by Ava D. Dohn
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An ear-splitting scream tore into Paul’s quiet dreams like a savage beast ripping at his soul. In a panic, he leaped to his feet, eyes bulging with terror of the unknown, wondering what had ever perpetrated such a heart-stopping sound. Instantly there crashed upon his ears another even more diabolical screech of terror, this one coming from the bed where he had been sleeping.
Spinning around, hands raised in preparation to battle with some monstrous evil, Paul stared in shock to see Mihai thrashing about, crying out in agony, all the while tearing at her face and hair. “Mihai! Mihai!” He shouted, plunging toward her in an attempt to prevent her added injury.
It was he who suffered the wounds, as Mihai slashed out at him with long fingernails, cleaving crimson trails of destruction as they cut across his chest. The moonlight betrayed a story of anguish being fought out within the woman’s mind. To her, all things this night were evil and if she were to survive, she must fight with all her strength.
“Mihai! Mihai! Wake up!” Paul’s tearful pleadings went unheeded.
Into a void of long-forgotten nightmares Mihai fell…fell until she crashed into the one time and space the woman wished most to forget, yet journeyed there often when the moon was full and the night refreshingly sweet. And this night? It was the worst night of the year… the worst so far. For it was a reminder night, a precursor of the moment yet to arrive, a troubadour heralding her new birth to come… her birth into Hell.
Deep into the vortex of sordid memories of long years gone Mihai tumbled, crashing through one horrid nightmare after another, her demon struggling to remove all remaining sanity from her mind. Smashing hard upon her shoulders in a thorny brier patch, the woman found herself at a long ago time and place, the putrid smell of death filling her nostrils to a nauseating extreme.
Wild laughter and foul curses erupted in her ears as violent hands tore at her flesh. All the while beasts violated the woman’s body in most obscene ways as her lover… yes, lovers… tormented her with the every kind of debased and lurid act. Then, if these attacks were not enough, there comes to her the one man - her mentor and god - the man who made her into a woman. He seeks not only to release his unholy passion upon an innocent heart, but with it deliver a horde of unspeakable demons to rule over her withering soul.
And then the monsters within! With the unleashing of his power, Mihai’s mind reels as an army of unspeakable filthy things crawl into her secret worlds to forever seek control of the girl’s inner peace, to eventually possess even her waking thoughts until she becomes little more than the walking dead, knowing, but unable to prevent any act committed by her debased body of flesh.
Another scream shatters the night as Mihai refuses to go quietly into tormenting depths. With all her strength she fights back as the fire-blackened monsters bore into brain and muscle, their fangs and claws shredding breast and bone. She watches, helpless, as two thumbs bore deep into eye sockets, crushing sight from her world, hears the curses regarding the child’s birth, the chants singing the uselessness of her life. Finally, as the last of her power wanes, the woman cries out, begging, “Oh, let me die! Oh, my God, please let me die!”
But the child’s heart refuses to surrender. It screams out, “Damn you! Damn you all to Hell! I shall take the river and bring all the world to ruin! I shall bring you down! I shall bring you all down to nothing!”
As she continues to struggle against the monster within, there comes the cry of reinforcements upon the quiet breeze, a voice calling out her name, seeking her return from the worlds of the damned, “Mihai! Mihai, my love! Wake up! Come back to me. Come back to me.” Though it sounded so distant to Mihai, Paul was in reality screaming in her ear, “Mihai! Mihai! Wake up! Wake up! It’s a dream! It’s a dream!” He began to violently shake her as he continued to call out her name.
Gradually, as if rising from beyond the Silent Tombs, Mihai nodded the dream away, hearing more clearly her lover’s words. She took up the battle cry and stood fast her ground upon the sordid field. Eventually the demon hordes were pushed back into the darkness as she gained control over her mind. As the moon’s glory waned, giving it up to the power of coming morning light, Mihai came to sense the growing day, a harbinger of hope and life. With one final cry of defiance, Mihai collapsed into a deep, deathlike, sleep.
