Log
from April 13th:
The
rise in crime rate has the Mistress lying low, I think. The logs passed on to
me this week are inconsistent, as though she doesn’t have the time to write
anything down. I have news of my own, however.
There’s
going to be a congregation tonight. I was invited by a fellow marked – that
means the other Scarlet-marked have found me, and I’m not sure how to feel
about that. I know I’m depraved, but I just don’t know how ready I am for a
mass tribute. While part of me is proud that something so great came from such
shame, I’ve never done anything like what I’ll be expected to do.
But
would a true Scarlet-marked care?
I
am her Priestess…I should be the truest there is.
April
11:
I’ve
been plagued by more nightmares, and I genuinely feel like the next one might
blast a hole in my skull.
They’ve
been more consistent, though. If I believed in that whole ‘dreams are your
subconscious trying to tell you something’ shit, I’d be interpreting like
fucking mad. Truthfully, I’m so desperate for them to stop that I’ll interpret
the fuck out of them, anyway.
They
all involve red ooze. Like blood, but thicker. What the hell would that
symbolise, aside from…exactly what it looks like?
In
a lot of them, I’m wandering around the Empty City. Lot of twists and turns,
static-y silence, being completely closed off and cut off from power. In the
dreams I just…walk. Sometimes in circles, and then I lose hours. It’s hard to
tell, but somehow, I know. One second the sun will be high up in the sky…the
next, it will be setting, at a regular speed, no indication that I’ve spent my
time doing anything but pacing. Except for the ooze. Thick bright red fluid,
all over the ground, slithering after me.
And
then there was another one that played out like a game. I had entered a church
– which, right off the bat, you know that’s weird because I’m pretty sure that
if I set foot on religious ground I’d implode, or something – and made my way
past the pews, ducking behind these giant wall hangings. There was a crack in
the stone that was big enough for me to slip through, and I left Jack and
Razzie and went through on my own. It led to this gigantic room, more cavernous
than the rest of the building and bigger than it had any reason to be…a few
stone pillars, and a hole in the wall across from me. Again, that viscous red
was coming through…only this time it was pouring down the walls. Not just
dripping. Pouring. It was pooling on the floor, and there only ever seemed to
be more of it. Distantly, I could hear screams and groans – I couldn’t
tell if they were of pleasure, or of pain, but something tells me it was both.
After that…it’s like I blacked out. Blacking out within a dream – how redundant
can you get?
All
I know is, I fought. I know it was terrifying, that I escaped the encounter
shaken up and with my throat cut, but alive. And then it started over again.
It
was as if I’d loaded my game from the last checkpoint. I was going through the
crack in the church wall, about to face that giant room with all the red and I knew,
this time. I knew exactly what was waiting for me, and I knew how the encounter
would go. I knew I would escape with my life.
But
I also knew it would be fucking terrifying.
So
I ran.
The
rest of the dream played out like a movie. I was stuck in a seat, watching with
all the influence of an audience member. I had to watch all this…gut-twisting
stuff, like…disturbing, violent sex. The sex was worse to watch than the death.
I saw Jack beheaded, his head impaled right through and dangled from the church
ceiling.
And
that red ooze, without a mouth or any way of laughing, just wouldn’t
stop. I felt it, rather than heard it.
When
I woke up, Jack told me I’d been laughing like a fucking maniac all night.
