Dream of the Raven's Gate X

Lost in the timelessness of the Dream World...


Karasu stood before the great door and waited for the madness to overtake him. It never came. Instead, he waited, unflinching before the impending strike of confusion and hate, the driving storm of yammering gibberish that would again fill his mind as it had so long ago. He stood. He counted out the seconds, the hours, the days.

It wasn't coming.


***


The Great Old One stirred. His timeless slumber roused by the loving caress of a madness so complete that he longed for it's touch. A great slimy body floated in the void between worlds. Trapped here on this plane, he roused himself so slowly as to trick death yet again... to have death pass his eye unknowingly over his already dead body. The dreams kept pouring in, breathing life into his lifeless form. The dreams. The means to connect him to this world forever, to begin his reign of madness again. The Great Old One once dreamed. He was falling, falling, falling through space and time... falling to this dreadful place where the creatures were small, weak, and unimaginative. But he was taken in as a God, and worshiped, and countless innocents were slaughtered in His name. Natives danced, and civilized people reduced themselves to lusting, blood-thirsty savages all to appease His will.

And still he roused slowly...


***


Swirling though the void, minds racing to and fro, dreaming men sought to find purchase in the brewing storm of chaos in their minds. Overnight, sane men went mad, hair grayed in the brief moments between closing their eyes and seeing the sunshine again. Inescapable horror chased them in a dreamland they never expected - and above all else, a feeling of impending doom upon their brows. Wives and lovers woke from fitful sleep to scream in terror as the madmen replaced their husbands and partners. Mothers fell to their knees as their sons stared into the eternal night of crazed babbling and the rage of lunacy. And still the Star Child roused ever so slowly...


***


Somewhere, in the beautiful lands formed by one man's imagination, the locomotive trudged on along a track made of broken dreams, human bones, and the knowledge of a coming evil. Inside, a man was trapped in this world, unable to wake into his body, newly revived and resting peacefully back where it was chained to a hospital bed. Elsewhere in this world a trio of women dressed in white stepped off of a stone stair together, opened an immense iron gate adorned with ravens and spires, and began a journey of hope.


***

Karasu waited for the storm to start.





But it hadn't yet.





Contiued