Hannah wrote:Thank you so much for helping Wie. I know this can't be pleasant.

It wasn't.

But yes, again, thanks Wie.

And to others. Which I will list at a point in the not too distant future.

Wait until you see what happens next.

I think most will understand my recent actions.

Hannah wrote:So that's what Nemesis meant the other night.



Thank you so much for helping Wie. I know this can't be pleasant.

However, it’s also worth it, Hannah. Please remember that. Forgiveness is truly a blessing, and I hope if I have ever offended anyone here, I hope they will forgive me in turn.


I’ve had many more dreams with Darcy; this is merely one of them. However, it is one of the most important and climactic, and she agreed that I should share it; or “could,” depending on one’s point of view.

That night, my hour of meditation went longer than I originally anticipated, but the extra time was gladly spent. I didn’t wear anything in particular to bed; some shorts and a light cami, I don’t recollect what the colors were supposed to be and such a trivial detail seems unimportant to recall. Mostly because even most women with eyes would have mistaken the shade, one of those new-fangled mixtures that Ron believed didn’t exist, even if he cared what colors I wore. It had been a warm night and I wear loose-fitting clothing to bed when I want to relax.

Which is why I was surprised when I entered Darcy’s dream pool again wearing robes, only this time, they had been completely stained as though dyed in a sea of crushed grapes. Normally, in a dream, I wore what I had worn to bed.

Meaningful implications aside, I further entered the healing psyche as I had always done previously: with due caution. It was still a ravaged landscape of black ink, but this time the purple, lightning bright streaks were in between a harmonic and cacophonic hum, etching the silhouettes of elegant skyscrapers that were still under repair, but more readily recognizable.

However, there was still much work to be done. As I descended further, the black and purple coalesced into deeper, more meaningful colors. Black was still dominant, but it slowly lost its dominance to coal-crimson streaks pulsing as brightly as any living heart when excited. The ground hardened to first gravel, then cement-calloused rock. The redheaded man whom I had learned to both pity and respect—and whom I will continue to use the generic “The Irishman” as an appellation until further notice—guided me for the first little bit, though Darcy joined us before the first leg of the journey was through, warmly holding my hand and guiding me through the guilt-ridden paths as though I were blind here as well as in the waking world. Nevertheless, I appreciated the gesture.

She ignored The Irishman completely, though I knew we would have to face him sooner or later if she wanted to be fully healed.

First, we waded to our hips through the stream of blood; sometimes we forded at points up to our knees. When Darcy fell into one of the many pits that had the blood going over her head, The Irishman and I helped pull her out. By then, we were on the other side and scaling the next obstacle. A mountain with severed heads planted like tulip bulbs. A few were buried so close together they were chewing on each other’s necks; some were screaming profanities, buried in the blood-bathed earth at impossible angles; many were bleeding from every orifice including the eyes, adding to the elements that made up the ground; most were moaning in the agony of eternal torment caused by the flames spurting up like macabre sneezes from the earth, fueled by cardinal humors; and all begged continuously for mercy that wasn’t mine to give. Other dreamscapes were less and more disturbing, and Darcy guided me through each one with varying degrees of poise.

We had to hold Darcy tightly to us when we passed what I would term “The Field of the Broken Ones;” a flat plain of congealed blood, peopled by naked corpses walking slowly about with mindless abandon, body parts so twisted that chins met shoulder blades, knees bent the other way, men walked on elbows, women scraped their heads across the rough stones of the ground and . . . worse.

Ultimately, The Irishman faded into the background of dead, walking bodies. I lowered my head and sighed.

“Darcy,” I said gently, not quite comfortable with the reminder but knowing there was no other way. “You’re going to have to face him eventually.”

“I know,” she replied starkly. “I just wish . . . you would demand more, or make the choice for me or something.”

“We all have to make our own choices,” I replied, perceiving the Evil presence I had sensed earlier now drawing nearer. The Good had left some time ago, manipulated to move elsewhere. “But I’ll be here to help you when you’re ready,” I was more comfortable with this reminder.

“I know,” she repeated, though with greater strength. She brought up a large gun that should have been impossible to hold and aim so easily with one hand . . . but she was that good with weapons.

“Well, let’s get it over with,” Darcy added with nonchalance layered over the nervousness I could sense.

Together, we faced the figures that circled us like baying sabertooths. They were impossibly big.

“Look at all of what I did for you,” the first of the commanding figures accused. “And look how you betrayed me in return!” They each had the same face. They were each armed with deadly weapons.

“I know, Da,” she bowed her head, though I sensed she was itching to stick the barrel of her gun between his eyes and pull the trigger. “I’m sorry. You did a lot for me. I’m so sorry. Will you forgive me?”

