Morningstar Rising | Prologue
Everything hurt. A dull ache plagued every joint and muscle. This wasn’t how she had expected dying to feel. She thought that once her eyes closed, she would peacefully slip away into eternal sleep, but this final dream, before her mind ceased all thought, was horrifyingly lucid.
Karou was certain that her eyes were open, yet the surrounding blackness was all-encompassing. It didn’t matter whether she looked this way or that; there was nothing but darkness. It brought her no peace; she felt lost and was growing frightened.
The sensation about her body felt odd, too. Viscous, she surmised. Though she was free to float, the substance made her limbs feel heavy, and there was the daunting notion that she was being dragged down and gradually consumed.
From amidst the abyss, Karou caught sight of something - a deep shade of crimson in her periphery. It glimmered on the crest of a wave that rippled away from her. It was then that Karou realised what she was suspended in. It was blood. Where was it coming from? The answer came as quickly as her subconscious question - her mouth. Unable to gasp or scream or even to breathe, horror ensued, and she writhed. Despite her mouth’s open gape, it only swelled and oozed with an eruption of more blood. She was drowning from within and helpless to fight it.
Grasping at her throat, it burned as if she had swallowed the sun, and no matter how many times she tried to gulp it down, it didn’t ease; in fact, it heightened her panic. The dull ache she’d nearly forgotten now began to punish her more severely, too. Her muscles started to burn as though she’d overworked every fibre to the point of fraying. Her bones felt alien within her body; they twitched and creaked. The pain gripping her stomach was unlike anything else, and Karou imagined her insides were bursting open. The state of her nightmare allowed her to regenerate, only to explode again in agony; like a flower forced to bloom over and over, the accelerated, excruciating growing pains of her deathly transformation were exhausting. Eventually, it all became too much, and Karou fought to scream one last time into the black, bloody abyss, but there was no sound, no release, and no end.
