Assuming a Crimson Mantle (Solo)

Dark, black-blue tides pursued me as I ran through the vegetation, an oncoming wave of Darkest blue that was consuming everything in its pursuit of him. Through crimson trees I ran, past peacefully flowing brooks of red that quickly became flooded with the repulsive blackish ichor of the incoming nightmare. This landscape - I didn't recognize it, yet I did, it felt so familiar. That is, it was familiar to me until it was stained with that unnatural, pervading cobalt blue hue. Then, it felt sickeningly wrong.

On I ran, trying to escape the wave that pursued me. I didn't know how long I had been running - I had long ago forgotten what it felt like not to be on the run, trying to escape the oncoming darkness. Every time I stopped, to try to slow down, to rest - blue-black beasts would find me, and the chase would start again. My legs had long ago given up on letting me know they hurt - or I thought they must have, because everything was painfully numb.

I didn't know where I was running to. Everywhere I looked, that same dark stain could be seen, blue and red mingling, a dark, ugly purple that looked almost hungry. And it was - it constantly ate away at the landscape, leaving behind nothing in its wake as it rolled across the land. All behind it was exactly the same - a dull field of ruddy purple, that screamed its wrongness to my senses.

The thought came to me - was I running from this, or leading it? I stumbled, tripped, fell, and hit the ground hard. The impact was curiously painless, despite knowing my legs should be torn and my hands skinned. I looked back, and saw a dark tendril shooting towards me. I tried to dodge, but it pierced my left arm. I let out a scream as -

I FOUND YOU


Nevin shot awake in bed with a shuddering gasp, his body trembling. His chest heaved as he tried to calm down after that nightmare. Beside him, Eteri stirred, and sleepily blinked up at him.

“Nevin? Is sleep time. Fun later. Eteri sleep.” Then she curled up against him and fell asleep, her head pressed into his side. Nevin laid there, staring at the ceiling, and tried to focus on the here and now, not on that awful nightmare. He didn't even know - no, he did know. Ever since Eteri had fixed part of his soul, memories had begun returning to him. Memories of both his youth in Salvar - and memories of another place, a far different place.

He carefully disengaged himself from his sleeping girlfriend and staggered to the bathroom, shaking off the numbness in his limbs as he got moving again. He knew from experience that he wouldn't be able to sleep after that, not a chance in hell. A warm shower, and then he would try to do some brewing to relax.

In the bathroom, with the low light shining, he lit the candles in the corners. And froze when he saw his reflection in the mirror. His left arm - the red pattern across his skin, the network of threads there - it was no longer red. On his upper bicep, just below the shoulder, was a thick patch of blue-red, tainting his red. Almost as if it was reacting to his awareness, that spot began to burn in pain, and he saw threads slip from his skin. Threads that he was not controlling.

With a strangled scream, he grabbed the tainted threads and ripped them out, his body burning in pain every moment. They lay in the sink, coils of twitching Cobalt blue mixed with crimson, and Nevin felt a deep disgust, and a mounting terror. That spot - the blue was still there, only slightly reduced - but that spot was where.. Where he had been impaled in his nightmare.

What had found him? And that dream - it wasn't a dream at all, was it? His soul - it must have traveled outwards, but… NoNo.no. He grasped his chest and leaned hard on the counter. Nevin knew exactly what had found him, and just where it was his soul had been. The plane of the Great Flow of Crimson. And that was the Cobalt, the dark flow.

Nevin shuddered and turned on the shower his body was trembling fiercely as he climbed in, without even removing his sleeping pants. He sat down in the bottom of the shower and just stared blankly, shivering fiercely as he waited to warm up.