Once Upon a Nightmare
A character description more than a story.
I recall when I met it. I wish I could say we met face to face, and we have since... but not that first chance encounter. It was dark. It was a solemn place. The air was chilled and still. Not a blade of grass, nor a leaf or branch dared break the sanctified silence that enchanted the place. He was pale, and guant. As otherworldly as the place we met, he was. Neither demon nor specter, but more of a shadow. It moved as I did, matching me step-for-step, with unerring, and unnerving accuracy and persistence. There was malice in its veiled eyes, and an unspoken pain in its poise. Every detail wept sorrow and regret. Its head appeared wrapped in armor, like a helm of some unspeakable metal, but the details, and texture spoke of the bones of its burried past. Its shoulders sagged as though held aloft only by spiderwebs, though none could be seen over the skeletal armor that adorned its upper body. Its arms were long, and what I presumed gauntlets were clawed with wicked points. All armor was the same, so close to bone, so near to a muted metal that had seen wear beyond its time. There was no belly. The spine was there for anyone to see, as worn as the rest, and traveled upwards into the cadaver of an armor, down to the first bit of flesh it still bore at its pelvis. The flesh was black, the hide a grey. A broad tail swayed behind it, the tip revealing bone, as though it were built longer than the flesh ever intended to grow. The bone flicked like a dagger with each sway's climax, like an ominous warning betraying it's dangerous nature. The legs were digitigrade like a beast, though I find no suprise in this, for what was I observing if not the animate remains of some monster, some beast? The feet terminated in draconic claws, which looked like nothing so much as the metal composing its armor. I could see no eyes, but there was a certain madness to its stare. Its dull, unsensing gaze that never left me, and made me question what it was seeing more than how. It came to me in a dream. It saw it once then, and yet... somehow I feel it had always been lurking near, frightfully so. I wonder sometimes if I turn...would it be there? I see it in the mirror sometimes, staring into my eyes, asking an unspoken question that I only recently was able to decipher. I know, that despite my fears, I shall never see this creature behind me, though it shadows always. I know it is always present. I know its name, and its voice, though it has never spoken to me. This woeful thing is always there with me, never in sight, always just outside of my view. Even should I look down, I know my eyes will not see this thing. It terrifies me every time I wake up, and I question its actions ever night before I sleep.