Chapter 5: Senses Burned Down

The darkness was blinding, and the surroundings felt warm and sweaty to James. He raised his hand, raised his fingers, and finally, raised his visor. James saw his hand in front of his helm. His armour was a dark black, like the dark of midnight, and it was midnight around him. James saw his prey for today, a dark-haired youth, running about four yards away. He rushed to the boy, and felt for his sword at his waist, finding a dark metallic blade hanging from his torn leather belt. He removed the weapon, and caught up with the fleeing child. The boy's eyes were completely black, and when his mouth opened to shriek, the void behind his lips, between his jaws, was black. The colour of the surroundings stalled at the extremities of the screaming adolescent. James raised his sword, and let it fall, biting through the kid's black hair, through his black skull, and back out through his chin. But when James pulled on his sword, tearing through the child's front face, and let the body fall, no wounds were to be found on his face. Instead, his dark black blood gushed from his mouth and fell on James' armour. Where the fluid fell, burned.

The thing on the floor was now completely black, and when it raised itself back up, thousands more of its kind woke with it. Its blood began to dissolve James' metal armour, and it went right through his smallclothes to reach his bare skin. As he felt his attire burn to kingdom come, he screamed, shrieked and cawed, feeling the liquid burn through his skin and flesh. The crowd of faceless spectres, with only a mouth on their face, laughed with their only feature, spitting more black blood on the writhing author, who had fallen to the floor. Millions surrounded him, laughing and smiling and spitting, all joyous to see his downfall. At his final moment, the writer himself laughed. At least James had killed his competition, if nothing else.

James woke to Arthur laughing, and raised his unhelmed head. "Why are you laughing, pray tell?" "Touch the corner of your left side of your mouth, and you'll understand." James touched his left cheek but felt nothing, "There's nothing." "Oh sorry, my left, your right." When James touched the other cheek, he felt a liquid. He feared it to be the black blood from his dream, but the lack of it burning through his gums and jaw tipped him off that it was just drool. "It's goddamn drool! Have you never seen spit." "No, but seeing a screaming, sleeping man with water on his ugly-ass face, certainly seems humorous. Anyway, what was the reason for your singularly terrifying shrieking, that so inconsiderably brought me out of the toilet?" "Did you wash your hands?" "My roommate was screaming like he saw a ghost and the spirit was choking him. What do you think, genius?" "I think you should clean your hands, and keep yourself away from my business." "You call that business. You know what I call it, the voice of a insane man. So, are you?" "Am I what?" "Insane!?" "The way you're screaming, I would think you are the crazy man." "I'll wash my hands. And after that, tell me what was your recent nightmare." "No, I won't." "You will, and you will do it happily." "Damn you. Just wash your goddamn hands."

Arthur walked out the toilet door, and sat down on the lower bed. His head almost touched the higher bed's frame, but barely grazed it at his current height. His deep voice filled the room, "So, What was the reason for your untimely scream?" "A nightmare." "Yeah, no sh*t. Elaborate, you complete nincompoop." Arthur laughed. James, on the other hand, was still reeling from the scarring burning of his flesh, "It's nothing. Some dream paralleling my current situation, as my mind is so nice to remind me. I have to write, something. Michael has given me a time crunch. Three months without a good story, and he'll drop me for a new guy." "That's a shame." "Yeah. It's quite unfortunate. Anyway, I got to go back to writing. Good night, and I'll make no sound." "And the light?" "I'll write it on my phone, with less brightness." "Okay then, naff off and write some of your psychedelic sh*t." "Go to sleep, mate." Arthur jumped up onto the higher bunk bed. James went back to his work, but felt no imagination blossom in him.

James opened his eyes, and saw the vivid green. The grass was tall, reaching his forehead. Wherever he saw, the tips of the grass filled his vision. The grass ruffled with the wind, turning this way and that, rustling and looking as if they were green flames, burning as the wind blew through the green. James looked around, trying to locate his new victim, but was surprised to see nothing but two black towers. As he turned his head to look higher, the towers met to make a gate, and the colour a little above it was a bleak beige. As he highered his view, he felt his spine shiver. The single, wide gate made two beige columns on both its sides, which did not meet the ground, and the centre narrowed to a fair cylinder, and above the cylinder, was a mouth, then a nose, then two black holes, and finally, where the very clouds met the massive structure, black grass that covered the castle's topmost crown. The giant began walking, towards James.

