Dream
It's a tricky game, he thinks, and one with so much at stake. There is such pain around him, blood, terror, a high voice screaming, no longer for help that will never come but now simply a sound of endless despair, the sound of an animal that smells the slaughter just before it comes...
Stop it, he thinks. Stop screaming. Nothing will change. Coolly, emotionless, he plays the game. Here are the pawns, and so important, they are, but he will use them as he must, sacrifice them mercilessly in the name of the Queen. One of them, a girl in noble dress, her blond hair shining like her smile; another, cynical and cigarette-devouring chef; another, cheery gardener; another, bumbling maid hiding murder beneath. A shadowy Oriental and a woman resplendant in red, with death following after her. And there is another piece, a strange and dark figure who seems unbound by the rules of the game, flitting from space to space as he pleases, almost in anticipation of his--the player's--thoughts.
Oho...well aren't you a very small master.
He blinks. The game has changed now. He is in the midst of it, and the black pieces close in around him, and there is terror and agony--cold steel into his heart, blood and sickness and death--and then oblivion...
You have summoned me. No, not oblivion, not where he can still hear that voice. That fact will not change for all eternity. What has been sacrificed will never be returned.
It has a presence, he thinks. It curls around him.
Now choose.
The contract, he thinks. I accept the contract.
It laughs.
Stop it, he thinks. Stop screaming. Nothing will change. Coolly, emotionless, he plays the game. Here are the pawns, and so important, they are, but he will use them as he must, sacrifice them mercilessly in the name of the Queen. One of them, a girl in noble dress, her blond hair shining like her smile; another, cynical and cigarette-devouring chef; another, cheery gardener; another, bumbling maid hiding murder beneath. A shadowy Oriental and a woman resplendant in red, with death following after her. And there is another piece, a strange and dark figure who seems unbound by the rules of the game, flitting from space to space as he pleases, almost in anticipation of his--the player's--thoughts.
Oho...well aren't you a very small master.
He blinks. The game has changed now. He is in the midst of it, and the black pieces close in around him, and there is terror and agony--cold steel into his heart, blood and sickness and death--and then oblivion...
You have summoned me. No, not oblivion, not where he can still hear that voice. That fact will not change for all eternity. What has been sacrificed will never be returned.
It has a presence, he thinks. It curls around him.
Now choose.
The contract, he thinks. I accept the contract.
It laughs.