New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

I woke up and sat up in my bed. I couldn't see anything in my dark room. I got out of bed and headed for the door. I tripped over something furry… with a loud hiss, the cat ran out the door. Crap… I hadn't intended to step on a kitty… I followed the running cat and found her in the living room. I turned on the light so I could see the kitty better. A cute little tortoiseshell kitty jumped into one of the chairs and curled up to go to sleep. I did a double take at seeing that. The tortoiseshell cat could be no other than my beloved Amber…

but Amber got too old and sick, we had to have her put to sleep over 3 years ago. Yet there she was, curled up on the chair and sleeping. I approached the kitty, a bit afraid she would disappear and prove to have been just an illusion. I stroked her soft fur. She no longer appeared angry from being kicked, she started purring loudly. Amber always had such a loud purr. I scooped the kitty into my arms and hugged her close to me. Nothing could make me let go of that kitty… never again. I hugged my purring kitty close to me. It was a dream come true to have her back. Wait… no… what if all of this really was just a dream… a dream that would disappear before I knew it was gone… then Amber would disappear with the dream… no, I didn't want to lose her again, my beautiful Amber... I did an RC… Definitely a dream. I held Amber close to me, I felt like I would cry…

Amber started to wiggle. She wanted to go. I set her on the floor and she rubbed around my legs a few times before going into the other room where the cat food is. I could hear her eating in there. It seemed so unfair that I had to lose her again… Now to get my mind off of that and onto one of my dream goals. Open and read some of the contents of that locked book I found in the Akashic Records. I went into my bedroom and found the book on my dresser. I took the book and lied it on the bed. I undid the lock, the lock opened easily. I had already figured out the lock earlier, though I no longer remembered how the lock had opened. I opened the book to the beginning and looked inside. The pages felt like parchment under my hands. There was such detail on the book for a dream… such beautiful detail. I admired the leather cover and the pages inside right down to the fact they were completely blank. I flipped through some more pages in the book. Blank, blank, blank… I couldn't find a single line of text or a single picture in the entire book! So how could that help me with anything? Completely annoyed, I slammed the book closed. This sucked. All that trouble to get into the book for absolutely nothing. So I would do something else during this dream. There was still time left… and I hadn't yet dilated time, so I could make it even longer. So what would I do next?

When I reached the door I got a strong feeling that I should turn around and go back to the book. Something about the book pulled at my mind, insisted that I return. I walked back over to the bed and sat down. I had a very strong feeling guiding me to pick up the book and open it again. But how could a blank book help me any? It couldn't help. The insistent feeling continued. The urging, the pull. This feeling could not be denied. I had to open the book. I lied the book on my bed again and opened it up to some random point in the middle. The blank pages stared back at me as if taunting me with their mystery. I reached out and touched the page of the book, felt the parchment. The parchment felt like liquid now… like it wasn't quite solid. My hand sank into the liquid, and then I felt myself falling… falling… and everything faded to black before a whole new location came into view…

I surveyed my new surroundings. I floated down to what looked like a stone platform floating in the middle of an endless abyss… weird place. Purple clouds or something filled the abyss, but that only made it look emptier. The large stone platform floated in the abyss without any obvious means of support. I floated down and landed gently on the large stone platform. I looked across the platform, which looked to be about the size of a few football fields… not a small place. A figure stood at the far side of the platform. I could not tell who he was. I moved closer to the figure, the figure did not respond to my presence at all. The figure could have been a statue if it wasn't for the subtle movements I noticed as he shifted his position. I approached slowly.

"Get on with it, will you?" the man said, "Do I look like I have all night? Come over here and tell me what you are doing with a book about dark energy. You don't look like a dark energy being… I see way too much of that disgusting light stuff in you. So tell me what you're after and make it quick, I have little patience for those of your kind."

"Those of my kind?" I asked.

"Light entities," the man responded in an irritated manner, "If I had not been bound to this book you would already be dead, fool. Now either tell me what you want here or go away!"

So he didn't like light energy. I wondered what he would think of Walms. I saw the man looking at me with an intense star that made it look like he could peer right into my mind.

