Dance of the Gods

Slowly Veronica stood up from the ground. Her hand was still trembling from the previous experience, but it rose and opened the wardrobe. She took out her nightwear, then began undressing.

It took a bit longer because of the shaky hands, but soon she was already putting her dress away and climbing into bed. She turned on her side, closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep.

The stress of the day and especially the night, still lingered. They kept the tranquil land of unconsciousness away. She turned on her other side, turned the pillow on its colder side, put one leg outside of the cover, took the whole cover off, opened the window, pulled the cover back on... 

Nothing helped...

Dejectedly she opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. Her thoughts were all over the place, she still wanted to figure out what they were talking about in the basement, or if that noise was actually a gunshot.

She didn't know how a real gun sounded like. On Earth she only saw them in movies, but those weren't like the ones the police or military used. She made a big sigh and tried to get her mind under control. While concentrating she noticed something on the ceiling...

In the shadows something seemed to move.

'What was that?! I definitely saw something move there!'

She tried to stand up, but her body didn't answer her commands. The fear in her heart started to regain power, when the feeling from the staircase slowly creeped back.

Suddenly the shadows condensed and in the corner a humanoid figure stood...

Veronica tried to move, scream, do anything...

She was powerless, the feeling came from the figure. It watched her, it seemed happy seeing her terrified, but it didn't move.

Sometime between a minute and eternity the figure dissolved, but the feeling didn't pass it only increased.

It appeared closer this time, standing just beside the bed. Veronica began to hyperventilate all she wanted to do is hide from the terrible creature. She tried to close her eyes, so at least she didn't need to see as it ripped her apart, but to her utter dismay it didn't work... Her eyes couldn't even turn away from the beast.

Slowly it raised a humanlike hand with huge claws for nails, and moved it towards her chest. It also bent down so Veronica could observe part of its face. It had teeth like some kind of animal, it was growing out of its gums without any resemblance of order.

While her breathing has fully stopped from fear and her eyes were a constant stream of tears, she felt a piercing pain come from her chest. She still couldn't scream, but not because of her immobile nature. The terror made her whole body a sculpture.

The monster's hand rose from her chest, it held a still beating heart...

Her heart...

As the realization set in the monster smiled at her with that horrifying mouth of his, then turned its attention to the heart and with one bite gobbled it up. As the heart was devoured she felt her life slipping away and just when she knew she was about to die...

The world fell apart.

...

On a street stood a magical Theater. Its proportions were all over the place, everything was just a little bit off about it. A bit crooked here, a bit too small there, but all in all it looked beautiful.

It was like an artist designed it to be a bit off putting. The colors were just as amazing, the main color of the building was pink, but something was special about it, somehow it gave a feeling of formlessness, like the color was in constant change between its different tones.

The doors were orange, which seemed to sing for you to approach and see what's inside.

The windows were the color of rainbow and those were constantly changing as well, they seemed like an audience as they observed the street where the theater stood on.

In front of the theater stood a young woman. She had her eyes closed and her whole body was a trembling mess. The only thing keeping her upright was the lamppost she leaned against.

'It was just a dream, this is all just another damn dream... That... That was too real... Can't I just have a peaceful night of sleep?!'

She was still hyperventilating since her previous experience, her eyes were teary as well. In all her life there was nothing that came even remotely close to scaring her that much.

'I'm pretty sure I peed myself. I just hope I didn't do so in real life... Damn I didn't go to the restroom before bed, there is a high chance I peed my bed... GREAT!... Just what I needed!...'

Her mind was getting calmer and soon she regained enough power to stand without needing to lean against the post. With her new found power she looked around and instantly recognized the place.

'Here again? But something is different, I just can't quite place it. The theater... It looks clear now, and the colors... Oh, my god the colors... They are so breathtaking.'

The change in the theater was pretty obvious, last time the whole thing was gray and gave off the feeling of emptiness... Or more like sleepiness. Now on the other hand it looked wide awake, like it was ready to receive guests for a night's performance.

Suddenly Veronica had a thought and took a step towards the theater. She expected it to move backward like before, but that wasn't the case. It stayed right there, inviting her.

