Vibrating sharpness slowly dragged across sensitive skin as blood welled from the slowly opening wound, lacing skin to fall like tan ribbons to a seamstress' cutting board. Slowly, as though falling through water, her skin drifted to the dirty ferrocrete. Droplets of blood slid along her arm, falling away from the exposed muscle to the ground, slowly creating a puddle of the red life-giving source. The glowering, furred face of her assailant laughed as he cut away at her, not only her skin, but carving through the muscle like dinner meat, to then carve a disconcertingly beautiful scrollwork upon the white bone....
The scrollwork seemed to change, swirling around the bone to rearrange itself into a flowing rune script. The seemingly unfamiliar writing had an unearthly glow as it rose from the stark white of bone to swirl around her in a colourful dance. A whirlwind lifting her from the torture....
...Only to drop her into another. Pointed ears, demonic and disfigured faces, unmerciful glares surrounding her and her companion. Rain spattered on their naked bodies as whips bearing jagged tips lashed down continuously on them, blood welling up, washed away almost as soon as it appeared only to be overwhelmed again. Another lash, another scream, pain dancing like liquid fire and despair tugging at young hearts. Shouts of their unworthiness, the abomination they represented, contamination of a pure race....
Another lash, and the pain brought an expanse of nothingness. Then water, as though a misting rain, fell on her face. She tried to take a clear cool breath, yet something of a hot wind fell on her face. Suffocating....
Sylvana started, nearly knocking herself out of Sci's arms as he bent to lay her down on the bed in her small room. She looked around blearily, whimpering in her great confusion, her eyes finally resting on the young man. Recognition dawned in them briefly before she brought a hand to cover her mouth as she yawned. Her eyes fell closed again as she slipped back into unconsciousness, an exhausted sleep.
She was laid down in the bed, a blanket pulled over her, then left to her dreams....
She was in a tall tree, looking out along the valley's wall, then down at a boy, hair a fiery red streaked with shades of gold and blonde. She jumped down beside him, the two exchanging a few words before they moved on.
An arrow came from nowhere, slicing along her right cheek. She pulled her companion behind another tree. Before the children, barely teenagers, could launch some sort of defensive attack, hands fell heavily upon them, stripping them of all weapons.
Sight of a demonic, disfigured face behind a fist swiftly closing....
She flinched, her eyes tightly shut, only to open slowly as though they were terribly swollen. Torn, bloodied from the tips of their ears to the soles of their feet, naked but for the blood caked on their bodies. They lay as though that was how they were landed when they were dropped, unceremoniously, to the cool ground. Soft words exchanged, a daring to hope for escape, even for rescue....
A small hope that was dashed as her next glance had her tossed over a shoulder, looking back to see the other captive lifeless upon the ground, deathly still as the first few snowflakes of a storm began to drift down, resting gently on the broken, mutilated body....
A cold room. White clad figures. A strange weapon shooting blue bolts at an increasingly familiar figure....
He fights against the pain. Venomous words are exchanged. He jumps up unexpectedly, rushing at his assailant, his hand coming away at an odd angle. Yet, he continues on, only to fall away as something tears through him, blood appearing on his clothing as he slumps to fall to the ground....
Fighting, a red haze descending upon her seeming to control her very actions. Jab, kick, stab, tear, slash.... It is not enough. Her enemy is down, yet she must fight on. She kicks at the body, screaming at him to get up and fight her, when a hand lays on her shoulder.
She comes around, slashing out, cutting through the hand lifted in friendship....
But she cannot see that. Only the red haze, the frenzy that has taken control. She fights the man, he seems vaguely familiar, yet as her mind screams for her to stop, her body fights on, downing him after a short struggle, her poignard stuck through his throat.... Blood bubbling up from his neck as he tries to tell her something important with a soft low voice before he stares sightlessly beyond....
Someone else appears behind her, and she whirls around to fight the figure. *NO!* her mind screams as she seems to stand by helplessly, her body moving of its own dread volition....
The horror in Arrek's eyes as the laser scalpel comes down....
Sylvana screamed as she sat up straight in the bed, cutting it off short as suddenly as it had appeared, her breath coming in gasps as she tried to calm herself. She tossed off the covers, groaning as she brought a hand up to her aching head. She groggily noted she was still wearing the borrowed uniform... she must have fallen asleep.
The dreams, the nightmares, converged upon her once again with such a suddenness that she was forced to lie down for a few minutes longer, silently fighting them with the logic that they were. not. real....
Finally, she simply rebraided her hair and shuffled into the main room, wondering if there was possibly anything out there that she could eat... anything out there that could take her mind off from her terrible night visions....