Ezra [ Solo Scene: Sleep Paralysis ]

This solo scene is backdated to after the second session, when Ezra received the reward of a book detailing information of The Pale.

You wouldn't believe
The things that I have seen
I wouldn't expect you to
You've never been asleep

- Sleep Paralysis, Gabriel Bruce

The small room was stuffed to the brim, as though either the decorator had their heart set on the bulky number of items, or felt the space might expand if it were detailed in just the right way.

Regardless, each item held a story, a history. Made of wood or stone or some other immortal material, they all resonated with an aura. Ezra couldn't understand any of them, but she knew the furniture, the portraits, the statues, probably even the wallpaper — they all came from somewhere, through someone's actions and decisions that had occurred well before her time. Nothing in this room was hers other than the fact that she happened to be its present occupant.

That didn't bother her, though; if anything, they were all anchor points, a comfortable familiarity that helped keep her grounded, even as the house around her seemed to loom and shudder as it lumbered toward its last breath, when all of its inhabitants (and not just some) would be free of flesh and unobstructed by something as simple as a wall.

Centered against the back of the room, Ezra sat on the foot of a four-poster bed centered covered in layers of sheets and comforters as though the unseen decorator wasn't sure quite how many were needed and, once again, decided to err on the side of too many. Rent as they were by threadbare patches, mothballs, and age, Ezra couldn't fault their logic. It wasn't a concern for the moment, as she hovered over the pages of the book settled against her bent knees. She silently read it, fingertips brushing and gently bending the pages as she turned them.

One passage in particular caught her attention. To Dream of Death.Curiosity pulled the need to speak out of her, and she mouthed the words aloud.

"Hail to the Unknown Initiator of all Death, Eternal Goddess or Eternal God," she quoted. "Revealed, worshipped by countless names and rites of power, unto whom all living things upon the whole of the earth hath given veneration.

"Love and Honor are given unto Thee by the Spirit of the Empress of the Gate, the First and Last-born of the Deathbrood, the Unliving Totem of all Endings.

"Hail!" The word erupted from her throat with more force than Ezra had intended. To her left, Ezra heard a feminine gasp; a cold breath rolled over the back of her exposed neck, causing gooseflesh. She rolled one shoulder, her head tilting sideways, but her gaze never broke from the page. A light breeze fluffed her curls, but she ignored it.

"To All that are present at this Rite: the Living and the Dead Spirits of all Bless'd and Wise: One Initiate of One Sublime and Arcane Mystery. Hail! Order Without Name!"

A loud floorboard creak interrupted her words, snatching Ezra's attention away for a moment. Her gaze flicked around the room, but nothing appeared to have moved. She pressed on.

"Grant unto me as I venture into the tentative borderlands of the Deathlands in this, the holy union of slumber joining Mind and Universe in my humble being." She glanced up again, looking around the long familiar room with distrustful eyes. "Allow me to see with True Understanding even as mine eyes are closed."

She waited, realizing after a few moments that she was holding her breath. As she released it, with it went the tension in her shoulders, her whole form relaxing as no new sounds appeared.

After a full minute, she carefully closed the book, rising to place it on the nightstand next to her bed. Pausing again, one hand rose to scratch at her opposite elbow as she eyed her room once more; silence crystallized. Still, something about the space had changed, but she could not say what.

Although she couldn't regain the same level of trust and certainty she'd held in the room before, Ezra slid between the covers. She let her eyes slip closed, and her consciousness faded.

§

She was inside a vestibule, staring at a huge pair of iron-wrapped, wooden doors that would lead into the main chamber of wherever she now was. Wide but shallow bowls that she presumed held water were held aloft by pedestals set at either side of the entryway. Colors were entirely absent, walls and decor alike a cold, chocolatey black that seemed to both highlight and hide corners and curves.

There were no windows on the wall opposing the door, showing the bustling realm of Satyrnine; there were no sounds, of life or city, to hint at what this place might be. In fact, there was no front door, though Ezra didn't think to wonder how she'd gotten inside. Instead, her first thought was of the Silent Church, but even that was wrapped in the heady gauze of angels' weeping. She would have heard the sound even from within the building. This place was so quiet she could only hear her own gentle breathing. Gazing about the room, she stepped forward and pulled one of the massive doors wide.

