A Draining Experience:

[Arnaya]

The moon was high in the cloudless sky of the cold autumn night. An icy breeze rattling the crude windows of the young mans single room house, his already restless sleep further disturbed as he tossed and turned. Caught in the grip of dream of terror. The chill wind near freezing his perspiration to his skin after he kicked off his blankets.

In his minds eye, the young man drifted though swirling patterns of light. Dizzying to even glimpse, let alone be submerged in as he was. The touch of some colours burning him, while others froze what passed for his flesh within the nightmare. For near a month, this nightmare had haunted the young mans dreams, leaving him to wake after hours with the feeling and rest of only moments. Tonights dream however felt different somehow. The swirls seems more stable, and somehow stronger. And a spot of darkness in the distance that seemed to draw him.

Mindlessly, the young man flows through the swirling colours towards the dark spot. His form simultaneously burning, freezing, itching constantly like it was covered entirely by a freshly healed wound, even as it was being eaten away. The cold of his physical body blending with the discomfort and pain of his nightmare. The journey seemed interminable to his half conscious thoughts, but eventually the dark spot grew to encompass his entire entire vision. Pressing against what seemed to be some sort of snout that was forming with yet further pain, this of bones bending to the point of cracking and splitting.

Driven to complete mindlessness by the agony, he pressed himself against the gigantic black sphere before him. Pressing harder and harder until he forced his oddly tangible form into the wall.. His flesh pulling back and squeezing through a nearly imperceptible crack into blessed darkness of the passage. Despite the comfort of the darkness, soothing to the young mans tortured eyes, the tightness of the passage forced him onward. His body seemingly moving by reflex. Unseen protrusions and edges tearing though his form, only for the wounds to seal within seconds. The terrible itching of his healing wounds burning through his consciousness as much as the pain of the wounds themselves.

A final curve within the crevice, brought a sharp, but almost comforting light to the mans mind. His thoughts driven from him entirely by the pain and torment of his passage to this place. With a final surge, he threw his elongated body out of the slender crack and into the light. A soft breeze caressing his tortured body, and a sharp woman's scream of surprise blasting his ears. Instinct and pain driving his reactions as she lunged towards the sound, sinking razor teeth into the woman's soft skin, his bladed tail slashing at her stomach. With a reaction born of her own fear, the young woman cried out in pain and slashed with a razor blade that spring into her hand. Neatly bisecting the young mans serpentine form, letting blessed darkness claim his senses as he lapsed into true unconsciousness.

How long the blessed oblivion claimed him, he had no idea. Mere seconds, or perhaps hours? When he was drawn back to awareness, a searing agony rising through to his full awareness. Another presence looming in his awareness, a softness of nature contrasting with its writhing pain as it pulled and tore at his mind. His brief burst of consciousness bringing him lurching out of his bed for only a moment of desperation before the last of his mind was torn from him. His empty meat body collapsing bonelessly to the floor, to be discovered days later by his childhood friend.

NOTE:
This story was written to explain the perception of the old Lyran Era Illuminate houses towards the Draining of maren essences. Hopefully giving some insight as to what the Illuminates feared to be happening to the minds of the unawakened, both in regards to the dream in general, and to the draining of those essences in particular.

~ Arnaya, Soulmistress