The apparition didn’t know what to do in the wake of this confession. Finally, he shrunk down to size, muttered his own apology for what he had done . . . and hadn’t done, and left.

“It was your fault they killed your mother!” another father railed maliciously. “She died because of you. If you hadn’t been born, they never would have had to kill her.”

This one was more difficult for her, but Darcy prevailed against this one, too. “I’m so sorry she died, Da. I feel horrible about that, too. If I could bring her back somehow, even if I had to die to do it . . .” she shuddered, but remained strong. “I would.”

This father too, was taken aback by Darcy’s answer. Falling back in size, he mumbled something about apportioning the blame equally, loving Darcy’s mother, and his own failings toward her. Then he too, retreated into a growing mist.

Others followed suit. One by one, Darcy faced them all. Some with my help and encouragement, many more on her own power. With each amendment made, the pit surrounding us lost some of its hellfire and gained a little more natural light.

Finally, there was only one father left. He was bigger than the others, more savage, and to my mind, tasted different than the rest . . . more bitter. The ground had grown more natural. The hell had darkened into a deep cavern, upward in slope. In spite of this, he was arrogant and mean, getting right in her face in a way the others hadn’t.

“You,” he sneered. “You’re not a mercenary. You’re just a scared little girl, turning on the spit of your own incompetence and riding on the skirts of braver men and far greater women—”

“You’re right,” Darcy began. “I need all the help I can get . . .”

“I wasn’t finished, you little piece of filth,” he growled.

Darcy took a step back in alarmed confusion, but I gently took her hand, holding her in place.

“No, Darcy, you have to take this one on in a different way,” I smiled.

“H-how?” she asked, stammering. She had done extremely well this evening, but it had been very difficult, and she was at the breaking point. “How do I f-face h-him?”

My arm stayed his bristling wrath, kept them separate. I maneuvered us so we had a bit more room. “You have to face this one the way you’ve wanted to face all the others,” I explained with my smile widening. I thrust out my arms and the form of her father was thrown back by the force of my will, tumbling yards away.

“You have to kick its butt,” I snapped into my personal taekwondo stance. “We’re going to kick its butt.”

In growing apprehension, Darcy leveled her gun, armor sprouting to cover her in dreamskin.

“You . . .” the form of Darcy’s father began shifting shape, anger and rage washing off in waves.

“When will you people learn,” I growled and mentally pushed away the tumbling cascade of terror and madness It had sent forth to paralyze us, “that even when I can see, I don’t rely on physical sight?”

Snarling savagely, Not Ron surged to Its feet.

Thank you again, for so much Wie. I don't think I'll ever be able to repay this debt I owe you but I will try.

I don't expect forgiveness from most the board members here yet you offered it freely. I can't imagine anyone holding a grudge against you.

There is a long road ahead and I don't know where it will take me. I know I will stumble and fall at times. I know because of my abrupt and honest manner, I will offend people from time to time.

Still, for better or worse, I am here for the long haul.

Some interesting issues are coming to light here.

I am forced to wonder how much of this inner hell was fabricated by the nightmare and how much was ready and waiting for him to take advantage of?

You’re welcome, Nemesis. However, you don’t owe me anything. It was an honor to work beside you. Besides, I hadn’t gone skydiving like that since Hannah somehow convinced Ron to take us. And even then, we had parachutes. This time, we didn’t. And it was actually rather . . . fun.

Sorry, I’ll get to that part as soon as I can.


Not Ron lunged like a tidal wave, Its face blurring and distorting from the one normally worn, trying to goad or frighten Darcy, I’m not sure which; in either case, Darcy and I reacted practically at the same time: I threw my arms up into the air as Darcy leaped backwards in a jump that might have been impossible for her in the waking world, the big gun in her hands morphing into two smaller weapons, one in each fist. The hill that rose under my feet was strong enough to deter the nightmare being’s lunge, and Darcy’s barrage of daggers—tearing through the air like bullets from her pearl-handled guns—sent the thing reeling away.

I sensed Its backup behind me a moment before he spoke in a voice I knew well, though the face didn’t match.

“Remember them?” he taunted, the sound carrying easily despite the seeming distance.

Then I felt two huge, rope-brawny arms vice around my chest.

“Looking sharp there, lovely,” Zeb sneered into my ear. “Like a dream. Too bad Mordecai went apostate; that means we’ll have to do to you what we did to Sarah.”