A large space yawned before her, spilling out both in breadth and width. Ezra paused in the nave of an expansive cathedral, between two rows of empty black pews. Her face tilted up to where the great walls knitted together in a graceful arch hundreds of feet overhead. Stained-red lancet windows were set into the walls to the transepts and beyond, still obscuring whatever lay outside this holy place. Making a feast for the eyes, engraved stonework offering stories Ezra could not discern climbed toward the heavens. As much as this place reminded her of the Silent Church, this was not it — maybe a twin, created on the opposite side of the world.

"Hello?"

Her voice echoed out into the space. Instead of growing louder, bouncing from surface to surface, the sound echoed for a moment before being neatly swallowed by the cavernous room.

She paused, looking as much as listening for any sign of others. Sounds one would expect to hear within a church: Mumbled prayers not meant for the ears of others, hymns chanted low under one's breath, even the calm hiss of hundreds of votive candles lit and cared for as soul proxies.

Nothing.

This place was barren. Ezra looked over the hundreds of empty, shadow-colored pews that paired elegantly with the carved, ichor-colored stone walls. Crimson light fell through the windows, leaving red streaks anywhere it could reach. As she studied the stained glass, she realized depictions lay within. Figures: some human, others at least similar in structure, caught in poses that ranged from lustful to familial to violent. As much as her mind struggled to grasp the information her eyes were feeding it, understanding eluded her grasp.

Disconcerted and feeling the knife's edge of paranoia beginning to slice away between her shoulders, Ezra slid hands in her pockets and began to slowly walk up the aisle. She stepped carefully on the sable rug lining the walkway toward the altar, scuffing the material every few moments as she misstepped. Her gaze kept a constant, careful watch of the space around her, her movements an allowance against someone lying in wait.

It seemed her vigilance would go unrewarded, until she drew close enough to the altar to realize that she had not in fact been alone the entire time.

The altar itself was simpler than the rest of its surroundings might suggest it should be, but the throne that rose up behind it made up for its lack. Even from a distance, Ezra's gaze could easily see that it was built from bone — thousands woven together to build a seat that dwarfed the human-sized figure set upon it. Glittering jewels sat embedded in the crest and arms, looking like rubies in the light of the blood-red apertures set in the walls above. In contrast, the figure set upon the chair was dull, but that was thanks to the heavy, cream-colored veil cast over it.

As Ezra drew closer, though, she realized feminine touches in what at first glance seemed just another statue. A crown held the veil high enough to obscure the more delicate features of the figure's face, but Ezra could make out a nose, cheekbones: and breath, gauze rippling every few moments due to the motion.

Once she was close enough, Ezra realized that a fat, brown moth sat just above where the figure's mouth would be. It shuddered slightly when the figure breathed, but remained staunchly fastened to its perch.

Ezra found herself within just a few yards of the figure; in the space of time it took her to realize just what (or who) she was looking at, she'd come much closer than what seemed safe, considering the circumstances. And yet there was nothing blatant that might hint at danger within the gigantic edifice. The place was not a ruin. It looked cared for, if unused. Uncertainty fell hard across her shoulders and, for the first time, the thought that she was disturbing something that had been meant to remain alone ran through her mind.

That thought brought a wave of depression over her, a sadness that nearly crushed her in its undertow. Ezra knew immediately it wasn't her emotion; her goetic training and the colloquies she'd practiced gave her enough experience to recognize communication when it was thrust upon her.

"Hello?" The word emerged more tentatively than she liked, and Ezra cleared her throat. "I'm... I don't know where I am."

The sadness peaked, ebbing a little but never entirely disappearing. Ezra's right hand rose, the windows' light casting a violent flush on her skin. The figure did not move, other than the steady flutter of the moth's wings. Ezra took another step toward it, her heart fit to burst from her chest.

"Can you help me? I... I think I'm lost."

The despondence swirling around her seemed to consider her. After a beat, Ezra moved even nearer, closing the space between them. Curiosity, after all, might have brought death, but satisfaction had its own rewards. Her mind spiraled through what she'd learned — this entity might have been human in another life, or perhaps it was wholly other. The thought of discovering something new made Ezra a little dizzy, but she worked to tamp down the excitement of leaping to conclusions.

