[ NOTICE ] Opal - The Other Side (DaemonGabrielle)

[Guardian_Iris]

The naiad called Opal was curled up sound asleep in her clam bed, never noticing the glittering gold butterfly as it flitted its way into her room. It lands on her temple, slowly disappearing into her head…

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A dark fog. It was so thick it surrounded her completely- blinding her. Every which way she turned she saw no other living soul nor heard a single sound. She’d move one way or another and the fog wouldn’t give way. She tried to reach out, wave it away, outswim it, but there was never an end to it. It was so vast and yet suffocating. If she tried to speak she’d hear it speak back to her. A never-ending echo ringing in her ears.

In the distance, if you could call it that, a spec came to view. She pumped her tail fin as hard as she could to reach the only seeable thing around her. Despite how fast she pushed herself it never seemed to get any closer. She’d scream in frustration just to hear it echoed back at her. She slowed and turned to forget about it when it was suddenly there before her. What she saw caused her to cry out in distress.

It was her, but not. The thing staring back at her had a dark aura emitting from it that matched it’s equally dark complexion. Her fins were torn and battered from many battles, jaw lined with razor sharp teeth that seemed to taunt her with its grin, and a glow above her head she couldn’t quite make out what it was for. The her before her was a thing of nightmares. She turned to get away from it, but it lashed out and grabbed her by the wrist. Its strength was incredible, dragging her ever closer to its nightmarish form, despite her best attempts to swim or wriggle free.

One second it was there and the next it began to wither away. Skin began to sink into itself, revealing muscle that slowly gave way to bone under it. Ribs jutted out from under the leathery mess of skin and arm joints could be seen in detail. The skin sagged, becoming too heavy and slipped away releasing the skeletal structure under it. As soon as the skeleton met the air around her it became dust and blew away- releasing its grip on her.



She tried to turn away from the rotting mess, tried to avert her eyes, but she found herself transfixed on the gruesome scene before her. It held her gaze the whole time, never crying out in pain. Once the ashes left with the wind, the fog around began to break. For a moment she felt thrilled to get away from its darkness, but the scene that replaced it was just as terrifying.

Faces of the past swirled in her view. It was like the vast nothingness had filled to the brim with lost souls. Their cries for her to save them filled her head causing her to clutch it, trying to shake off their moaning protests. Who was she to save them? Why her?

Once again she turned and swam as fast as she could, but no matter where she turned there was another one reaching out to her. She dodged the best she could, side swimming one reaching out to her just to fall into the arms of another. She shoved them off, but so many hands were reaching out to her, tugging on fins and hair.

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What happens next?


It is up to you to finish Opal’s dream sequence!

You have until —May 16th, 2018- to complete the task in order to move on to the next step.

DaemonGabrielle

 

[DaemonGabrielle]

This time opal didn't care. She didn't care about the echo. She didn't care about souls grabbing at her. All she saw was the gruesome thing that had faded before her. All she knew were the hands on her body.

Yes, she fought them. She ripped their hands off only to have more cling to her. She struggled to free herself as the overwhelming sense of something wrong grew stronger and stronger.

The hands multiplied. They grabbed her in places that had known only sweet touches. They grabbed her in places that had known no touches at all. They ripped and they jerked and they violated and they tugged until she no longer knew where she was. Lost in a sea of blackness so dark and dirty that you couldn't see in front of you. All you could do was feel and she felt to much.

A sob broke free as she struggled. And another. Until she was raging at the many digits accosting her very being. She felt as if they were trying to rip her very soul away. She screamed at them. She cursed them. She cried for the innocent touches she would never behold again without the memories of them.

She looked down and let loose a ear shattering wail and she saw that the hands had left smudges all over her body. Everywhere the little monsters had touched was black with soot. She could barely see the white of her opalescent skin anymore.

For hours, it seemed, she struggled and fought. For second upon second, minute by minute, she struggled to maintain ever decreasing freedom until she finally just.....

Stopped.

She stopped fighting, stopped crying, stopped doing much of anything and stared out into the void as the hands pulled and her tugged her downward. Down thru fog and soot as dirty and desecrating as her skin had become. Until she was falling, helpless and tired into a brighter Oblivion below.

