There are other dreams that plague us in the defenselessness of our sleep, dreams that have a different brand of cruelty all together. These nocturnal imaginings fit into the more typical definition of a nightmare. The variety of this night is of the type which force us to relive our worst memories. The things that have happened to us that we would go to any length to avoid facing? But these dreams will see to it that not only we remember, but that we have to experience those most devastating moments intimately. In a sense it is happening again, repeatedly, within the very walls we build to ?protect? ourselves. These walls become our prison where that piece of our heart is trapped - helpless to escape from the very pain we seek to lock away.

Some violations are so severe, that the soul becomes mutilated - the mind twisted. Set on a precipice between salvation, and oblivion. That is where this torn angel finds herself on this night.

This dream was of a familiar place, known to many in Rhy?Din, called The Red Dragon Inn. Countless memories and significant events in the lives of so many had taken place here? some good and some? best forgotten. Unfortunately, that which we go to the greatest lengths to repress, are merely preserved perfectly? Waiting? Growing more and more piercing with age.

Rose had come to the Red Dragon Inn that night years ago, wanting to celebrate the birth of her son. It was the first time they had parted since his conception, but she had no worries. He was in capable, strong hands. He was at their home and safe haven ? The Island of the Rose. A place Rose believed he could not be touched. A place she thought impenetrable by all? Save one.

But why would she have reason to fear Bob? He was her most trusted friend. When together it was like when two storms meet, terrifying, yet beyond the bounds of natural beauty. Whether she would admit it or not... She loved him beyond her reasoning and any objections of her rational mind. After all? It was his son too. They were in this together, now and forever tied by this bond, were they not?

He was here too? Rose was elated, glowing, and thrilled that her partner was there to share in this joy. Then it happened, Bob calmly and rationally explained that he intended on taking their son, to raise him in the way that he saw fit. Was it purely selfish that he wanted to see to it that their son did not have the influence of his angelic mother, to simply make of this infant another weapon? Or was it in fact a misguided attempt to protect him from Bob?s numerous enemies in Rhy?Din?

Whatever the truth is of the intentions of this unfathomable and inhuman being? Rose tried to reason with him that he need not do this without her. In pure desperation she told him she would do anything ? whatever it took ? to not be parted from her child. She begged and pleaded with him to no avail. Her logic and pleas were as useless as all the powers she possessed.


Rose?s power and choice were taken from her, her trust violated. Perhaps such an act is most devastating when the perpetrator is someone you have such faith in. She never saw it coming. Perhaps this was foolish or naive? but it was still true. Though Bob did return the child a short but agonizing time later? The baby boy was an adult. Those precious years stolen from both of them forever. The resulting anguish tainted every future thought and feeling, making them impossible to sort through.


She was surrounded by nameless, faceless, apparitions. Shadows that represented those bystanders that night, those that merely stood by. As though they saw nothing, indifferent. Cold and uncaring. They saw the angel stripped bare and desperate. She felt their eyes on her in this dream land, like spectators at the arena, enjoying her pain. They knew exactly how she had failed her own child. Witnesses to her shame on this night, they did not lift a finger to help, they offered no comfort or caring to this once radiant creature. They simply turned their back on her. So were scattered the seeds of doubt in the angels enduring faith in goodness. Such a key part of who she always had been.

This is the fractured reality that Rose would awake from. Only to look down and find useless tears staining her pillow, evoking strange feelings. Pain and faith had proven to be her weakness and the undoing of all that mattered to her.

She was angry. Angry and determined. These undesirable pieces of her needed to be put away for good. No matter the cost. Because of them ? she had nothing left to lose.

Another brand of nightmare exists that is a more direct form of torture. This one becomes the minds way of interpreting the very real physical pain our bodies are experiencing. Though it can in fact go both ways, in this particular dream it is ones own pain bleeding over into the dream as opposed to the pain of the dream entering into us unbidden? But does it really matter which direction it flows? It makes for a sensory realism that does not end with waking.

The pounding rhythm of her heartbeat was filled with tension in her sleep ? She flitted through dream after dream, each left behind and forgotten as it was overshadowed by a new one. A sudden jolt of pain wracked her body, and unbidden she found her dreamself in a stone underground room. It was as if with this new pain in her physical body, she was wrenched from the normalcy of her dreams into the shadow that loomed deep within the recesses of her mind, forced into the dungeon of her worst pains, and fears. In this dream, she opened her eyes, purveying the dungeon like room she was thrust into, immediately she realized that she was bound by wires, intricately wound around her entire body, holding her to some type of operating table. She tried to pull against her bonds, but the pain grew with every movement. So tight, the wires cutting into her muscles, tearing mercilessly as she moved. All her struggling accomplished was tightening them further to the cold unyielding metal surface that held her quivering form. Eventually she stopped her struggles and lay there, cold and defeated, the only warmth available to her was the fire from her blood that trickled down the wires holding her captive. Even though she no longer moved it felt as if they kept cutting deeper.