As she edged around the altar, more details became clear. Slender feet ended in pale toes that peeked out from the frilly edges of a voluminous gown gathered tightly around a slim waist. Though the figure was seated, she was tall — were she standing, she would have loomed over Ezra. The veil melded into the gown, the garment one and the same as it held tight to the figure trapped within. Pale arms sat lifelessly on the armrests offered by the magnificent chair it sat upon. Ezra lost herself in studying it, searching for clues, and almost missed the figure seeming to turn in her direction. She froze, wondering if her mind was playing tricks.

Her gaze followed the outline of a slim neck stretched taut as its chin and jaw tilted upward, as though to kiss someone standing before it or watch for falling debris from the celestial dominion above. Melancholia was etched into every line Ezra could pick out under the gauze, and as she watched, the figure turned toward her again. The moth shuddered in place, but remained devoted to its task. Standing close enough to touch, she could see a white daub, two black dots, and another black line that, combined, looked like a crude rendering of a skull.

Unconsciously, Ezra's fingertips near brushing the moth's left wing. "Hello—?"

Her word died mid-breath as the moth detached itself and flew at Ezra's face. She missed the figure's jaw unhinging until it was already happening, widening its mouth twice, three times, four — it was unending. Her hands rose to defend herself, causing her to miss the hole the moth tore in the figure's veil. An earth-shattering breath made the whole building shudder.

Ezra started to backpedal, but by then it was too late — a thick torrent of fat, brown moths streamed from the figure's mouth, seeking Ezra's form. They covered her, a dense carpet of wings, antennae, and abdomens. There were enough of them that she inhaled a dusting of wing scales, clotting her throat.

She swatted at the small, furry projectiles, trying to stop the insects' assault. It was useless. There was no time between when they were and weren't in her nose, her eyes, her mouth, down her throat, choking her, suffocating her, consuming her —

§

Ezra woke with a gasp on a leather settee; her eyes were dazzled by a chandelier dangling from a coffered ceiling. She blinked, clearing her vision.

Towering, black-oak bookcases came into view, overflowing with thick books, reliquaries, statues, and antiques. Beryl-colored wallpaper covered with spidery, black flowers papered the walls, offering a pleasing contrast to the life-size portraits of family and historical figures hanging in the few places the bookcases left untouched. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, heartbeat slowing as her gaze landed on one familiar painting hung above the softly crackling fireplace to her left.

She was at home, in the family library at the Grey Manor, sleeping on a sofa under the watchful gaze of her grandmother's portrait.

Using the heel of one hand to rub her eye as she came to sit, her bare feet landing on a rug, she realized that the former scene must have been a dream. More of a nightmare, but neither sleep states were unfamiliar, not in this house. They could have been a currency unto themselves, if she'd been comfortable enough sharing such intimate details of her psyche.

Sighing, she bent forward to rub her face with both hands. The fire was warm, and chased away the cold thoughts of wherever or whatever that cathedral had been. The rug and the floor beneath it were firm beneath her feet. The couch creaked with her movement, the smell of the aged, well-cared for leather mixing with the other sensations to ground her. Ezra tried to remember what she'd been doing in the library before she dozed off, but it was of no consequence. Either she'd remember soon enough, or find something else to occupy her mind.

She rose from the couch, her gaze wandering up to meet her grandmother's. The woman had the same jaw and cheeks as her, but Ezra's nose and forehead were someone else's. And then there were the woman's eyes — set in a gently aged, maternal face, they burned like coals. Where most portraits were flat reproductions of a living entity, there was something about this depiction that was different. Ezra watched it as she stepped closer to the fire, and it watched her in return. Though her gaze had never felt warm, or caring, neither did it feel cold or distant.

Just appraising, uncertain of her value or potential.

Rolling her shoulders to relieve them of unseen weight, Ezra turned her attention to the bookcases around her. She stepped off of the rug, the cold feeling of the tiled floor on her bare feet sending a tingle up her legs and through her spine.

Perhaps she'd been looking for something.

Whether for leisure or education, there were few times that she'd found this library wanting — but then again, the more she experienced since returning from Shadow, the more she realized how little she really knew about Satyrnine, about the goetics. About her own family, or herself.

Raising a hand, fingertips brushed hidebound volumes, embossed names and titles reaching back. She let her eyes slip closed again, her ears perking as the familiar utterance of whispery voices seeped into her hearing. They were imperceptible, watery sounds. Almost words.

