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Another's life

Awakening from a deep sleep is not a desirable thing at the best of time, I think we can all agree on that. Waking up from a shallow sleepless night can be worse, or waking up to a nightmare. I've had all of those before, as I'm sure many others have too. Though I must say, there is nothing worse than waking up from sleep feeling refreshed, but feeling like the dreams had never ended.

Okay, I guess for a lot of people that would be nice. But my point to this is different. Because when it happened to me, the life I once had was actually gone. The weird shifting world of a dream was what I seemed to be in. While in a dream you don't notice the flaws of the world, that which isn't true. Inconsistencies in everything from the house you live in to city life. Halls and rooms changing to lead somewhere else. It all seems natural as you sleep. But after awakening.. It's different when the world seems to be as such. Logic seems not to work in any real pattern. Now, again, It wasn't quite like that.. I compare it to a dream but it was mostly like a new life. It had bits of my life before, but it was incorrect.

I woke up, if you could call it that, in the evening. Logic aside, I went out my window soon as I woke up. I don't know why, but it seemed to make sense. The air was warm, as well as the breeze, the last rays of the day shinning down through the dark clouds. The sky was picture perfect. The dark tall trees contrast dark against the bright sky. It truly was something out of a dream. Almost the picturesque scene you'd associate with hallowseve. The sky was mostly covered in clouds, the normally white fluffy of the sky brilliant yellow and orange, and the veins of dark gray like cracks in the sky.

When looking down from the sky however, it was not so perfect. The trees grew reasonably tall and were many. The flow of the stream near my house was altered. Like the same stream but in a different time where it had not yet chosen the path of it's present. The trees were as well not right. They seemed younger than before, near picture perfect as it were. Like it really was a photo of a fall night, frozen in time. The leaves having changed colors on the trees and most of them fallen. Past them rolling hills and fields till the mountains in the distance. I know that doesn't seem to make sense, as I just said they were not so perfect. But.. Well I suppose not perfect is the wrong phrase. Things looked good. Brilliantly so. Which was wrong. It was like where I lived, but done over with a keen eye of an artist. It was though, an artist of a different taste then I had myself. It was pretty, but it was not like a dream world that would come from my mind. It was brilliant to be sure, but it seemed.. Wrong, somehow. Unnatural.

The night began to fade as I went back into my room through the window then left through my door. Suddenly silence hit me. Outside there were the the sounds of the wind in the falling leaves and the still running stream. Inside the house though it was quiet. That was when the panic set it. As much as I would not like to say it, being alone is the biggest fear I have. Worse than heights, or the dark. Or any of my other fears. Being alone was worse than anything.

I quickly ran through the house, my heart racing faster and faster as I looked into each empty room. And I don't mean empty as in no one was there, empty as in only my room had the right stuff in it. It was like everyone else had moved out and left me here. I continued to run through the house, looking for everything, through everything. All possessions belonging to one of my family member was gone. Leaving only what I had considered to be family neutral things. The tv, kitchen appliances, couches and so on. After going through the house several times I found my stuffed Fennic, Rue, and sat on the couch, staring quietly out the window at where the rode should had been. It was no longer there, nor was the house up the rode, or anything really. The land on each side of the house looked almost the same. Only minor differences. The light of the sun through the clouds as it faded seemed to come from every direction. Not just one sun. Light seemed to fade as if someone was turning down the lights till the outside was only a landscape cast in a dark blue light. It looked just as perfect, the moon visible in the sky in the perfect spot over or through the dark branches of the trees. Everywhere I looked, the moon seemed to be in just the right spot. It was eerily calm and peaceful, but did nothing to stop the loneliness. It had been less than an hour and I could already feel it affecting me. Fear and desperation filling me along with depression, the rest of my senses seeming to dull. Just like that I was ready to give up. No want to explore the outside world, nor to look at the always perfect landscape. I just sat in the dark with Rue as full dark filled the house, save from the moonlit light of the outside. I reached for the remote to turn on the tv, though there were no working channels, just so the dark blue would fill the room and buzz of it would end the silence.

But the silence seemed to want to end as well, and soon it did. Shortly after I heard a soft, haunting voice singing. The noise seeming to come from everywhere but nowhere at the same time. It was terrifying I suppose. Suddenly my body froze and panic took over me as I started to cry. It was like I was in a beautiful nightmare, all of it together. Sept when I normally had nightmares they would end. I would wake up crying and normal life would be there, my kitten sleeping next to me, my nightlight in the corner, and the sounds of wildlife outside. This was almost like that I suppose. When I woke up in the night, before it was light out and before anyone was awake. When everything seemed dead and I was scared and felt so horribly alone. Before now that was the worst thing that happened in my life, though it did happen a lot. It was nothing like this.

