Second Year Slytherin Student: SaLevera SykesLevera woke up choking on a scream. She was tangled in the duvet and sheets on her bed and they were suffocating her. Levera panicked and struggled her way out of the tangled mess, which ended up with her falling to the floor. Once there she curled into the fetal position, resisting the urge to cry. She wouldn't give Ferreus the satisfaction. He could torture her all he wanted, but she would not give him her tears.
Then there was the dream...Oh Sekhmet the dream, it was horrible. Ferreus had trapped her in a never ending series of hallways and then let her run for what felt like an eternity before finally creating a door for her. Ferreus had then returned her weapons both her sword and her various knives. On the door was a note. Dream Levera reached for it, desperate to figure out the rules of this game so she could figure out how to escape. The note had said that she need only follow his instructions through the next room and each of the subsequent rooms and he would leave her be for a night. There she could rest and regain her strength and be at peak physical condition again. She was so sick of feeling weak. There was a time before Ferreus where Levera was capable of running seven or eight miles, but after Ferreus she was lucky if she could go for five, and even more recently three.
Dream Levera reached for the instructions that were also attached tot he door. They were simple
Kill everyone inside. Dream Levera steeled her resolve, they were easy enough to follow, she had been practically bred to follow those orders. She entered the room with her sword drawn and took down every person in the room. The figures Dream Levera had killed all had masks and as she walked by one of the bodies she accidentally kicked it. The mask fell off to reveal Carynn. The sight made Dream Levera pause and furrow her brow. She reached down to remove a mask off another body, it was Zeb. She growled low, angry at Ferreus, then stopped, her growling was useless and was only succeeding in fueling her rage more. She calmed herself and reached for one last mask. Her fingertips barely brushed the mask before it fell off. It was Therian, is eyes, glazed over with death, stared accusingly at her. Dream Levera sucked in a breath. There was nothing she could do now....Therian was dead. She killed him, she would have to live with it. Nothing more could be done. All she could do was continue on. Dream Levera walked purposely to the next door and ripped the instructions off.
Kill everyone inside.And so it went for what felt like eternity. Levera slowly losing herself in all the slaughter, each room making her let go of her rational self a little more. She was bathed in red, sweat was blood and blood was sweat. Her sword was colored like a ruby and was dripping. Dream Levera was even beginning to smell of death, and she couldn't deny that she was beginning to enjoy the taste of blood. She craved it. Ferreus had released her blood lust. She was so far gone that in the end she even defended the Tribunal from friends and people she considered family. She killed Therian a second time and was heartbroken for only a second before she moved on.
In the final stage of the dream Ferreus assaulted her with incredible mental pain to make her bow to his whims. The pain came from within, causing her body to tense so it she was paralyzed. Then he had relented ad teased her into allowing him to have his wicked way with her.
Levera woke from her dream the moment Ferreus abandoned her in the dream bed. And now Levera lay traumatized on the floor, trying to reconcile what had happened to her and how real it felt. Then something in her snapped and she was on her feet. Images from the dream flashed through her mind's eye. She saw Carynn dead at her feet, then Zeb, then Charlotte....something else in her snapped and the next thing she knew she was getting dressed; black jeans, black sleeveless top....
She leaned against her trunk, panting hard for breath for some reason she couldn't place. Levera cringed as a massive cramp ran through her and more images invaded her mind. Ferreus was caressing her, then biting her, then kissing her. Levera snapped again. This time her boots were on her feet and her hands were lacing them with a practiced speed. She screwed her eyes shut to fight back tears, it felt like acid eye drops were dripping onto her eyeballs, but she ignored the pain.
Images were assaulting her again and a few more mental threads snapped. She didn't understand what Ferreus wanted from her. Levera wasn't a powerful witch. She was still a student. Even as a warrior she was still technically in training. The Sa in her name signified that she was simply a “Sword master's apprentice”. Compared to some of the minions Ferreus could gather she was nothing.
But he had whispered in a husky, cruel voice that he knew that she had potential and that he wanted to realize that potential. But what could that potential possibly be? The potential to be evil? The potential to be corrupt? Levera didn't want that. All she wanted was to be neutral....only doing what she had to do to save Charlotte.
Levera was NO hero.
But Levera was also not evil. She didn't murder unnecessarily, but only when her survival or an ally's survival depended on it. Certainly Levera had slaughtered many men and women in cold blood, sometimes she even enjoyed it, but every time her survival depended on it.
Levera did have a flaw though, an almost insatiable bloodlust. Ever since the battle with the Tribunal she had found that when she sparred she almost always had the urge to tear her opponents throat out and make them bleed. She wanted to drink their blood, bathe in it, relish in watching it leave her opponent's body. Therian had be the only one able to control her in that regard. His tickling seemed to shock her out of that state of mind. But still the flaw existed. And maybe Ferreus was playing on that.
She sprinted through the dungeons, goosebumps rising on the bare alabaster skin of her arms. Her breath came out in a mist that danced up around her head then dissipated as she sprinted through it. She had no idea where she was going, she didn't even realize she was sprinting. Her mind disconnected from her vision as more horrible images played through for her, and something else snapped.
She was thrown into a vision, much like one of the ones she had last year with Nott and with Charlotte. This time she was crawling towards Ferreus, hips dancing seductively as she gave him a lustful gaze. She caught sight of a face - her face- in the reflection from a piece of silver decoration. Her appearance had changed - tattoos spread across her face, her eyes a bright red - the corruption had finally changed her outward appearance.
Vision Levera rose up between Ferreus's legs and looked up at him, adoration danced across her face tangoing with the lust. She was older, her body had developed more, curves were forming on her narrow athletic frame. Ferreus absentmindedly stroked her hair, not really paying any attention to her. Suddenly he gripped her hair and yanked her to her feet, his lips tracing a hot trail from her throat to her ear. He hissed something into her ear, then shoved her away. Vision Levera bowed to Ferreus and then turned on her heel, marching out the door with a military precision, determined to carry out whatever orders he had given her.
Levera snapped back into her body only to discover that she was still sprinting. She wasn't entirely sure where she was, but she knew she couldn't run for much longer. Her breath was catching in her throat. Her throat felt like it was swollen to twice its normal size. She couldn't swallow and there was a strange liquid running down her cheeks. She was crying.
Cold air caressed her cheeks, but her body felt like it was on fire. Little parts of her mind kept snapping , she was losing more and more of herself each time one of her boots hit the ground. The images, the visions, the wretched sensations that made her hate herself...none of them would go away. She HAD to escape, had to, had to...
There, in front of her, there was escape, one of the deeper edges of the lake. Levera jumped in, her body breaking the cold surface. For a few seconds she was completely submerged. Then she naturally rose to the surface, but Levera didn't know how to swim. At that second Levera gave up on herself. Survival instincts kicked in and she flailed around uselessly, it kept her head above the surface for a little longer. But then, even her body gave up and she slipped below the surface
~~
“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.” ((OOC: Please do not save Levera, that's Wisteria's job. Please and Thank you))