She took step after step, waiting for it to move away from her, but it never did. The most intriguing was when she reached the door, looking at it closer they weren't ordinary at all. They were metal with a bunch of carvings on it.

She looked through it and realized they were pictures or something like that. One seemed to show a heavenly place with people working happily, going on the fields, acting in a theater, teaching children and in the midst of all this stood a person, he looked content of the world around him.

Next to it was a different carving, it depicted the same town or city, but it was much worse... Buildings were on fire, the people were dying and in the sky stood the previous person, in front of him stood 12 blurry figures, they were readying an attack.

On the next, the carving changed again. It showed a desolate land with nothing living in sight, there was only death and destruction. Veronica soon realized what the three carvings tried to tell, it was the story of how the Outlands was born.

'So it wasn't always that hellhole it currently is. There seemed to be a prospering civilization living there, until some people came along and destroyed it. But what were the figures in the sky? Knowing history and carvings, it is just an artistic interpretation of the events leading to the destruction.'

Suddenly something changed on the door, below the three carvings right at her eye level another carving appeared. 

'How did I not notice it before.'

She observed the picture, but it gave her the creeps...

The picture showed a woman waking up in an alleyway. Suddenly shivers ran down her spine, she tried to turn away from the door, but it followed her and stayed in front of her.

The metallic doors with the amazing carvings abruptly opened and behind it were only darkness. She stared at it for a while, but there was just nothing in there. Veronica breathed a sigh of relief.

As she let her guard down, from the darkness the previous monster ran out and was about to bite into her neck, when the world broke apart again.

...

Veronica woke up in her own sweat, she quickly jumped out of bed and began pacing around the room. Her heart was racing and she couldn't seem to get it under control. 

After a few minutes of pacing, she sat down on the edge of the bed breathing heavily. Somewhere, far away from her perception of reality a bell sounded 5 times.

'Just a nightmare... Nothing more... It is because of the stressful day and weird night.. It is perfectly normal... Especially that theater, with the door depicting me... Yeah perfectly normal...'

When her mind calmed down enough she looked down on her bed. Luckily it was only sweaty, which meant she didn't have to ask Suze to clean it and die from shame in the process.

After this set of nightmares, she began to look through her memories. Who knows... Maybe they helped her remember stuff about this world.

After about half an hour she figured out a couple things. First things first, she knew the current fashion trends, which was utterly useless, but she remembered something very interesting too... This world's map.

She remember how the two continents look like, where the biggest cities are located. She even remembered the names of the five island clusters and just to prove it to herself she began saying it out loud.

"There are five clusters three between the two continents going from top to bottom they're the Northern Islands, Doren Islands and the Remote Archipelago, there is one below the East Continent named Quiet Archipelago and one on the left side of the West continent named Broken Islands."

She began to jump from joy while laughing, but soon stopped when she realized other people might hear her. She also tried to name all of the countries and their capitals, but she failed with that task.

'Whatever, I am still making progress and that is what's important!'

With a gleeful expression she opened her wardrobe and took out a dress to wear. This one was different from the one she wore yesterday, the cut was pretty much the same, but instead of light brown it was dark green with a white chest area.

Grabbing everything Veronica approached the door, turned the key and opened it. Just as she was about to step out Sofie knocked into her.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Sofie, I didn't see you there."

She truly felt sorry, but that couldn't wipe the previous smile off her face. Sofie looked at her with a raised eyebrow, probably wondering why is she not sleeping still.

"No problem, I was just about to tell you that today is going to be different. We are running low on a couple of ingredients, which means we have to go to the market. We leave to the public horse carriage stop after breakfast."

"Okay." Was all Veronica said. Sofie looked her up and down once more, then asked the question that was bothering her.

"Why are you so energetic this morning, and why do you have that ridiculous smile on your face?"

Veronica looked away in embarrassment, but that smile remained intact so she just turned to her with a slightly red face and said, "I recalled some things about the world, sadly still nothing from my past, but it's progress."

Sofie's eyes widened with shock, then she kindly smiled at Veronica.

"That is amazing! Don't worry soon all your memories will be revealed, it is probably just a test from the Goddess of Secrets!"

'Sure... Definitely... Without a doubt, that is the case...'

Veronica chatted with Sofie for a bit more, then went to take a relaxing bath.