Here we are! I cannot believe that I have managed to write 10 chapters!
A huge thank you to all my readers, especially those who have emailed, commented and rated. Love to you all. Keep up with the emailing, commenting and loving; it makes my day to hear from my readers!
For anyone who appreciates irony, we have come full circle, but we are not chasing out tails.
I hope you enjoy this chapter and the ones to follow.
<3 Shadowsung
~~~
Dark Storm clouds raced across the sky as lightening flashed and thunder rolled, its deafening boom breaking across the flat and barren landscape like a bomb. Caitlin sat up dazedly, the fog in her mind slowly clearing. Her hand was shiny and red, but completely healed. She could have cried with relief. A lightening flash across the sky brightly lit up the sky for a moment before the darkness closed over again.
Caitlin stood up slowly and took in her surroundings. The sand that covered the ground was dull and dark and the trees that studded the area where black and gnarled. There was nothing living about this place. Fear crept up her spine. This was a place for neither the living nor the dead. This was limbo and trapped for eternity here was said to be worse than hell itself.
"A little clichΓ©, don't you think?" came a bemused voice behind her. Spinning around, she faced the speaker, still too stunned to reply. The figure bent down to pick up a handful of sand and let it slowly flow between his fingers like a black waterfall. He looked up, meeting her eyes with his ice cold ones, "It has been done before, so many times. I was hoping for something creative."
Anger raced up her spine at his calm demeanour.
"YOU!" she roared, leaping at him, "What did you do to me!"
Just before she had reached striking distance he held up his hand, stopping her motion as though he had caught her throat. Her air passage closed over with a strangled croak as she clawed hopelessly at her neck. He released her, letting her drop to the ground in a heap.
Heaving air into her lungs she coughed before lunging at him again, swiping morphed claws through his abdomen. The heavy cloak fell to the ground in a black mound that began quivering violently. Black spiders of varying sizes exploded from the openings of the pile and swarmed over her. A terrified scream tore itself from her mouth as she tripped over her own feet. The spiders crawled up her legs, moving as one writhing, furry, black mass.
Thousands of black hairy spiders kept pouring from the cloak, drowning her in a sea of creeping legs and wriggling bodies. Caitlin did her best to try and crawl away, but there were too many. Her world filled with spiders as she felt them burrow into her ears and nose and crawl down her throat, choking the blood curdling screams fighting to escape her chest.
Suddenly she could breathe again, heaving deep lungfuls of air and spluttering. The spiders had disappeared and he was standing there watching her, smiling amusedly as though she had done something mildly entertaining. "Where are we?" she asked timidly, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.
"This?" He chuckled, "Why surely you recognise this. It is your nightmare after all." He swept his arm to include all of the surroundings.
"Why are you in my dream?"
"I am not just in your dream, my dear, I am controlling it." He held up his hand and gave a flick, and suddenly they were sitting at a dinner table. Working at the kitchen bench was her mother and father, talking and giggling happily.
Caitlin remembered this time from her childhood. Tears fell down her face as she drank in her parents; lost to her for years.
"Memories are funny things aren't they? I have full access to those too," he said with a smile. He waved his hands again and the house was engulfed in flames.
"NO!" Caitlin screamed, "Stop! I don't want to see it again!" She closed her eyes tightly, the bright light from the flames flickering across her lids as she heard the dying screams of her parents all over again. A thundering boom took over the roar of flames as she felt darkness close in. Opening her eyes, Caitlin found herself back in Limbo, almost to her relief.
"How did you-"
"Do all this? It's laid out here," he said, magically conjuring up the contract she recognised as the one they had made. He grabbed it from the air and started looking at it. "You know, you really should read the fine print to these things, they really can be
killer
."
He muttered to himself while pulling the parchment down making it grow longer. "Aha! Here we are, Paragraph E subsection 2.4J, The signatory (you) hereby relieves his or her subconscious to the contractor (me) to ensure maximum communication and understanding."
Caitlin blinked at him confusedly.
He sighed and the contract disappeared. "It means," he said deliberately and slowly, "That I can control your dreams and all sorts of yummy things to make sure that you hold up your end of the deal. Which currently, you are not. So this is me, communicating to you my displeasure, understand?"
He advanced on her menacingly, murder in his cold eyes. "You said I could not be killed as a result of this transaction," She stammered, fearing for her life.
He paused before smiling, "I did too," he conceded silkily, "Only think how much more pain you can go through without dying. I could make you wish for it all too easily. Pain can be a part of your subconscious.
"I can make your insides burn and your skin freeze and yet, there will be nothing for anyone to see... nothing to treat or remedy, just pain so great that you cannot even move. I will destroy everything you care about and treasure in your pathetic little existence and make you wish for death. As you so diligently reminded me, however; you cannot die from this transaction. Pity for you, really.
Unless