"I have seen this person you are referring to as Walms…" the man said with obvious disdain, "I can see much of what goes on in the worlds, I just can't participate. I saw your Walms using dark energy to restore a forest." He scoffed, "There are those who don't realize dark energy is not meant to create life, it is meant to destroy life. Using dark energy to plant flowers… such a waste. Now, for the last time, why are you here?!"

I pushed thoughts of Walms out of my mind, and focused on creating a mental shield to keep this guy out of my thoughts. I saw the annoyance on his face when I did that. I told the man that I wanted to control the dark energy. When I said that, he seemed to be a bit more interested. He said most of my kind only seek to destroy dark energy, and all who use it. I told him I was no longer that blind, dark energy can't be destroyed, if it did that would destroy the balance of the reality. He snorted at that. He said if I want to use dark energy I would have to get rid of that light crap I have right now. I said no, I would have both. He looked a bit surprised, but got an interesting smirk.

"So you seek to live in both the dark and the light at the same time? You would dwell in the world of twilight?" the man was asking me, "Not just anyone can control both the dark and the light simultaneously. Mostly one has to select between the two, at least for their primary energy. Choose either dark or light." He looked at me as if evaluating something about me. His gaze was so intense I could feel him probing over me… I reinforced my mental shield to be sure he could not see my thoughts again. "But yes, it looks like you might just be able to do it… as long as the process doesn't drive you mad."

"I will control both," I said, trying to sound confident. I had the feeling it would be an error to display any form of weakness to this man. I asked him who he was.

"I am the darkness," he said, "I am the destroyer of worlds, I am the bringer of night. My name would mean nothing to you, though, human. If I was free right now I would rend your soul from your worthless carcass and devour it whole… you would be forever imprisoned within me, where you would experience an eternity in hell." He chuckled as if thinking of a pleasant thing. "But alas, it is not to be. I have been bound to this book and am now forced into servitude to fools like you. Teaching you how to use dark energy. There's still some fun to be had when fools who think they can control it are instead consumed by it, but not nearly enough. So if you seek my knowledge, come over here. I find some things about you amusing, but my patience for you is running thin."

I wondered if I should trust this person. Who knows what he might try if I got too close. I eyed him from my current position, wondering what the best action would be.

"Oh, for the hate of…" he said in a very impatient voice, "This cursed book won't allow me to directly harm anyone. And if I had wanted to kill you, you would have been dead long before you got even that close. Now get over here or go away. I'm not going to say that again. I might not be able to harm you, but I can refuse you my services."

I went over to the dark sorcerer. He violently and suddenly took hold of my right wrist with his left hand, and my left wrist with his right hand. It felt like his grip could break my bones. But any pain I might have felt was instantly numbed by a surge of icy cold energy. Like dry ice. The cold flowed through my body in a massive rush. I felt instantly both drained and energized. Images filled my mind, images of various moves that looked like Alex Mercer from Prototype… the form changing, the consuming, the tendrils, the spikes coming from the ground, the sword, the claws… and some things I didn't remember seeing at all… becoming a dark vapor, fusing with an enemy to take control of them, creating raging black flames, calling forth darklings that would do my bidding, absorbing dark energy from any source, including the darklings I had just summoned… The flurry of images passed through my mind so fast I didn't even catch all of them. The images of using dark energy powers were interspersed with disturbing images of violence, torture, and death. I didn't see all of those, either, but I saw images of a child impaled on a spike, crying and writhing in pain, darklings coming out and eating the child alive, seeming to feed more on the cries of pain than on the flesh… I knew I had missed quite a few images, both of the torture and of the powers, but then the images stopped. The dark sorcerer pushed me away from him, my legs buckled and I fell to the ground.

"Maybe I was wrong," the sorcerer laughed, "If you can't even handle that, you haven't got a chance of handling dark energy. Don't expect to be able to use those powers on your own yet… that's assuming you saw any of them… and return here in 24 hours time… if you have the backbone to take another step into darkness." I stood up, facing the dark sorcerer. I didn't want to show any sign of weakness. "Now be gone, human. We have no further business to discuss here tonight." With a flick of his hand, an invisible force sent me flying up into the air. I passed through the surface of the book and crashed into the wall of my own bedroom. Ok… that was weird… I wondered if it was wise to return there again… or if this was all a trick.