He tried to squeeze my spine asunder; fortunately, in dreams physical size does not strength equate. And while last time I had been in their turf, where all the advantage had belonged to It—and them; this time we had the advantage, though Darcy didn’t know it yet. I struggled far more than Zeb thought possible, and his grunts evidenced this.

“I’m gonna—grick—eviscerate your—hnngh!—grrr . . . YAHHHH!”

The dream personification of Ron’s old mates shrieked as his arms came away with me as I hurled myself forward, rolled, and stood again, facing him. There was no blood.

“So, where’s your dimmer half?” a disembodied voice in the air spoke, not me. I had learned not to taunt in such a way in the dream stream. So I expected the hand breaking the ground underneath me, grabbing my ankle.

But I didn’t expect it to be grey and gangrenous, a corpse’s arm.

“Wouldn’t miss this little party,” Zak’s zombified head leered as the earth crumbled away around him, revealing more of his wire-thin, decaying body.

The arms around me had altered to Zak’s appearance, growing infected as sores erupted all along their flesh. They squeezed me even harder, if that were possible. Zeb, now a mountainous zombie as well, sneered and closed in. The hands around me were still in force, and yet he had a new pair below his shoulders; his newly grown arms reached for my throat while the old ones continued to constrict me. I struggled to free myself, but Zak’s hold tripped me up.

Below, Darcy had forgotten her guns and was throwing angry daggers at her tormentor with a rapidity that was impossible, sparks crying out as he parried each one. The combatants were moving at implausible speed, going up and down at improbable angles. At the moment, they were leaping to and fro, using the rocky walls as ordinary people might use the floor.

Zak trying to pull himself aground using my legs as anchors reminded me I was not a mere spectator in this fight. Using Zak’s still trapped torso as a stepping point, I used the dream’s ethereal quality to slide free of Zeb’s rotting titanium grasp in a back flip that gave me room and freed me of all arms save for the pair locking my own limbs to my body.

“Darcy,” I called out. “We need some help!”

Maybe I shouldn’t have said that; Not Ron used my unintentional distraction to bludgeon an array of snake-fast strokes against her with the facsimile of Ron’s blade in one hand and some sort of gun-sword in the other. Darcy however, still in the influence of her own instincts, rose to the challenge, meeting each blade with one of her own. This display of unbroken determination moved me to reinvigorate my own efforts. Straining, I broke free of the massive arms; when they smote the rocky floor, they choked, writhed, and turned to dust. By this time, Zak had pulled himself free of the ground. They charged me as a pair, and I narrowly avoided their speedy rush by the list of back handsprings I pulled off even faster, one after the other.

“Hey Darcy, how about some reinforcements?” I suggested as we planted ourselves back to back.

“Yes, let us have some reinforcements,” the nightmare being sneered with Ron’s voice while wearing another face. “Reinforcements to tear apart the pagan, whoring b—es that you are!” Raising one hand in a half fist and flexing Its fingers as though trying to crush an invisible ball, It tried to alter the course of the battle.

A muffled pounding filled the air, shortly followed by a keening low, agonized moaning growing louder and louder. Cracks began rending the stone floor like spider webs had spat on the floor. Only instead of flowers bursting forth, there were dozens of hands. Arms followed hands, then shoulders and heads, followed by the rest of their bodies. Grotesquely massacred masses crawled out of the torn and bleeding ground. The floor cauterized into scarred brickwork as they charged us with painful slowness.

“You know, I never was much a fan of Thriller,” Darcy seemed to apologize, armed once more with two streamlined, pearl-handled pistols. One kept Not Ron at bay with a torrent of flashing silver bullets; the other began sniping at members of the approaching horde.

They were almost upon us. And while we were barely holding our own with the nightmare being—It had forgotten Ron’s face for the moment—and the Compound Twins, the army of undeath nearing us would certainly be an overwhelming factor.

“Darcy,” I panted and avoided Zeb’s fist by a pulling an uneven front walkover right on top and over him, using the extra momentum to kick Zak between the teeth. “Remember, this is your dream. Control it!”

She nodded with a perplexed twist to her brow; her guns disappeared, and then she dropped to her knees. Recalling the drama often found in dreams, she slammed her fingers into the stony ground, cracks smearing along the brickwork. Patches of cracks mirroring the ones beneath her began sprouting all around. The dead walkers continued to march toward us

Suddenly, one of the advance forces of the tightening noose of dead walkers lurched, as though its left foot had been stapled to the ground. Others followed suit, stopping—if you’ll pardon me—dead in their tracks. At first, I wasn’t sure of the reasoning behind the slowing down of some of their peers, or the sudden cacophony of moans at their ankles. Then I saw the garden of severed heads sprouting up beneath the dead walkers, biting, chewing and screaming. Oblong creases began tearing open from the bleeding ground, graves releasing their dead with eruptions of hellfire. From some of the backward graves sprang forth the twisted corpses from the Field of the Broken Ones; the undead babies Darcy had finally managed to love and hold began cutting off even more of the dead.

