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His feet were planted in the dark soil of a giant cornfield, staring into a dark tangled thicket of trees that seemed both miles away and mere inches from him at the same time. This isn't where he was. Or had been.
He had been in Chateau Claire De Lune, with his friends. He had gone to his room. He had slept in a bed- a real, proper bed with pillows and duvets and blankets. He wasn't quite sure where he found himself now.
The sky was dark with the shroud of a starless night, no moon in sight. The field he stood in glowed in a strange dull orange light, faint enough only to define the edges of the ears of corn that bobbed in the wind around him. The thickets rustled and bowed in torrents of wind, long branches whipping into each other with an echoing crackle. He tried to move, survey more of his surroundings, but he couldn't move. It was as if his joints had rusted shut, locked in place even his neck as he faced forward, unable to tear his view from the heart of the forest, the dark, gaping mess of branches that coiled impossibly into each other. But one thing set a fear in Jericho's chest like nothing else.
The silence.
Around him, he could only hear the sound of the wind, the grass lashing in its pull and the branches clattering into each other with a sick hollowness.
No screech of owls or the chittering night-birds, the sounds of mice and rabbits scampering in the undergrowth, the buzzing of clusters of insects or the chirping of cicadas and crickets in the grasses.
Only the wind.
The forest was dead.
Not a sign of life, or the noises that accompany life.
Dead Silence.
And Jericho could only stare.
Something stirred in the twisted mass of darkness, a tiny flitter of movement that made Jericho feel nauseous with sickening dread. The Eyes opened in the blackness. Two eyes, Orange, Cross-Starred, flooding the entire landscape in hellfire light, the glow so unnatural as it hit the corn, lighting them up like lanterns, their shape cast tortured and contorted shadows that writhed in the dirt.
Jericho managed to take a step back, his bones grinding in the deafening silence. From the darkness, a head began to emerge, a crow's head, inky black as it seemed to materialise from the shadow, the glowing eyes set into its pitch-dark head. It opened its jet beak, and cawed with a deafening boom that filled the entire field, and maddening whispering began to fill Jericho's head.
He cried out in pain, desperately pressing his hands to his head, hoping to find silence but the chittering bubbled from inside his head as they clattered around his thoughts. His face twisted in agony, whimpering as the sound tore into his mind. Unable to cry, he panted heavily, still looking at the giant creature as it continued to stalk forth from the forest. It wrapped a colossal clawed hand around a tree trunk, the long glinting talons ripping long scratches into the bark as it creaked and groaned. Another hand appeared, grasping another cluster of trees, the creature leering down at him from the treeline like some kind of ancient wicked God. The form moved closer, clutching handfuls of bark that shrieked and whined under its weight, a hissing pouring from the dark beak as the enormous head tilted, analysing his form, miniscule among the dirt.
Jericho tore himself from inside his head, forcing feeling to his numb limbs, breaking through the rusting in his joints. He broke into a sprint, racing away from the form that stalked ever closer. It shrieked, a horrifying sound that seared through Jericho's mind like a burning-hot blade. He cried out, stumbling but forcing himself up, up, and kept running. The creature reared back and flung itself from the trees, four tar-black wings unfurling from its form. They pounded in unison, the creature shot forward with a boom, the air from beneath its dark wings rushing and flattening swathes of corn in its force. It screamed at him again, as he ran fast down the uneven dirt path, legs threatening to buckle on the solid ridges he flung himself down. He tore his eyes from the beast, looking down the path, watching for the stones that stuck from the ground, the roots that snaked their way beneath the dirt. The path unfolded before him, staring down the thin strip carved down the rows and rows of identical corn. Every time he thought he had reached further, more corn would appear, line after line, each set completely indistinguishable, like staring down a pair of opposite mirrors. Fatigue began to set into Jericho's metal bones, gnawing at his strength as he felt his limbs flail, nearly losing footing as his ankle slipped down a ledge that stuck from the path. He could hear the creature sweeping just behind him, the thrashing of the giant sets of wings as it chased him, wailing and keening as loud as thunder, louder than the chattering that was growing louder and louder in Jericho's head, threatening to split it at the seams. As he began to pant, his breath ragged as he clawed at the sides of his head in agony, the shrill screeching and the thrumming chatter becoming nearly unbearable, his eyes fell on the dirt, once dark now smeared in blood, stains dragging away into the corn, splattered down the ridges and bumps of the road.
The shrieking stopped.
