DREAM #1

Darkness still blanked the small farmhouse, but Alysica was awake. This was her third trip to the latrine this night, but that was the fate of any woman soon to bear a child. Her husband was still snoring, “good” she thought, best not to wake him, as tomorrow was going to be a long day. She slipped out from under the wool blanket and rose. Wrapped in a thick shall, she thought she would be protected from the damp chill of the night air. She stepped into her shoes and, as quietly as she could, headed for the door.

A nearly full moon was more than enough light to make it to the potty, and as the urgency was significant she didn’t want to waste time lighting a candle. The rain of the last two days had made the fields and the farm wet, too wet to finish the planting and in her current condition she was of little help, so she would have to be careful along the muddy path. Delay and she was going to wet herself; hurry to slip and she might harm her child. “An acceptable risk” she thought.

Alysica was nearly 9 months pregnant. Just a few more weeks and she would be a mother. It was perhaps too long; already simple things like bending over in the fields and carrying the wash were becoming difficult. The worst part had to be the constant need to pee.

She had tripped to the latrine more than seven times today, and that many interruptions made her life more stressful. Oh so many times did she have to halt her labors to trip to the latrine. Today she had over baked the rolls on just such an issue.

The latrine was becoming an old friend. Alysica took her cleansing rag from its drying hook and closed the door. The small building was little more than a bench seat with walls for privacy and a roof for shelter, but it represented the relief she desperately needed. She lifted her nightdress, pushed down her under-things, and was able to answer the depressingly frequent call of nature.

The door to the latrine opened with a jerk and banged against the wall. Alysica was startled at the sudden movement, but not alarmed. She and Derrick lived far enough from town or any other neighbors that she never considered a strange person to be here. It must be Derrick, she just didn’t hear him.

The fact that there were two figures somehow played fowl in her mind. She thought, “A shadow from the full moon, or a trick of the chill night air.” She would not understand the consequences of her mistake until too late.

They were dressed in dark robes. Their hands were impossibly strong and their grip felt like a vice. The flesh of their hands was scaly but dry, similar to the snakes her younger brother was always catching. Their movements made no noise. It was this fact coupled with the jerky unearthly speed of which they tendered their actions that made her flesh crawl.

The men violently pulled her from the latrine. They pinned her forearms to their midsection and dragged her away from her farm. Alysica knew she could not break free, but she still tried. It must be instinct that causes someone to persist when failure is obvious; this drive was why she never attracted the eye of Petrove Oliander, but yet she spent most of her childhood perusing him.

Her bed, her husband, her haven were all growing farther and farther away and yet her actions could not even slow her abductors. It was then she realized she could scream. Motivated by the brutality of the situation, she forced air into the only noise that could convey her terror.

The scream was piercing. She poured her fear and terror into the sound with the desperate hope of rescue. A cry in the night directed at her Derrick, she screamed and screamed. The night air became hot and stale in her chest, but yet she screamed. She would have screamed to the very end, but for the burning of her throat. The volume of emotion inflamed her throat and parched her voice; her sounds became horse as the reverberation of desperation disappeared into the chill night.

As her assailants forced her along, their snakeskin hands pulled at her nightdress. The impossible strength of these things tore her cloths and rended her dress, the force of which abraded her skin and turned it raw.

Once stripped of her garments the hands of these things fondled her flesh. The grip on her arms made it impossible for her to be free, but she resisted by kicking her legs and thrashing her head. To thwart this, one of the “men” tore out a handful of her soft yellow hair. The sharp pain quenched her resistance, allowing these things to perform further unsavory acts. Sharp claw-like nails poked her skin, rough cold hands groped at her; fingers explored her body. She bled from the abuse, her intimate areas scraped and torn. She was violated brutally.

Her head drooped, her vision was blurred with tears, and her voice muted by a leather gag they placed in her mouth. They were fully within the clearing before she realized these creatures had dragged her to Prova Hill. A cemetery her husband’s family was buried in. She had been here many times tending the graves of her mother-in-law and father-in-law. Many of the grave markers were hidden within deep grass, but Alysica recognized them and wondered if Derrick would have enough money to purchase a nice stone for her.