The skies were filled with dark stormy clouds and the ground was foggy in the distance. It was as though all my dream wanted me to see was what was directly in front of me and that was pieces of a Pentagram. I looked down at my own skin that was quickly getting soaked and was at least thankful to realise it must only have been raining blood inside the circle of the star. Everything on the outside was simply wet and that included me, but so long as I wasn’t covered in blood I didn’t care.
In my dream I bravely took a step further and came stupidly close to the Pentagram, stopping at the first body part that had been crudely hacked from some poor soul’s body. I could only pray that these people had all been dead when this had happened. That thought alone made me want to heave but I had already done that once in this dream. No, now was the time for me to be brave and really see what the dream wanted me to. I could only hope it would give me some answers as to why this had happened and more importantly, who had done this?
Was it the man in the painting with the wooden dagger or even worse, the man that was shown to me at the end, the one I thought I had trusted? Could it be? I stepped closer and looked down to see my feet couldn’t get any closer without crossing the gruesome line. Then that’s when I heard it. The sickening sound of meat being butchered and when I saw a shadowy figure of a man throwing chunks and pieces away behind him, I knew I could no longer be naive.
The figure stood up from being hunched over the slaughtered body with what looked like an arm held in his hand by the bone that protruded from the top. Then he turned, keeping his hooded head down and placed the arm at a diagonal on the grass, creating the last sections of the symbol.
This was all so horrifying and sick and twisted that I would have liked nothing more than to take that wooden dagger and drive it into the chest of the man. The man that I now thought was Alex. But this was when something started to dawn on me…where was the dagger?
This man wasn’t holding a dagger in his hand but something that looked more like a lengthened machete. And it was when the figure started to rise up and finally take notice of me that it all started to make sense. Everyone had it all wrong. It wasn’t Alex who was the bad guy here.
Not at all.
It had all just been made out that way with his connection to me. I knew the truth now. I knew it all…now it was just time to have it confirmed and that happened when the figure pushed back his blood splattered hood.
I knew I was right but no amount of knowing can change the shock you experience when you’re proven right in the worst way. I took in those piercing white eyes with a tiny black dot in the middle that I could barely see. His skeletal face which had seemed to be transferred onto his original handsome features was now even more painful to look at. And then he said the same words to me that he did that day at the Auction.
“Until you’re ready to be pushed, Girl”
It was at this point that I had awakened, only this time Draven had been there to hold me.
“It was Seth, he was the one to murder all those hikers, it was him all along.” I said making Draven frown and this was when I started to explain everything to him. I told him about my dream at his studio and also when I actually encountered him at the Auction in the storeroom. Of course I then had to explain why I hadn’t told him all this before, to which my lame answer of,
“I kinda forgot,” was one he didn’t care for.
“This has certainly changed things.” Draven said and when he started to get up I knew he would soon be leaving me to deal with this new information.
“But now we know that should make things easier right?” I asked pulling the covers up in front of me and sitting up to watch Draven as he dressed. He walked into what I presumed was a walk in wardrobe and came back out a few moments later wearing jeans and pulling down a vintage black T shirt that had some racing car logo on the front in faded white. I also notice he had put back on his leather cuffs that hid the Tartarus markings beneath.
I had asked him when we had been chatting last night how long before they healed or left his skin but he didn’t have any answers as he didn’t know. Not that I was bothered because let’s face it, I came with enough of my own scars. I think it was more the reminder that bothered me as I felt that they stood for a past I never wanted to look back on.
He came to stand at the end of the bed and he looked down as he did up his belt buckle, which looked like hammered metal with some kind of engine emblem on the front.
“Another gift from Vincent?” I asked nodding to his belt.
“Well I am predictable when it comes to gifts, but now it’s time for my favourite gift.” I was about to ask what when I felt my ankle being shackled and suddenly I was being pulled down the bed, covers and all.