Her chest ached. Her very heart hurt. Her limbs sore and tired as she continued to fall. The world around her grew lighter. Brighter. More awake. The hands, gone, we're now replaced with feather light strokes and touches as she fluttered down thru clouds and sunshine. Until she hit the ground with a dull thud.

And everything stopped.  

[DaemonGabrielle]

It ended.

All of it.

The touches.

The darkness.

The light.

The sound of her breathing.

Her body shut down slowly as her eyesight contracted to a blurry pinpoint.

And then, even that too was gone.

It was as though Opal no longer existed.  

[DaemonGabrielle]

Then just as suddenly, it was back. With a thunderous roar, everything came back. It was as though life exploded thru Opal. Through her chest and outward, until the very ground Opal rested on was shaking with the sheer force of her heart as it came back to life at the end.

She jerked upright and took a bone shuttering breath, breathing the miraculous air that had bestowed the gift of life.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Until she finally felt well enough to open her eyes. Slowly, the darkness lifted and in it's place was....

....


...


....


A garden?  

[DaemonGabrielle]

Greenery assaulted her newborn eyes as she slowly stared around her in confusion. She went to move her find and gasped as she realized she had legs. She stared at them in fear.

She hadn't had legs since the last time she had wandered onto dry land. But even then, then, it looked nothing like beautiful bounty around her. The flowers and the bees. And the trees and the shrubbs. All alive and merry with action. So unlike the dark, cruel entrance she had suffered thru to get here.

But she didn't want to leave. She wanted to stay. It was so different than the ugly darkness. It was soft and melodic. The flowers whispered in the breeze. The birds chirped so softly it was almost as if they weren't there.

Opal slowly stood and turned in a circle, trying to discover a way to go....anywhere. But she was so tired. Her heart so weary. And the trees beckoned her to stay. And the bees buzzed playfully around her ears and it didn't seem so bad here and a nap really wouldn't hurt her. Surely the sun would keep her safe from the meanness and barbaric evils from before.

She was so warm.

And so.....

Tired.....

So very.....

Sleepy......

She laid back down and closed her eyes.  

[DaemonGabrielle]

Only to be shooken awake. She gasped, feeling the warmth leave her body as the hand tightened it's grip on her shoulder. Her eyes flashed open to....

Logan?

His mouth was moving. Why couldn't she hear him. The only sound that filled her being was the garden and it bright and ethereal tones.

Logan shook her again, this time his face contorted in effort as he screamed at her. Why would Logan scream? She concentrated on his mouth as he repeated his sentence over and over.

"LEAVE!!! YOU NEED TO LEAVE. GO!!! YOU HAVE TO LEAVE, NOW!!!"

She winced as his words seared across her brain in a hot flash of discomfort. She winced and grabbed her head from around his arms. So loud. Why was he so loud. Logan was never loud.

She glared up at him to tell him to stop when she noticed the cracks. They ran along his face and arms, emitting an unholy whiteness from them that seemed so at odds with Logan's dark blue skin.

"YOU HAVE TO LEAVE!!!"

She winced as the roar inside her head grew louder. Louder than the garden. Louder than the cracks spewing effervescent light from Logan. Louder than anything she had ever known.

And with a gasp, the world disappeared yet again. It shattered around her, Logan being the last thing to go, a dark sinuous shadow slowly bleeding from cracked frame.

And the darkness.  

[DaemonGabrielle]

When she next opened her eyes, the garden image before was changed. Where as before, it had been warm and inviting with it's flowers and songs, this one was darker. More sinister. The plants had become fungis. The sun had been replaced by a moon that was large and red and ominous. The withered stalks that surrounded her small form were like a caccoon. She fought her way out f them until she was standing and staring at the only path around.

It's length was line by black, glass like stones that glimmered with the reddened moonlight. The path itself was dirt and decaying moss. Around her there was no sound. The moon was shining bright but there wasn't any real light coming from it. Which made no sens, since the stones before her were lit up.

She shivered as the once warm wind galey across her thin emaciated body. Whereever the other garden was, it seemed to have sucked the strength and sheer will of life from her body. But she knew.

