi?
Vicious.
Can you hear me?
[Your identity reasserts itself. It isn't your pain, after all.]