Sleeper
Quiet - Faithful - Introverted
This Can't be my Real Face!
Pet Name: Sleeper
Owner: Draika
Theme / Type: Nightmare Gourix
Born: August 22, 2010
Gender: Female
MisticPal Name: Afterlife
MisticPal Age: 5198 Days
Battle Portal Stats
Hit Points: 3 / 3
Strength: 3
Defense: 2
Speed: 1
Intellect: 3
Misticpower: 3
Books Read
Books Read: None
Exotic Foods Eaten
Foods Eaten: 0/1254 [ View Foods ]
I Must be Dreaming ...
Name: She's forgotten
Nickname: Sleeper
Species: Lower-order hunger demon
Age: Fifteen years
Gender: Female
S.O.: Bisexual
Status: Single (not really looking for love at this point)
Please tell me it's still a dream ...
Please tell me this nightmare hasn't become my reality.
The first thing I remember is Aze's face hovering over me as I opened my eyes - all six of them - for the first time.
The second thing I remember is Aze opening his slimy jaws, ready to devour me.
As the dark green monster's double-row of razor-sharp teeth neared my face, I tried to scream, but no sound came, no vibration shook my throat. I lurched out of the way of the descending jaws, tried to stand and flee, but my legs bent in odd places and I couldn't figure out how to run.
A horrible sound echoed around the dark space in which I found myself, and I realized that the monster was laughing. He spoke: "You're new, huh?"
I opened my mouth, perhaps to try and reply, perhaps just to try to scream again, but I couldn't speak. I had no voice, and I was beginning to genuinely panic. My eyes rolling this way and that in my terror, I realized abruptly that I could look in three directions at once, and that the images blended together almost seamlessly.
Trying to focus and calm my panic, I willed all my eyes to point at the creature before me, taking in his form. He almost resembled a dragon, or at least a very large lizard, but he had eight limbs, four on each side. The two at the middle on each side were shorter and didn't touch the ground; they looked more like arms than legs. He was covered in green scales, so dark that they almost appeared black. He had a brownish-red mane the color of rust, the forelock of which hung haphazardly over one side of his face. His eyes were luridly acid-green, with cat-like pupils, and they were surrounded by round black markings that made him look like he had black eyes, or that his eyes were sitting in empty sockets. At the end of his long, twitching tail was what appeared to be something like an axe blade, and I saw with disgust that it was crusted with something that must have been dried blood.
Resigned to the fact that, for some reason, I had no voice, I mouthed the words I wanted to say, very slowly and deliberately: Where ... am ... I?
He laughed again, that horrible axe-tipped tail twisting and writhing like a live snake. "You're in the Ether, hon. Realm of demons."
You're ... a ... demon? I mouthed slowly, making no effort to keep my face from showing my terror and disbelief.
He smiled, that double-row of shark-like teeth gleaming in a thick coating of saliva. "Yep. And guess what, sweetheart? So are you."
No ... I raised a hand and flicked one set of eyes down to look at it. But it wasn't a hand - it was a black paw or talon of sorts, ruby-red claws glittering at the tip of each finger. No! I repeated in horrified amazement, a wave of dizzying sickness sweeping, hot and pricking, under my skin. Tasting a bitter, bile-like taste in my mouth, I thought I might vomit, but even though I tried to retch, I couldn't, for the same reason I couldn't speak: I had no throat.
I ... must ... be ... dreaming, I mouthed, more to myself than to the hideous green demon. Comforted by the idea, I clung to it. Yes ... this is ... just ... a nightmare. If ... I ... play along, I'll ... wake up ... soon.
The demon clicked his tongue. "Sorry, hon, this is real life," he said, raising his brows over his bright, freakish eyes. "But don't worry, it won't last long. I'll be eating you now." He stepped forward to loom over me where I lay, and the jaws opened again, sticky saliva dripping over his lips and onto my face and neck.
Noooo! I cried silently, squirming wildly in an attempt to escape. Instinctively I swung my claws at him, raking them across his chest. The hooked ends of the red claws caught in his leathery flesh, drawing oozing, red-black blood.
"I hadn't pegged you as a fighter," he said, his lip curling as he glanced down to see the damage I had done. "C'mon, just lie still, and it'll all be over soon. I promise."
I'm dreaming I'm dreaming I'm dreaming I'm dreaming ... I chanted the mantra soundlessly over and over, trying desperately to reassure myself that if the demon killed me, I would just wake up and find myself back in reality.
"You're not dreaming, little Sleeper." He sat back on his thick haunches and gazed down at me where I lay, curled and trembling. "You know, you intrigue me. If there was anything else to eat around here, I'd probably let you live."
It hit me very suddenly, with the force of a battering ram. Maybe it was his talk of eating, or maybe my adrenaline rush had worn off enough that I regained feeling, but it struck me then that I was ridiculously hungry. It was hunger like I'd never known, painful, aching hunger. Hungry! I mouthed urgently, unable to articulate anything more specific.
