Chapter Text
For many nights now, I keep having the same, reoccurring dream.
It always starts the same. I’m standing at the edge of my biome’s beach. There’s fog in the distance, both emulated by the digital panels and the hidden weather controllers, and a slight breeze caressing the skin my face.
At my feet, the water is lapping gently, following a familiar rhythm, one that I might know better than my own heartbeat. There’s familiarity in the scene in front of me. One that I can’t never get tired of.
Closing my eyes and tipping my face toward the fake sun shining above me, I take a deep breath in, expecting the smell of salt and iodine to fill my nose – one that had taken months of tries and experimentations for the Eridian’s scientists in charge of my new home to get right – only to be hit by a strong, nauseating smell of iron.
The dream shifts.
Something deep in my psyche already knew what is coming next, but as always, I’m sleeping mind is simply caught by the chains of my own subconsciousness.
Red fills my sight as I open my eyes once again. The line where the “sky” meets the “sea” is no more, replaced by stormy heavens crying body fluids all around him. Blood has replaced the sea, and it is now slowly creeping up the length of ankles.
I try to step back, to run away from the gore trying to get to me, only to stumble as something takes hold of my leg and clings hard. The suddenness of the touch pulls a cry out of my chest as I stumble backward, falling into the sea of blood, feeling it seeping through the fabric of my clothes, drenching my pants and favourite sweater with it, a sickening warmth now sticking to my skin as I desperately try to escape whatever is holding me back, as the hand which had emerged from the blood tensed around my leg and use me as an anchor to drag whatever is at the other end of it up.
Something deep within my mind urges me to calm down, whispering words of comfort, for this is familiar and safe. It craves the soft feeling of being held after years of loneliness, after an eternity of trying to fight back the gaping hole in my chest with the comfort of my own arms or the cool touch of xenonite suit around my waist-
A terrified cry gets stuck in my throat as a monstruous figure emerges from the ocean of blood. One with far too many teeth and a too wide mouth to belong to another human being. A figure whose body seems to merge seamlessly with the blood surrounding meus, white tendrilsrootstentacleslimbs moving meus around in and out of sight, reaching out for the sun smothered out by the gore endlessly falling from above. A being who drags itself closer and closer to me until it rests almost on me, face completely red from the blood covering it at the exception of black eyes so deep that I feel like I could drown in them. Eyes who shine a faint, almost invisible red light -- something not meant for human sight, the colour of what almost kills all life on Earth and Erid, something that should horrify me and yet, that I can’t seem to turn my focus away from-
And this is familiar and comforting and feels like home, filling the gawning hole in my chest, the selfish, restless monster that refuses to lay down to rest wants for more and more and more-
It’s terrifying and it steals the breath out of my chest with how beautiful the vision in front of me is.
The being has now crawl itself even closer to me, and all that my mind can register anymore is the galaxy in its eyes as a voice slither around me, curling like a snake around my neck and making itself a nest comfortable nest next to my heart-
Ȼꝋᵯē ⱦꝋ ᵯē. Ȼꝋᵯē ⱥꞥđ Ꞩⱥꝟē Īⱦ.
With a gasp, Ryland managed to pull himself out of the dream’s grasp, moving up so rapidly that he almost knocked himself out of the bed. The sudden movement startled Rocky, who had taken upon himself to watch over the human for the night, at the latter’s demand.
“Grace, are you alright?”
It took the human a few moments to get his breathing back to a more controlled, regular rhythm, as well as a conscious effort to unclench the hand now gripping the fabric of his sleeping shirt.
“I’m… I’m alright, pal…” he stammered out, licking at his dry lips, “It was just… Intense.”
Somehow, he still could feel the taste of blood coating the back of his throat even now.
“Same strange dream, was it? The one that makes you worry?”
Grace shakily nodded, “Yeah, it was. Did you notice something weird while I slept?”
Rocky balances left and right for a few moments, “Your sleep was the same as usual. Maybe even a bit more restful. Didn’t look like you were having a bad one.”
Letting out a thoughtful sound, Grace shifted to stand up but stopped at the feeling of liquid pouring out of his nose. A quick look downward showed many droplets of blood now soiling the fabric of his shirt, and he quickly brought his hand up to stop the bleeding before it could do more damage.
“Grace is leaking from the nose! Grace hurt? Hurt from the dream?” chirped anxiously Rocky, stomping three times the ground with one of his legs before rushing to his side, offering his protected carapace for the human to lean on.
“I can’t know for sure, but this is not usual for me, that’s for sure.”
Letting out a long, worried note, the eridian forcefully led the alien toward Armando, completely ignoring Grace’s attempt at soothing him. It was only a matter of minutes for the medical robot to clear him out, though the automated voice commented on the exceptionality of the event – as in, according to its archive data regarding Grace’s health, this could be cause of concern – which certainly didn’t assuage Rocky’s worry for his “leaky blob friend”.
“Not sure if it’s a good idea to study it.” His best friend declared two hours later, fiddling with his claws as Grace took sample of the now dried blood that had ruined his sleeping shirt, “As humans say, I often a bad feeling about this.”
Grace looked down at the eridian with a soft smile, laying one hand upon his xenonite suit, “Honestly, I’m pretty sure I’m going to only find my own blood there. It came out of me, after all.”
“Then why Grace worry?”
Biting the inside of his cheek, the human shrugged, “I’m not sure myself. I guess it’s just a way for me to put my spirit at rest. Like a child would ask for their parent to check beneath their bed after a nightmare, just to be sure.”
“Human’s fears are weird.”
Grace chuckled before turning back to his microscope, starting to adjust the lense.
“I know, pal. I guess that you can add it to the whole “alien from another planet” package deal.”
Whatever remark his best friend made afterward was lost to the sudden static that filled Grace’s mind the second he focused correctly the lens upon the sample. Somehow, part of him the one comforted by the dream, the one finding solace feeling of belonging in the overwhelming beauty of the monstrosity of whatever was reaching out for him- had been prepared to see something more mixed to his blood in the sample.
That didn’t mean that Grace was spare the sudden wave of nausea that crawled over him at the realisation.
Whatever was happening to him, it wasn’t going to let him go anytime soon.
Somewhere out of there, out of his time and space, in a limbo dead brand new universe, They watched as Their Blessing came to a realisation.
They smiled to themselves, spreading their roots and branches out, feeding from the blood that gave Them Life and using some to heal Their caretaker-turned-ward.
Ꞩꝋꝋꞥ, ᛗɏ Ⱳⱥɍđ. Ꞩꝋꝋꞥ, Ƀłēꞩꞩīꞥꞡ ⱳīłł ȼꝋᵯē ⱥꞥđ ꞡēⱦ ɏꝋᵾ ꝋᵾⱦ ꝋӻ ħēɍē. They crooned at the being sleeping deep inside Their being, slowly healing from the wrongs done to him by so many unworthy.
Like a parent would comfort their child, They tightened gently their white roots around the resting figures, pressing soothingly over him as They prepared Themselves to finalise the connection between Their Charge and the Blessing They took so long to find.
Ꞩꝋꝋꞥ, ɏꝋᵾ ƀꝋⱦħ ꞩħⱥłł ƀē ӻɍēē.