War cries crowned the shattered air. “We’re comin’ darlin’!” The Irishman roared, followed by all the other manifestations of her father. “The calvary’s here!”

“Darcy, you didn’t,” I stared at her in amazed admiration and smashed Zeb’s nose into his brain for a third time, but he just wouldn’t go down. Zak might have been able to get through my defenses more readily had he not been too heavily laden with undead babies smearing his back in blood with their bites.

“I did!” she grinned fiercely, barely sidestepping an attack by Not Ron and planting a row of thrown daggers into his chest, providing The Irishman an opening in Not Ron’s defenses to hammer him with an uppercut that would have shamed Babe Ruth’s heavy hitting record.

Convincing the ones who had once ground at her guilt like old men chewing mouthfuls of fat to fight with us was an impressive feat.

However, the nightmare creature who had attempted Ron’s image in the past was not amused.

I'm glad you're telling this tale Wie, for so many reasons.

Although this is definitely my favorite part.

Procrastination is another skill I’m good at . . . but thank you both. Thanks for . . . all that you’ve done for me, Ron. Both on and off the boards. And thank you, Darcy, for staying with me during that dream. Thank you for sharing your burdens with me. Thank you for . . . doing what I couldn’t.

And the fall . . . was . . . fun. But I’m sure you know my favorite part.


“You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you, you lying b—?” It growled with insane rage. “I’ll send your sanity to hell in a hand basket for this! You, and the Apostate’s second whore! The Cleansing is too righteous for her!” A gust of frigid air smote me when It thrust a damning finger in my direction.

Boiling clouds of noxious black thickened the air that could suddenly be seen overhead. Fiery lightning in the form of gigantic scalpels stabbed the ground indiscriminately, cutting apart ally and foe alike. Darcy avoided the terrible attacks as a twinkling of an eye: she was never there when it seemed a bloodstained blade should have pinned her to the blood-weeping ground. As for my part, gymnastics always did come with natural ease; and in the dreamstream, I always had the prowess of Celeste: I aerialed, flipped, handstood, somersaulted, and rolled right before the oak-sized claymores sliced me.

Unfortunately, the only other ones who seemed able to avoid the massacre besides us were Zed, Zak, and the mophemoth. The Irishman and the other incarnations of Darcy’s father disappeared inside a massive field of tarlike smoke and blood. As if It were trying to eject them from Darcy’s dream, Not Ron used the thick meadow of smoke to drag the remains of our allies away. The others were all cut apart brutally and with macabre abandon. Hissing furiously, Darcy hid the broken bodies in the blood-infested earth in a semblance at an honorable burial.

The last of our foes charged us.

Darcy resumed her fight angrily against Not Ron, kicking, thrusting, spinning, and stabbing at high speed with two daggers in each angry fist. I dodged Zak’s charge and tattooed his back as hard as I could with a roundhouse kick. Zeb was harder to avoid; I ducked a wide, heavy swing of his viper’s fist, realizing too late it had been a feint. The double palm strike sent me sailing.

My senses warned me of the changing atmosphere just in time to escape. Clawing the broken stonework granted me the momentum required to keep my perch. But for a moment, nothing was underneath me as we suddenly found ourselves fighting atop a tower of infinite height, my arm sunk to the wrist the only anchor keeping me from plummeting to my death. I barely avoided the next besiegement of blood-ridden scalpels, lunging back to—relatively safe—ground and back to my feet, dodging a broken path of sundered stone and shrieking scalpel blade to return back to back with Darcy.

“F—” Darcy censored herself just in time. “Dang it . . . Wie, this is not how I imagined this! Just wanted to let you know!”

I didn’t answer; we were struggling as it was, there was no need to talk. We were barely staving off the morphemoth’s attacks, though Its frustration began mounting: Its power was waning with each successive second we lived. And with each successive second we lived, the Tower shook, the foundations weakening impossibly with each score of the gigantic hellblades against the massive, arena like rooftop. Sooner than I would have liked, there were more ribbed scarring than there were brickwork; like a broken layer of a thousand sediments, the ground of the rooftop no longer even held together in proper, linear planes: it was too shredded by that, leaving jagged, empty wounds we were left to scale and circumvent.

