She woke up to the choking smell of sulphur and death itself.
She opened her eyes. Thsts all thst surrounded her. Fiery skies and blackened earth lay bare before her in it's disgusting madness. She lowered her head to see skulls decorating the floor like roses at a wedding.
Human skulls.
She felt a sharp pain in both her arms. She turned to see they had nails pinned through them. She was pinned to a cross.
She screamed for her life.
She tried to move, to struggle, to escape, but every flinch only made the piercing pain ten times worse. She decided it wasn't going to work and focused on assessing her environment. She could hear faint breathes to her left and turned.
On another cross, lay someone else. Someone she recognised. His name was Dr Hoo. A Super. A friend. Was he though? Did she even have friends?
She kept looking onward. More crosses. More people. All supers. All she recognised.
Radioactive man.
Blink.
Crusher.
Steel
Watchman
Gravitas
Silverblade
So many supers
Then she saw a large hill. Made completely out of dirty broken human skulls. On top of this monstrosity were five more people nailed to even larger, more painful crosses. All supers from their outfits but none she recognised.
Yet somehow she knew their names.
Hawk knight?
Obsidian?
Shark woman
Green Guardian?
Blue Shadow?
Who were these people? Why did she know their names?
It didn't matter now. She heard screaming.
A woman... screaming. She felt she knew the voice but couldn't exactly pinpoint who it belonged to.
Suddenly, the screaming stopped after a short slicing sound could be heard. Like a butcher's cleaver going through a fresh slab of pork.
Then, in the distance, she saw someone approach.
Or rather something.
It was tall, approximately 10 feet and lanky with no muscle or tissue fibre to be seen. Or any discernable qualities really. It was like a silhouette come to life. Pitch black from head to toe, it had no face, hair or details to make it even seem remotely human.
It held a mutilated corpse of a woman in its arm. An arm it had morphed into a large axe embedded deep into the spine of it's victim. It dragged her to a nearby cross and nailed her to it.
She soon recognised the poor woman. She was Dr Small. Her closest friend. Although she remembered not having any friends, Dr Small was the closest she would consider to one.
And now she was dead. Nailed to a cross like some sick work of art.
She tried to escape once more. Squirming and shaking with all her might. Even trying to dislodge the black nail joining her to her wooden prison.
Thats when it noticed her.
It turned its blank head towards her as she moved. The bottom of it's face e then elongated downwards to reveal a set of dagger like black teeth. It let out a deafening screech, like a thousand lambs about to be slaughtered and pointed at her.
It ran towards her with insane speed. It's long unsettling legs covering tens of metres like they were nothing.
She tried her hardest now. Managing to woggle a portion of her wrist free from the black nail, she forced it completely through.
She screamed. Both pain and fatigue caught up to her and dragging her down. Stopping her. She didnt let it. She didnt know where she was or why this was happening but she knew it needed to end.
Finally her arm was free.
And finally it got to her.
It stood right in front of her. Its lanky body allowing it to look at her face to no face. She could feel it stare her down despite not having eyes to look at her.
Then, like a flash of lightning, it raised its axe like hand and struck her.
She raised her free arm. Whether it was to attack or defend she didn't know. All she knew was that she was dead.
She died to the choking smell of sulphur and death itself.
Magika opened her eyes. She looked around her little pawn shop only to be greeted by the musical chime of bells and whistles and an assortment of trinkets she sold as a hobby.
She was home.
She was sweating all over now. She tried to remember what she was doing. Why she was sweating so much. She placed her hand on her neck to wipe some sweat away and noticed an eye-shaped necklace with a green stone in the middle.
That's when it hit her. The nightmares. The seance she did to combat them. The newest, longest nightmare she had so far. The apocalypse. The cross. The death of her comrades. The living silhouette. The scream. The axe. The attack.
And finally her death.
It wasn't a nightmare though.
It was a vision. She saw into the future without realising it. A future where her world was dead. A future where they returned. That silhouette, that creature wasn't something new to her. It was a shadow. The aliens that invaded earth 30 years ago. The aliens the Lost Light, her greatest foe, worshipped with great faith.
They had returned and they had won.
The visions would come true. There was no denying them anymore. Now she was sure of it. She was sure the Lost light were going to assimilate humanity into the hivemind.
Umbra's hivemind.
But she won't let them.
She placed her hand on the eye on her neck. It started to glow and shift, like a child having a seizure, and fuse to her fingers.
Then her eyes glowed green.
She won't let that future come.
Not now...
Not ever....
To be continued....