She knew she had to get up.

And follow the path.  

[DaemonGabrielle]

So she did. Her legs shook with effort. Her beathed rattled from her chest. He feet screamed as the very ground cut her feet. But onward she followed the path.

It felt like days before the tower arose from the horizon. Days that Opal had spent in darkness. Hours that the wind cut through her. Minute by minute, foot by dogged foot, she grew closer.

Until she arrived. Weakened. Battered. Near gone. Her face scrunched in concentration as she used forced her wind chapped hands to come up and strike the door with what little force she had left.  

[DaemonGabrielle]

Before she could collapse, the door blew open and standing before her was the same demented Opal from before. But this one was different. It was like she kept decaying and rebuilding herself over and over, all in the tiny space her duplicate frame existed.

The other Opal smiled and waved a melted, rotted hand. "Come in. Come in. I've been waiting for you."  

[DaemonGabrielle]

She followed the now skeleton version of her as it jauntily pranced across the room and up the stairs.

Opal moved slower, her body ravaged and weak.

When she reached the top, she stopped and eyes the scene before her. It was a dark, steep contrast to outside. Inside the small room at the top of the tower, it was opulant and colorful. It's walls displayed colorful tapestries woven with archaic symbols and scenes of violence and death.

The floor was covered in soft, delicate looking pillows, and books strewn everywhere. But what drew Opal's eye was the floating globe on the table. It hovered above the small wooden table and the sounds coming from it were an eerie contrast to the sudden opulance that she had discovered.

From the globe came screams of pain and agony. Of death and desire. And all of a sudden it was too much. Her eyes rolled in the back of her back and her skinny little legs collapsed and she fell to the floor only to be caught by the same blue hands as the ones in the garden.  

[DaemonGabrielle]

"Leave her be. Let her ressssssst. " The rotting her hissed suddenly, having appeared at her side with no logical movement.

"NO." Came one word from behind Opal's head. Logan's voice had changed into a cacophany of voices. She couldn't quite pick out one distinct voice but it rang of Logan. It was wierd.

"WHY DO YOU TEST ME?!?!" Her duplicate's now beautiful face screamed in rage. "SHE IS MINE. I AM HER. SHE IS ME!!!!"

The crackling, fizzing image of Logan lowered his brows and sternly glared at her duplicate's beauty. "NO."

The rage that flowed across the more neautiful's Opal face slowly dissolved as the flesh melted off. "Am I not good enough?! Am I ugly? Why have you deemed me unworthy?! Why do you desire this....this.....this....FLESHLING?! look!! She can barely stand on her own!"her dramatic other self crowed proudly, waving a skeletal hand in her direction.

Opal paled as she felt the thing that looked like her turn and casually walk her way. "It wasn't meant to be like this. Why do you have to torture her?"

The Logan creature simply shrugged. Opal body moving with the rise and fall of his/it's should. The light and dark ESS seeping from him seemed to grow brighter. "It's not just her. It's them. It's all of them. When you sought to create to this war, as always, you neglected to think of them as a whole. I cannot stand by and watch you destroy what we made over something so stupid as vapid boredom."

Opal merely watched as the creature that was masquaradin as her snarled at the creature mausquarading as Logan. "If you had just left things alone, there would not be the much loss. If you had left things alone, there would be no right side. No wrong side. There would only BE. MY. SIDE." The last of her words were spat out in a tone so feirce that for first time, Opal began to fear her doppleganger.

Logan/it didn't however. He took a step back and set her down at his feet. Then he gave an almost fatherly Pat to her head and turned toward the grotesque her. "That is why I couldn't. After all these years, these millenea, you still don't see it." He sighed, exasperated. "There is no right or wrong! There is no SIDES!!!" The other Logan's voice boomed as lightening seared across the sky outside.

Opal jerked as she felt herself sink the pillows. Slowly. The silk and the Cascade of softness swallowed her whole and she struggled to break free.
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With one last jerk she arose from her slumber to find herself tangled and in the floor, the pillows and blankets of kelp wrapped around her body in an almost cloying nature. She quickled flipped her find an shot from bed to turn on a light and look around only to realize she was back home. Safe and sound in her bedroom.