Such an event was not strange, at least not within the boundaries of the Manor. Ezra opened her eyes, and the sounds evaporated. None of the titles seemed right, and she reached one of the wrought-iron ladders scattered about the room. Tugging it along on its wheels — it was the one that always stuck, she'd need to grease it again soon — she climbed to look at the higher shelves.

Reference volumes, fiction, nonfiction, there was little rhyme or reason to the library's organization. At least none that Ezra understood. She leaned out from one side of the ladder to scrutinize another shelf, only for a book three shelves down to catch her attention. It sat next to the de-jawed skull of a saint sitting under a glass dome, which might have been blamed as the source of her attention. One empty yet audacious eye was set with a purple jewel, winking softly in the firelight. Next to it, the book was plain, covered in a simple brown fabric and embroidered with a blue-lettered title.

But it wasn't the skull that had captured her — it was that although the title should have been plain, Ezra's mind could not string the words together. She reached from her perch, stretching for the book — leaving her arm wide for the skull's examination.

As her fingers wrapped around the book and slid it from its place, Ezra heard the sound of grinding stone. She glanced over one shoulder toward the fireplace, her hand leaving the volume. Nothing moved but the fire, and she thought nothing more of it.

She pulled the book loose; as it came, the grinding sound appeared again, but lasted only as long as it took to relieve the shelf of its burden. Holding her prize to her chest, she looked back at the fireplace and the portrait floating above it. If she didn't know better, the figure's posture had changed. Ezra's gaze found her grandmother's, meeting it inch for unflinching inch. Though she'd never met the woman, she liked to think they had much in common. After a long moment, the portrait seemed to radiate a warmth at her, as though it approved of Ezra's response.

Shaking her head, Ezra descended from the ladder. Once her feet hit the floor, the cold tile shocking her bare feet, her attention was wholly consumed by the book in her hand. She turned it over, finding it strange that she could not understand the words written on its spine or cover — it wasn't that she didn't understand the language. The individual letters were clear, but when she tried to string them together, they slipped through her grasp.

She hoped the interior might prove different, and opened it. Instead, the book presented her with a new frustration — page after page was blank, full of nothing. Thrusting the book down, Ezra sighed in exasperation. She looked back at the portrait of her grandmother, but the old woman's lips were sealed.

Ezra shook her head, and walked back to the couch. With one hand on the back of it, she leaped over the poor piece of furniture and seated herself in a manner that she couldn't imagine her family would have thought dignified. She crossed her legs and flipped the book open again, giving it a closer study. Surely there was some trick to it.

Her fingertips traced the edges of the pages as she examined each leaflet carefully. The slow susurration of her fore, middle and thumb unconsciously rubbing the page distracted her for a moment. As the motion lulled her, she felt the sharp pinch of something biting into and through her skin. One of the pages had become a blade for a brief moment, cutting into one joint of her forefinger. She brought it to her mouth, sucking on the wound as she watched a small dot of red color the otherwise naked page.

It didn't take long. It was a dot for one moment, and then it seemed to grow legs as it was pulled and contorted into spidery handwriting. Ezra's brows furrowed as she watched her very own blood bring the sought-after letters to life.

"To... dream... of..." As her lips formed the words appearing on the page, she felt a woozy sense of déjà vu. The grinding sound appeared again, louder; Ezra started as a whole brick landed on the floor in front of the fireplace, sending up a small cloud of dust. She looked up to find the figure that had been in the portrait looming above her.

It leaned from its portal, arms bent and hands clutching the frame tightly as its burning eyes bored into the small person below it. Ezra felt herself shrinking into the couch. She held the book just as tightly, and it cut her again — this time slicing a palm, a wrist. It latched onto her wounds, drinking deeply to quench a thirst that seemed eons in the making.

Ezra tried to throw the book to the side, but it would not be so quickly dismissed.

"You would dispense of my gifts so quickly, my dear?" Though the portrait figure dwarfed Ezra, its voice held the same whispery, watery quality of those that had come before it. It was as though Ezra had put her ear to a pool of water, and only now were the sounds comprehensible.

Her head spinning from the blood loss, Ezra slipped from the couch and tried to stand. Her knees could not hold her, and she buckled to the floor. The figure reached out with a gigantic appendage, scooping Ezra up.

"Everything has a price."

