Sweat rolled down Warren's back as the nightmares raged through his head. He had nightmares now and then but who didn't, honestly? Usually it involved his teeth falling out or him being stark bollock naked around Maruk Dar during a Carrion Tribe attack. They'd been getting worse since going through Ravener's Maw. Far more...personal than the usual vague anxieties. And this one was no exeception.
The Labyrinth jutted against the sky in a way that almost felt terrible and new. Familiar and yet not. Thunder rumbled, shaking the foundations, a jugular beat - thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump. The sky churned a murky grey, lights flashing in the distance. Scars on his body seemed to wince at the sight of lightning.
Running. He was running, unsure from what or to what but the agony in his sinewy legs threatened to scupper him. He took a quick look behind him to see the cold yellow eyes of his mother - did he have a mother? - long bow aiming at him, hunting him. Looking forward, a crossroads emerged. Wasn't he on a longer path? His guts turned heavy and cold, nothing was making sense, was he losing it? Darting behind pillars of dusty rock, arrows splintered on one side. He started climbing up the rock, his body feeling dull and heavy like a sack of shit - his claw like nails trying to cling on.. His footing gave way and he slid back down the rock face. A figure moved above him - Hunter. Standing, burning, reaching out, burning with silver flames. Wasn't someone trying to shoot him before? He reached out to touch him, to help him. but flinched his arm away when the flames bit into him, falling to his knees. Crawling, scrabbling away, he struggled to get away from his brother..
The thunder seemed to escalate in tempo, the wind rasping at his limbs. He stopped, clutching at his sides when he realised he was in Maruk Dar again but it was quiet, empty. Except for Aunn. Aunn stood in front of him, impassively, the stark pale seeming to sear the image in his head against the worn tents and dirt. The face of Aunn warped and changed, to Auric, to Kauth, to people who were long fucking dead. The thin smile of Carala. The soft eyes of Trinity. The sarcastic eye roll of Kreb. The faces never sat still, bubbling almost, an incoherent tangle of memories that seemed to emerge at once. Carala kissing his forehead. Trinity bleeding out in some part of the Labyrinth. Kreb cutting through Plague Bearers like a knife through water. And the images burned through him, the memories opening up wounds he thought had long since been sealed shut.
Everyone leaves. Everyone fucking leaves. Or, more accurately, everyone fucking dies. Carala, Trinity, Kreb? Dead. Aunn will die. All of them - Valaari, Naze, Runmae, Bhaltair - will fucking die and will he still be here? Why?
His bones lurched forward, his body twisting into his newly acquired wererat form. He was in Ravener's Maw again - he couldn't remember the scenery changing. The pulse of the sky quickened again, surge in cortisol as he saw something ahead. Something. Someone. Didn't matter. He tore and gnawed his way through, barely finished one kill before he was looking for the next. Iron flooded his senses, any sembelence of sanity long left him. Just hunting, just eating, just clawing. The heart of thunder echoing his own rapid heart beat.
Whatever phantom pain prolonged in that dream was soon shattered by Bhaltair kicking him. He groggily looked up from the nest he had lazily pulled around him last night. Still in Vralkast, still...Warren. A bitter taste lingered at the back of his throat - he needed anything to push away those dreams.