He turned his head, to look behind him.
He saw nothing.
The creature wasn't behind him, only the stretching expanse of corn and total emptiness, the world silent for one more fleeting second.
A scratched, hissing voice whispered above him, nearly deafening him though it only spoke quietly.
"Too Late."
He felt a pair of claws pierce into his back. He yelped, flung to the floor, body clattering as his burlap face slammed into the dirt, arms desperately trying to push himself up. The pain was searing, like fire hotter than anything made by mortals, talons twisting around in the gaping wound he assumed it had created, worming beneath his fabric flesh as his face twisted in as much of an expression of agony as its simple features could muster.
He looked to the dark sky, wracked in pain, opened his mouth, jaw set in agony as he tried to scream, but instead, the creature's shriek tore from his mouth, birdlike and otherworldly. His arms shook, giving way as he slammed back to the dirt, weakly clawing in the mud, trying to drag himself forwards, away from the beast carving him hollow with the blades it wore on its hands and the great cruel weapon it called a beak. His head lolled forward, gazing down the endless rows of corn, no people, no aid in sight, just rows and rows of endless, identical plants. He screamed his agony one more time, the pain unbearable in both his chest and his whispering head, now bursting with the wailing of thousands that pressed darkness on the back of his eyes. The shriek of the beast swelled from his throat again, his scream stolen by this monster, forced into the cry of this inhuman evil as it echoed away into the night, as the darkness flooded his eyesight, hearing the screaming, the chattering, the wailing crush on the sides of his head until he thought he'd explode.
He opened his mouth to try to scream again.
And gasped as he sat bolt-upright in his bed.
He was shaking, every inch of his body clinked as his parts rattled together. His hands shuddered as he lifted them to his face, covering his eye sockets as he caught his juddering breath. He knew if he was a person, he'd be crying, but no water could pour from his eyes. He loved his best gals, but always resented them for not giving him the ability to cry. All he could do was emptily gasp, not able either to breathe, no air entering his body, chest never swelling with breath. Just to mimic sobbing, to feel like he could shake the fear that crackled through him.
The sound of rustling feathers from above him made him jump from his bed as though he'd been electrocuted, knocking some ornaments from a side-table with a crash, and at the sight of orange eyes staring piercingly, he felt a scream swell in his throat. The thing cawed at him, and he recognised that this wasn't the monster of the dark forest, stalking and colossal, but just Virgil, his weird gross crow.
He sighed, turning away from it, shivering though he wasn't cold. He rubbed his stick-thin arms, the cacophony in his head fading from that of his nightmares back to the normal humdrum thrumming that plagued his head for years. He groggily rubbed his face, wandering to the mirror as he stared at himself, the dark room lit by his eyes' vague orange glow, not dissimilar to that from his nightmares.
He ignored the coincidence as he tentatively pulled up his nightshirt. The cage. Just as it had always been. Virgil was glaring at him from behind the bars, the darkness inside oozing and wriggling, but he had no great talon-tears in his back. Now Jericho thought about it, he didn't really have a back. Only the cage. He tried to smile, assuring himself that it wasn't real even though fear still prickled the corners of his mind. He let the shirt slide back down, sitting on the edge of the bed as he ignored Virgil's mocking as he laughed at Jericho's silly childish nightmares.
A Nightmare. Most dreams he had were shared with his friends, but by the sounds of quiet snoring and restful sleep that surrounded him, this was only for him. He couldn't believe he'd spent so long feeling so jealous of the living people, with their ability to sleep, and to dream. Even sitting on the bed now gave Jericho the faint nauseous feeling, this room tinged in fear. He sighed. He never wanted to sleep again, not if that monster would always be waiting for him on the other side.
He stood from the bed, not wanting to be in this room a moment longer, it felt claustrophobic, too tight, pressing in on him. He knew that Adela had provided wonderful fancy clothes for them, finer than anything he'd ever worn in his non-life, but he still slid his battered old jacket over his wooden shoulders and tugged the sad floppy hat onto his sack-head, the old comfort of his clothes soothing him. Both were ancient, torn, and weathered thin, yes, but they felt like home, they smelled of the Yonan fields and just moving around in the coat and the feeling of the hat on his head made him feel more like himself. The noise began to quieten down, the whispering fading and Virgil growing bored of mocking his unresponsive host.
Jericho didn't like the silence, he needed something to occupy himself.
He gripped the neck of his banjo and silently slid into the common room.