I figured, since I haven't been on here in a while, I would give my opposition, equal time and post something that could be described as a very bad dream. Let's see what you, the reader, thinks about it.

I re-named this piece after my main source of refuge. We live nearly 5000 miles apart, yet he seems to help me see reality as it is more than most.

Enjoy. - Emma Holton

(Fever Dream)

I saw an ocean of black.

Silver glitches in the sea flickered like broken glass as they hit the shores.

I stood above it all, on the rocks. My dress torn and dirty, the wind tearing it to shreds with the freezing ice.

Yes, it snowed. It snowed ashes. It snowed reflective snowflakes.

I was screaming. Screaming as I heard the beat of a violent drum.

I couldn't stand on my own feet. I stood on my toes, doing what I could to balance myself out. Trying to fight against the wind and sleet. My legs bleeding from the shards of ice prodruding from my skin.

I cried, watching as the waves of oil grew higher.

They crashed against the rocks I stood upon. I dodged the wave, watching as arms reached out to me in the waves, screaming, tearing at my hair, my dress, my skin.

Finally, they reached me, with fish hooks that were shoved deep into my palms.

I writhed, screaming with searing agony as the hooks in my palms burned me. The hotness turning my hands into a charred black.

I had never endured so much pain before until now.

Bodies lay strewn on the ground, the bodies of my comrades, my kin, my life.

I danced as the sleet became a beautiful rain. The storm before me growing violent, I danced as though I was a ballerina. My dance, however, becoming more erotic, than graceful. The tips of my toes scraped on the rock, bleeding, cracking. I didn't care. It was all for him.

I smiled. Feeling my Significant Other near me. He brought the rain to calm my soul.

And then he was there. Staring at me.

The Significant Other.

The Ringmaster.

His smile caused a crack of thunder in the sky. He reached out to me, and I greedily took his hand, and we danced, in the rain.

The tempest grew more ferocious as he twirled me around. He kissed me, making me feel safe.

Decieving me.

My Ringmaster pushed me over the rocks, causing me to fall towards what I thought was my death. But instead, I floated above the dead. Watching as they reached for me. Gleams of hope stuck in their souless eyes.

These were the damned. I brought this fury upon them.

Sickness overcame me and I lurched foward, my dress flowing around me as if I were underwater.

And then it hit me. The tempest reached its peak, and with those same hooks my comrades had used on me, I was pulled towards the Sea of Black.

I turned to find my Ringmaster, watching as he turned his back on me, walking towards the light.

Smoke, oil and ice began to beat my back, and I was writhing in pain again. The smell was nearly unbearable. The twister of black waiting to greet me with their fury and hatred. I screamed my Ringmaster's name, but he did not hear me.

With the hooks in my hands lurching me forward, I screamed. Trying my hardest to drone out the sounds of Regret, and the sounds of Madness. The sounds of cracks, glass and agony deafened me.

And then it took me. I was inside the oil, drowning.