The voice kept growing in volume. And soon out the window I saw a white figure. She was small, almost kid like. Her hair was a dark red and she wore a slim flowing white dress. Her eyes and body seemed to glow, the eyes dark purple and the body near black. As she got closer I saw that she seemed to be some sort of spirit. Her body was covered in swirling, almost runic markings. All of which seemed to emanate darkness, as a fire would emanate light, giving her an almost glow as they were in contrast to her pale skin.

I backed up against the side of the couch, Rue hugged tightly in my arms. I expected the spirit girl simply to float through a wall but she did not. She came around the house and through the front door. Which in a way was more terrifying than if she had passed through solid matter. She stopped in front of me and gave me a very curious look. It was then I noticed that the singing was not from her. She seemed more human now. She had turned on the lights when she came in, so the marking on her skin were much less noticeable. And she looked like a normal kid. She sat across from me and watched me quizzically.

"The singing is my sister, Esther." She said after many moments of silence. Her voice was calm and pleasant sounding. Her whole aura was like the outside world. It seemed.. Well to put it bluntly, perfect. Though she was not. Her red hair was kind of messy and poorly cut, like she hadn't bothered to groom herself recently. Though not in a bad way. It looked natural, and not as unappealing as you might have expected.

She continued on after a while.

"She is somewhere about watching over me, she always is. She enjoys her songs."

I soon let out a soft breath. This girl, although odd, seemed.. Almost normal. At least more so than the world I seemed to be in. If she had been perfect in how she looked and such, I would have fled. But she seemed like a normal teenage girl.

"W-where am I.." I said weakly, my voice faint.

"That is not a question easily answered I'm afraid. I'm not quite sure myself." She replied. Her voice still calm and nice, though sounding slightly odd. Not quite like I had thought at first when I had tried to match it to the singing. It was very hard to describe.

"Are you trapped here too? L-left here without a family.." I started then trailed off. Hating how my voice trembled.

"I am not trapped here, no. I am, I guess you could say, the creator of this world." She said with a small sigh, a faint, sad smile on her lips.

I starred at her in some small surprise, though not the horror I would have expected from myself. If anything, anger started to build up in me. She claimed to have made this place. Wouldn't it stand to reason that she had brought me here as well?

She continued on quickly, not letting my voice my complaints.

"I am.. A succubus. I suppose you would call me a demon. Though I would not call that accurate." She said, half smiling. "I caught you here. Though I did not intend for this to happen."

At this point I did not care to argue, or even bother disbelieving her claim. From the little I knew about succubi, they were female demons who fed off the emotions of those around them to live. Different ones fed off different emotions, and each had the ability to emit those emotions to those around them. Though I did remember reading they had wings, which I do not think this one did.

"But you.. Don't have wings.." I said stupidly.

She looked at me then laughed, the faint silvery outline of wings appearing in the air, like floating light. The outlines soon vanished and she looked to me with a smirk.

"Don't believe everything you read, dear. What you should believe though is that I feed off emotions. And this world lived off my my emotions. It is in a way a living representation of me as a person." She said, her smile fading. "You are stuck alone in this world. Not meant to understand the world around you. For what you live in here is not bad.. Though not what you know it should be. You are likely filled with fear and depression, as well as many other emotions that are not your own. Helplessness and numbness will likely soon fallow, if they have not already. This is what you may call a dream world. Though it is not quite how you think. You are here, but the you you think you are.. Is not you. In affect, while here you are a version of me.." She trailed off with a soft sigh, seeming irritated with herself for not explaining it better.

I shook my head. I knew who I was, and I was me. What she said confused me, but as I said I didn't care to argue or disbelieve with the succubus. More than anything I wanted her to continue. And eventually tell me a way out.

"Sadly, I have not yet found an easy way out, for anyone. Though I'm sure Esther can escape. It is a curse on my kind, our dreams. For we enter the minds of humans as they sleep and change them.. For some of us It can be good, though for others bad. My mind is not a nice place to be.. Eventually you will wake up from your dream and this will fade quickly into a forgotten memory. But you will live here for many years, and die here first. In the land of the dream there is no other way out. For until then nether of us can wake.. And you are stuck with the emptiness and self hatred that is myself."

She paused for a lone moment before quietly finishing.

"I can offer you small comforts while you're here. But in the end there is only one true way out.."