It lifted her, nearly holding her aloft next to the chandelier. Black edged around Ezra's vision as she gave what little struggle she could, but it was for naught. The figure's mouth was distending, enlarging, every tooth a canine intended to rend flesh, and beyond it was nothing but a black void that drew ever nearer —

§

She crashed violently into the abyss, instantly submerged into a bone-chilling freeze. Black enveloped her world, her only sense of having any form at all was of her hands clawing and legs thrashing against the icy water.

All she felt was a glacial cold.

Ezra thrashed, but her water-logged clothing weighed her down, every motion costing her precious energy.

Sudden explosions of light above gave her a point of direction; large objects plunged into the deep around her, cutting black stripes in the dark blue surrounding her. The shock waves from their descent pushed and pulled at her, toying with what little control she might think she had.

Her lungs burned as she fought against the need to breathe. Weaving, kicking, she strove for the surface, worried that the next earth-bound projectile would sink her more assuredly than her lack of ability to reach her goal. If there was still a thing to be gained.

There was nothing but black.

Each starburst gave her some small measure of hope, which faded just as quickly as the light. Ezra felt a ponderous despondency blanket her, binding her limbs and sapping what energy was left in her.

She struggled to keep her mouth closed, her chest near bursting as she fought a mental war to keep control over her own body —

But then bubbles ripped from her lips, the last of her oxygen escaping as she hung weightless in the dark.

Something from far below reached up, and gently wrapped tendrils around her ankles. It dragged her down.

§

Ezra wretched as she sat up in bed. A hand came to her throat, muscles wrenched tight around whatever was trapped in her throat.

She still couldn't breathe — it wasn't a leftover from the dream, this was real. Her nostrils flared, spittle dotting her lips as she coughed and hacked, trying to clear her airway.

She flung her legs over the side of the bed, reaching for something on the nightstand. Whatever it was, her arm only served to send objects crashing to the floor as she landed on her hands and knees.

The book she'd been reading — the one she'd gotten from Stangre — fell over on its pages, bending them at awkward angles.

It was the least of her worries as she felt the blockage move. It...throbbed, sliding forward toward what she knew it sensed as an opening. An escape.

She hacked again, and again, crawling forward on her own limbs as though to encourage the thing to seek its exit. She reached the foot of her bed, and felt something drip over her lips. It filled her mouth, falling over her chin, and dribbled to the floor. Instead of lessening, it seemed to expand, growing the more it reached the open air of her room.

A viscous liquid poured from her lips to the floor, growing in size as she wretched and coughed, pushing it out as much as she was able. The lack of air pulled her to the floor, leaving on her side until she was emptied. Ezra gasped, sucking in the air so fast the muscles of her chest burned.

The thick, syrupy pool in front of her burbled, shuddering. As she watched, pushing herself to at least sit a few feet away, it rose into the air. She watched it pour upward, moving in reverse. Forming a complicated spider's web of a weave that, after a moment, she recognized as a nervous system. Slim muscles formed above those, bones underneath.

After no more than a few moments, a fully formed, naked, soaking wet human body stood before her, hunched over in as much surprise (if she'd been in a more objective mood to realize) she herself surely exhibited.

Ezra's eyes were round as she stared at a mirror image of herself. A diaphanous, dripping doppelgänger with eyes just as wide, just as surprised. The two remained spellbound with one another for a long minute, both uncertain of the birthing process that had been thrust upon them.

Her twin shattered the silence as her jaw unhinged, stretching at least a foot long, and it screamed. Ezra clapped her hands over her ears, gritting her teeth, but the sound was short lived as she watched her clone fracture like a pane of glass struck by a hammer. It shattered, falling to the floor in thick, wet clumps.

The scene was over as quickly as it had begun, nothing but a pool drenching the floor to give evidence to what had occurred. Ezra was alone in her room once more, as much as she ever felt she was absolutely alone. Shuddering breath after shuddering breath escaped her throat as it seemed to readjust back to its normal size.

Her gaze fell on Stangre's much abused book, which had righted itself somehow in the chaos. It was the least worrisome aspect of the evening. The blue type on the cover was legible even in the shadowy darkness enveloping her.

All she knew was that the spell had worked, albeit with results she never could have dreamed of. Ezra pulled herself together and reached for the volume, rising to her feet.

There was more work to be done.

I got this feeling that we're dead
I got this feeling that we're dead
And there's nothing more

- Sleep Paralysis, Gabriel Bruce