Its feet made the earth tremble, descending like the rocks from a trebuchet, like nuclear bombs, slowly finding themselves up and down, up and down, nearing the grounds around James. He began to run, trying to escape the monster. It's face was not something James could comprehend, but its eyes burned blue, and it's mouth was a black void, ready to swallow the appetizing chicken that was James. James' evading was fruitless, as the giant reached his heels. The author's tiny presence did not even warrant a turn of the thing's head, and it's eyes were set to the horizon. As it readied its final step, at least for James, James saw the sole of it's boots, ragged things, ready to crush the ant's useless body into the ground, food for the next batch of ants. The foot descended, and James raised his arms, trying to keep the boot up, away from James' crown. His attempt was fruitful, for a small second, as the thing's boot stopped. But only for a second.

As the boot fell, James' arm's bones broke, cracked under the pressure, and the mere boy felt his head crack, as the giant descended and crushed the ant. The green flames burned around him, ready to consume his smushed material body.

When James opened his eyes again, the grass seemed smaller. But his beige coloured body felt uncrushed. As he looked behind, on the giant's path of destruction, the destruction was far less perceivable. The creature he had crushed was nothing, a dot in endless green. The horizon, when he raised his head, was filled with villages, filled with homes, filled with peasants like the thing he had smashed. The houses seemed like toy mansions, the church bell tower as high as a pen set upright. The bells announced the giant's coming, and as his feet crushed the countless houses, James laughed. Every chuckle he uttered, was followed by his eyes closing and opening, and his perspective switched with every giggle to another one of the peasants he crushed like ants, who screamed and shrieked like cowards. Their screams went unheard when he was up in the clouds, but their shrieks filled his ears when he was down with their makers, breaking his eardrums, and making his ears bleed. For every second second, James suffered unbelievable pain, his arms breaking and his ears breaking, and every other second, he held unbelievable power, cracking through the skulls and ribcages of the peasants screaming and running. But as he continued walking, he felt his power waver. Each step left the horizon higher to James' view, and each step left the screams of the crowd a bit louder to James' hearing. The grasses felt taller with every second, and the toy houses turned to castles. Soon enough, James' material form was as small as the 'ants' around him, a small thing compared to his former glory. The peasants surrounded him, hundreds and hundreds. All bloody, with broken heads and jaws, with bleeding ears.

The bloody public began to laugh, every chuckle like a scream in James' ears, all synced up. The sounds burned through James' ears, and he reached and touched his cheek. When he removed his finger from his bearded face, he saw his fair finger was bloody, dark red, almost a black, and yellow with earwax. The horde began to shriek more, a terrifying giggle. James would have prayed, if his voice could even be heard from the heavens, for the acid of the previous dream's hordes to be reinstated. The burning of his armour and skin would be a welcome respite from the beyond jarring music made by the crowd. His nose bled, and he felt his very brains seep out of his earholes, turned to soup and mush by now. His tongue tasted the world's worst taste, as burning acid made it's way up his stomach and gullet, through his mouth, out to the loud world. As his ears and brain burst, his nose bled, his tongue tasted hell, his eyes burst under the pressure, the aqueous and vitreous humors dripping down his cheek, and his vision closed to the ear-splitting hell it viewed.

James' eyes were hurting, when they finally opened. His ears were not bleeding, but for all that helped with reducing the pain, they might as well have been. His brain focused, and he cleared his nose and jaw. All that filled his face's holes was air, no blood or acid to be found. Everything in front of his eyes was blurry, as his eyes focused to the grey world. His head was laid down on the desk, his right ear kissing the wood. He raised his head, and felt the grey world come into focus, no peasants, no giants, no church bells, no tall grass. The world was bleak, but he felt himself smile, seeing a world without crushed heads and deafening howling. Hell was shut to his view, and it's green flames faded, ashes disappeared and sparks snuffed.

As he looked around, James saw that Arthur wasn't there on his bed. The world outside his window was grey, but it was lit up, the sun up in the clouds James' head was just in, a few seconds ago. He saw straight into the burning flames of the star in the sky, and felt his eyes sizzle, a comfortable experience compared to the pain his senses had just suffered. He opened his drawer in the desk, and saw the brown noose inside, his backup plan for his miserable life. It was a open gateway to a colourful afterlife, where his dreams were realised, minus any crushed heads and skin-searing acids, and his plaguing nightmares would be non-existent, a true paradise. His hand reached out to the gateway, and then retreated, as his previously mush-turned brain kept his hands off his secondary plan. His senses, and him in tow, deserved better, some respite from the hell they suffered everyday on earth, and every night when he closed his eyes, but his brain thought otherwise, unfortunately.