“Ha!” Darcy exulted when Not Ron had us cornered between It and the blood-deepening sky; rows of monstrous bayonets hung suspended in the air, ready to dissect us. But her forearm wrapping around my belly, Darcy dove off the Tower just in time to avoid being skewered, the Tower falling to pieces.

We were falling for our lives.

And falling impossibly fast, far faster than terminal velocity would have allowed. The Tower, being infinite in size and tuned to Darcy, hadn’t fallen completely apart. Rather, simply an immense section of the top. We used this and the nonsensical laws of dream physics to our advantage, running a circumference around the large pieces of the collapsed portion of the Tower to avoid the morphemoth and the twins, who had leaped off after us. This time I took the lead, grabbing Darcy’s hand and sprinting in a downward spiral fast enough that even when our foes were falling on the same side of the erect portion of the Tower, there was still a great distance between us.

Not that that would have mattered as much in the Dreamstream, but it was still a start.

Gravity had been included in the utter toss out of physics. The Tower was the biggest object we could see, yet we continued to fall “down,” morphemoth and the twins following. Nevertheless, I managed to erect just enough sense between us that we no longer needed to run in the effort to maintain the distance between us and our pursuers. We . . . “adhered” . . . to the side of the gargantuan Tower while we fell at incredible speed. The extremities of my robe—sleeves, hem, and skirt—snapped and blew just as if I were falling in the waking world, but the “effect” was ruined by little inconsistencies: no matter what angle I “fell” by, I returned to the side of the Tower and oddly enough, felt constantly modest, too. Our shoes and feet should have disintegrated with the friction of constantly grating against the Tower’s side, but the only effect was to have great plumes of dirt streaking up in our enemies’ faces with each touch of our feet against the “ground” of the Tower; they had to sprint at a constant speed to maintain distance with us, yet we freely fell at no cost to our energy.

In short, welcome to the dreamstream.

I am reminded of something a colleague of mine would often say.

Perception is reality.

So it is in our dreams.

It may sound odd to say so but I have been heartened in reading this account. There is both guilt and remorse here. The possibility for Darcy to change her ways exists. Despite this trip into the lower levels of her own personally created hell, it is not too late to begin the journey to redemption.

The recent quiet I have observed on the boards from both Nemesis and Mr. Caliburn has me concerned. It would be a shame if either of them had their lives cut short before finding the peace each is, I believe, seeking.

As an interesting aside, the name Darcy means "Dark" in Irish and "Fortress" in French. "Steph" which is apparently an alias used by Nemesis, is a derrivitive of Stephanie and means "Crown", "Crowned" or "Garland". So one could read the title of this thread to be "Dark Crown's Inferno". Or perhaps more simply, "Dark Inferno".

Here's hoping she sees the light and joins the side of angels.

When I was a child going to church I remember being taught that demons were fallen angels. That Lucifer was the most beautiful of them all, in fact. Occasionally I would wonder what would happen if Lucifer and the rest would just ask forgiveness?

Maybe a fallen angel or demon can find redemption, I don't know.

I do know it is possible for a human being.

The account you present here, Miss Solstice... first of all let me say that you are a brilliant wordsmith. Should I ever need a good character witness, I hope I have someone as persuasive as you in my corner. You have given us all a glimpse of something that is normally very hard to see. Especially for someone as normally elusive as Darcy.

By the end of it all, her self-image seems to have drastically altered. And an interesting self-image it is, too.

I think it's quite fortunate that you were there to help when you were, Miss Solstice. In the long run, perhaps it will be of benefit to us all in some way.

So I for one, would like to say thank you for taking the time to help one lost soul along it's journey.

I still have a long way to go. I'm no angel nor saint and will never claim to be. I can't even say that I'm a good person. But I'd like to become a better person.

The future is unclear to me. There are decisions ahead of me and I wonder if I have the strength to make the right choices. There are so many temptations... I'm sure that there will be times that I slip and fall. I will make mistakes.

Slowly I am realizing that I don't have to face this uncertaintity alone. I have found friends here that I never realized I had. Those who are willing to stick their necks out to help me. It's not something I would have believed possible a year ago.

Thank you so much, Wie, for opening my eyes and helping me see.

What saints did not start as sinners? They all had something in common, however, they all desired to be a "better person".

The future is not ours to know, instead it is ours to craft. That these decisions concren you is a good sign. And remember Ms. Nemesis, that we are fallible - "To err is human, fo forgive takes a spark of the divine."

You were never alone, we were always here, waiting.


I would also like to thank Ms. Solstice,her kind words and gestures have moved more than she could ever realise.


Cybermancer, yes even a demon can choose to seek enlightenment, and find it - the road for them is far more difficult since they don't start with a "good side" to feed while the darkness withers.