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My shadow's ferocity surprises me. Before, when she was simply an invisible force bearing down on me, it was easy to understand her raw speed. I find myself marveling at her grace and cunning, even as she flows forward in a whirlwind of flashing blades, flowing from one dizzying spin to the next, in spite of all my efforts to abate her advance with parry after desperate parry. It quickly becomes clear that the shadow simulacrum is not as identical to me in action as she is in form. Perhaps she is not bound by the tyrannical boundaries of flesh. Regardless, her movements have rapidly become nothing more than a blur to me, though the long-starved logical part of my mind reminds me that she seems to move with unwavering purpose despite her incredible speed, as though the entire battle passes by at a crawl in her eyes. The inevitable comes. Seeing my opponent is not enough to defeat her, I belatedly realize as the crippling pain in my gut brings me crashing to the ground once more, gasping in a desperate bid to fill my emptied lungs. The pain, as always, is little more than an illusion, but this is not reassurance enough to keep my abdominal muscles from clenching excruciatingly tight around the imaginary wound, constricting my diaphragm such that my breaths become labored and shallow. The voice returns as I struggle to bring my breathing under control, seeming alien again now that my contact with the resonance has been severed. "There is no truth. Reality exists only in the eyes of the dreamer. To perceive is to create. To will is to be. As long as experience dictates your universe, you can never awaken from the dream." The sound of my ragged breathing is all that remains in the heart of the abyss, and for long hours I simply listen to the rhythm, letting the repetition calm my mind until I am ready to meditate on the outcome of this battle. The memories return to me slowly, reality fading away so seamlessly that I cannot remember when the dream began… A peculiar smell had awakened me from my enforced slumber. A scent like brimstone and boiling venom filled the air, a dreadful portent for what I would behold when I opened my eyes. The noxious odor and dizzying pain vied for dominance in my mind, even as they worked in tandem to turn my stomach into a roiling cauldron of nausea. Fighting back the urge to wretch, I forced my eyelids open. The room around was cold gray stone, an apt description for almost any room within our castle, and was only sparsely appointed. As soon as I had mustered the strength to lift my chin, my attention was immediately drawn to the lithe form of my sister. Lhradrul had changed her attire to that of flowing spider-silk robes that hung loosely from her form, as if draped over a mere skeleton, drawn tight only where a belt of golden chain links pinched it close at the waist. The impossibly dark material drank up the eerie, eldritch light that suffused the rest of the room in alternating angry red and sickly green luminescence, making my elder sister appear little more than a mop of shock-white hair situated atop a stain of darkness. |
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