A voice from somewhere told her to be still. She felt a needle enter her vein then a sharp sting as some sort of liquid burned its way through her veins, the poison propelled by the currents of her pulse, it felt as though it were acid! Surely her veins would burst as she felt it move fast, too fast, through her entire body. Tears and screams ripped unconsciously from her already open mouth. The wires tightening at her every move cutting deeply through her flesh and muscles.

?It?s a shame you must feel such discomfort, but you must remain awake for this procedure. You won?t want to miss a thing.? The voice was calm, matter of fact even. This was how it was, though she didn?t understand why. He could have been any doctor, just doing what he had to do to save a patient.

A knife cut into her, just below her belly button. She did her best to refrain from moving? But then she felt her insides in a way she never had before, twisting and turning. She couldn?t hold still, her body pulled against her will at her bonds that now were cutting into her bones. The acid substance in her veins now poured out into every nerve of her body.

Flesh, vein, muscle, bones? All searing as if they were on fire. Her guts felt as if they were being twisted up and she couldn?t breathe! Surely she would go into shock, she would pass out and find some relief or she would be welcomed into the eternal blackness, the sleep of death? but the pain went on and whatever the acidic substance was held her in consciousness as surely as the bonds held her body in place.

Next he moved his knife to the back of her neck and cut deeply where it connected to the base of her skull. Shooting pains shot through her central nervous system, from her head to her spine, from her shoulders to her arms, hips to the very tips of her toes. Every twisting connection in her body now turned against her, every bone, joint, nerve receptor, screaming in agony. A symphony to the screams were torn from her ever open maw, frozen with the grimace of pain.

The pain in her head pounded as the fluids that cushioned it poured out, causing her brain to slam into the very bones that once protected it. Nausea like she?d never known overtook her and she grew still. She could feel him, inside of her head! She could actually FEEL him! All she could do now was pray, silent tears pouring down her face as she lost the ability to move, all the fight drained out of her.

She awoke at last, pillow soaked in her tears, head pounding with a headache so acute she couldn?t recall ever having experienced anything like it before. She shot up to a sitting position, her hand moved quickly to her neck and found no entry wound. Relieved tears of her escape were short lived as she realized the pain lingered on.

Doubling up, her arms wrapped around her stomach. Waves of nausea still overwhelming her caused the room to appear as if it were swaying. She tried to lay down, to stretch her body out to relieve some of the pressure. She tried to force her muscles to relax but her body had never felt so heavy. It was as if gravity itself inflicted massive damage just by its very presence. Joints and muscles aching as though they had been worn and ground down, no longer able to hold themselves together.

Even the once soft and soothing air of the fan above her bed hurt. She could feel it, straight through her blanket! It was so cold, cutting into her skin like a burning frost bite. Even Rose, so acutely aware of all her body had never known how each and every sensory receptor could interpret pain from such sensations. Lost in her remonstrations, a single word flowed from her lips in the ghost of a whisper.... "Exquisite."

Her body was shaking from the cold but her head on fire. Like the worst kind of fever. Joints and muscles crippled by the pain of their own weight when holding still. Yet the thrashing and stretching to try to release them from stiffness was met with more protests and pain till she was still again. That small form of hers quaking as she lay in a small ball sobbing one moment and then involuntarily spasmed outward as if to get away from her. Back arched to the fullest extent it could as moans of pain escaped her lips.

At last she managed to sit up, reaching blindly for the vial that held her cure. The cure for all pain of the mind, body, and heart. Eyes met with a clear emptiness, just an ordinary glass vial, all that remained of her beautiful blue serenity.

Eyes clenched shut against this reality as tightly as her hand did around the glass. It shattered in her hand, cutting sharply into her flesh. A small gasp as the pain distracted her for a moment from the other inescapable ones filling the rest of her body. It almost felt? good. To be able to forget for the second? But then the moment passed.

Green eyes snapped open with intent and purpose. She pulled herself up out of bed, her muscles protesting with each movement but she forced them on. How could it be so hard to simply move? Her body had never failed her before. Willing it to move was incredibly difficult and she found herself doubled up on the floor twice before reaching the door. The weight of the knowledge that she fully deserved this pain as heavy as the gravity that felt like it tried to force her down through the very floor that held it in place.

Gathering all her strength she focused on her cure. Whether she deserved this pain or not, whether it in some ways felt good to know she could still feel at all? She was determined to make it stop. The pounding in her head was unbelievable but her heavy steps carried her forth.

She needed a little help with the agony? A lot of help really? And she knew where to find it.