"Don't worry, that'll pass," the monster said airily, waving a paw.
Really? I mouthed, relieved.
"No, I lied," he said, chuckling. "It's only going to get worse from here. See, little Sleeper, you're a servant of Gula now. You're a Glut-Kha - a hunger demon, like me."
I stared at him, wide-eyed, silent. I had no idea who or what Gula was, but the way he had said 'like me' struck a chord of realization in me - right now, I was a monster too, and I probably looked as scary as he did. It gave me a strange feeling, and I wasn't sure if it was good or bad. But somehow, it made me less afraid of him.
"So is there a reason you can't talk?" the demon said, frowning.
I shrugged helplessly, trying to convey that I was as vexed as he was.
He leaned down, and for a moment I thought he was going to tear into my flesh. I winced in preparation for the pain, but it didn't come; I hesitantly opened my eyes again to find that he was merely examining me more closely, his acid-green eyes scrutinizing the side of my long, purplish-blue neck.
"You've got, sort of, a seam down your neck here, little Sleeper," he said, prodding me experimentally with a claw. "And there's little spikes coming out of it in some places, sort of like teeth. I've never seen anything like it ..."
I tried desperately to make some, any sort of noise, and finally succeeded in making a sort of whistling sound by breathing out hard through my nose.
The demon poked my neck again and again until his claw slid into the 'seam'. I felt that, and somehow tasted it, too. He hastily withdrew his claw with a 'eurgh' sound, and I saw that it was coated with some thick, greenish fluid. "Hon, I think that's part of your mouth!" he said incredulously, gazing at his dripping claw.
I whistled to show my surprise.
"By the way, little Sleeper, my name's Aze." He grinned his toothy grin. "And I don't usually let other demons I meet live, especially not silly newborns, but lucky for you I've already done a decent bit of eating today and I like you."
I nodded hastily to show my understanding and gratitude.
"I like how you don't talk much," he said, standing back to allow me to get up. "So many demons you meet these days are all blah, blah, blah all the time." He rolled his eyes. His gaze slid slowly back to me again as I struggled to stand on my new feet, and he said slowly, "So, hon ... are you a he or a she?"
I whistled indignantly, my lip curling in fury. She! I mouthed, hoping that my face would appropriately convey my rage over the fact that he couldn't tell my gender just from looking at me. I had to repeat it a couple times, since 'he' and 'she' look pretty much the same on the lips.
"Sorry, sorry!" he said, laughing and raising his four arm-legs as if in surrender. "I'm sure you looked very feminine before, but we demons don't really show our gender in our features as specifically as Otherworld creatures do."
What ... do you ... mean ... 'before'? I mouthed, finally managing to stand up on shaky legs. Thankfully, of those I only had four, so there wasn't too much trouble in mastering where to place which foot.
He paused a moment. "Nevermind," he said dismissively, waving a paw. His talons inadvertently struck something in the darkness, and a fluttery mess of bat-like wings fell, shrieking, to the ground, blinking with about thirty glowing yellow orb-eyes. "Oh, an imp, how lucky!" Aze cried, snatching up the fallen bat-creature and looking at it with delight.
I struggled to take a few steps closer to get a better look at the thing, but before I had taken a second step, Aze had tossed the screaming creature into his maw. Crunch, crunch ... Thick blood and gore dribbled out the sides of his mouth. Gulp. "Mmm," he sighed, his eyes hooded by lowered lids.
At the sight of him munching on the seemingly helpless critter, I felt my lip twitch over my curved, serrated teeth. A curious mixture of disgust and jealousy roared up inside of me, and my stomach growled, a loud, gurgling groan. Moments afterward, I felt an uncomfortable, liquid heat at the back of my throat - or rather, the back of my very large mouth.
"Imps make marvelous snacks," Aze informed me, seemingly unaware of my mounting discomfort. "But they can be hard to catch."
This was all feeling awfully vivid, for a dream. Had I ever had such acute feeling in a dream before? Or were all dreams this sharp whilst one was in them, and they only faded to obscurity upon waking? I willed myself to wake up, shutting all my eyes tightly and clenching my jaw in a display of focus. I needed to wake up and get back to reality ... but what, I wondered suddenly with a renewed burst of fear, was reality?
Try as I might, I couldn't seem to recall who I was exactly. A few blurry images surfaced in my mind, but it was all too jumbled and confused for me to make anything of it. Like a dream after waking ... ironic. I was beginning to panic again and that liquid heat at the back of my mouth was spreading, and the insides of my lips began to sting. Spurred by the discomfort, I pulled my lips back from my teeth, and in testing the muscles, I found that I had far more lip than I would have expected. The 'seam' all the way down my neck peeled back to reveal curved teeth, and over my gums flowed warm, thick greenish slime. I winced, and I wanted to wail aloud with the pain of the hunger and the disgust I felt and the unfairness of this peculiar nightmare that refused to end.
Someone Speak to Me!
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