The Chapter With Gladiators and Valkyries
Word Count: 2.1k
Warnings: please don't run off with my work and break my heart, especially without asking first; I don't give any kind of consent or permission for anyone to repost or recreate this on the Tumblr platform or any other. . .also, blood, gore, and general vioence
Summary: I don't believe in them
Author's Note: I don't have a proof reader yet, I'm sorry
Masterlist
With a throbbing headache, I wake to the sound of the opera and a bitter chill in the air. As I gather my bearings about me, it quickly becomes clear that I'm no longer at home in bed. The world around me is some strange pastel painting and I’m laying inside of a giant birdcage. I realize immediately that this must be a dream, and I’m probably due to wake in a few minutes. As my head throbs, I ignore the myriad of faces that share the prison with me and sluggishly make my way around them. I step towards the edge of the prison and look through its golden bars. There are countless other cages around, all somehow hanging from the painted clouds, and all filled with people. Yet, the world is quiet and peaceful, the operatic tones are calming, and no one is complaining, at least not loud enough for me to hear them. Usually in dreams, voices carry far and music changes at will. I drop my eyes and find an inky black abyss below. It’s cold and unknowable, and almost alive as it seeps into me. Chills crawl up and down my spine, a taste of bitterness is on my lips. I wonder what I could have eaten the night before to cause such a strange dream.
Suddenly, the sound of a bullwhip cracks through the air, and lightning follows causing the cages to sway. I cover my ears in shock and fear, my hair stands on end. The others in the cage follow suit and commotion stirs in our golden prison. They press against me, forcing me into the bars and I yelp in pain as my ribs are crushed and feet are trampled. I watch as a woman to my left is crushed by the crowd, her body going limp within seconds. A strange dread settles in my stomach while the prison sways worse than before, too much weight gathering on one side. I can’t recall feeling genuine pain in a dream before. Fearful, I turn to see the source of their fear isn’t the thunder and lightning threatening to drop us from the sky, but instead a massive, winged creature. A gladiator with golden wings is latched onto the cage, the door is swinging on its hinges as the prison sways. He is immaculate and the size of the doorway, the armor he wears is incredible and his wingspan nearly wraps around the cage twice over. He huffs and whistles, the sound of a tornado filling the air and I find myself comfortable against the bars.
The gladiator points one long metal covered finger at the crowd that is frantically gathering, and gestures for us to come hither. A few make threats, scream and curse, but he ignores them. His eyes are beady and red, as empty as the void below but glowing like the fires of hell. The shadow of his helmet hides his face, all but his fixed eyes remain. My fellow prisoners are hurling insults and threats and even shoes, unable to figure how to fight him or bribe him, but he doesn't flinch. He continues to bare down on us in complete silence.
I realize after a while that he can’t speak, resorting only to unintelligible grunts and murmurs. The crowd's response of course was still horror, tears and screaming, complaints and threats. They were drowning out the once beautiful opera that played, the opera that still played faintly in the background. As they press into me, the faces around begin to register. Melanie, my neighbor is an arm’s length from me, and my son Alex is cowering at my feet. He’s gripping my ankle like an iron bar and I grab hold of him with just as much force. Before I can open my mouth to speak, something catches in the corner of my eye.
The sky is filled with these creatures now, all crowding around other cages and all equally menacing. There was one brute with smaller wings whose efforts were more comical, causing a fellow comrade to have to help and I recognized the man they were taking. It was my mailman, Ted. He’s holding onto the hands of the others for his dear life, they’re interlocking with his arms as his other half is yanked on by the creature. I can't hear them though, every word on their lips is still silent. It's like watching an old film. To my relief, it wasn’t a moment before Ted and his group won, but Ted slipped. Both gladiators dive, the cartoonish one shocked at first while the other is enraged.
When they return, one is holding Ted's arms and the other is holding Ted’s legs, but neither are very pleased. It takes a moment for it to register, but Ted is screaming. I can hear him. What’s more than that is I see blood, lots of it; and I smell blood. I smell vomit and—find that the men next to me has lost themselves. Dread sinks lower into my stomach as I ponder the vivid dream and my head continues to throb. I should be waking soon, shouldn’t I?
Alex sobs into my chest and I do all I can to console him. The tousle in my prison has ended, I find the gladiator has gotten ahold of his victim. It was a young woman, probably in her twenties with purple hair. I watched in horror as she’s snatched up by said hair, and my fellow prisoners let him. The man next to me let him, Melanie my sweet neighbor let him–I, the coward, let him. We all had seen what happened to Ted. We all can see very clearly what’s happening around us, and those around me understand it just as much as I do. And the closer you looked, the more you saw the horrible truth. Alex was wearing rags, Melanie was injured and gaunt; and most of the prisoners were filthy. I couldn't imagine they’d been fed or bathed, nor given the chance to relieve themselves in any humane way. They were caged like animals and treated worse; we were caged like animals. A horror show begins to play in my mind of what's to come, what's to be expected if I don’t find a way out. Broken sobs fill the air, the prisoners cry out throughout the heavens very clearly now. Reality threatens to settle in, but with the grinding of my teeth, I refuse it back again. It had to be a dream. Even as Alex’s tears and snot soak the front of my shirt, I convince myself it’s just a dream. Instead, I watch as a large rectangle platform hung from chains is drawn down from the clouds. The gladiators who’ve successfully captured their prey fall in line, a myriad of fluttering gold feathers fills the air and clanking armor follows. They are motionless and stoic, all gripping prey in their fists. The jaws of death have opened wide and clamped shut, unyielding.
The other two creatures, who still held the pieces of Ted, landed on the far end of the platform. They were clearly unaware of what to do, almost robotic. Viscera paints the marble, causing the cartoonish one to gasp and panic. The other one, more brutish and somehow annoyed, tears into another flight pattern, making a beeline for the cage Ted came from. However, before he can seemingly remedy the mistake there is a second crack of the whip. In the chaos of lighting and thunder, a Valkyrie lands on the platform causing it to shake and sway; and at once, every knee and head is bowed.
Silence fills the air; the songs have ended, and the cries have quieted. The air is electric. The brute stops midflight, almost forgetting himself while the other one holding what's left of Ted visibly shivers. The Valkyrie’s eyes are white and full of flames as she sauntered down the walkway, passing the bowed statues. She’s more human in appearance and yet also more ethereal, not made of any metal but not flesh-like either. Her wingspan is immaculate, casting a shadow that dwarfed them and her armor glints in a way that let me know the metal wasn’t earthly. Her countenance is hardened and although I am far off, I can feel it as intensely I felt the void below. The brute makes it back to the platform before she can reach the end, but it doesn’t please the Valkyrie. She pulls a bullwhip from seemingly nowhere, and whips it around in the air above, creating another horrible noise. My hands move to cover Alex’s ears as lightning cracks across the sky and lights up the platform before me. When the light show has ended, I find the two failed gladiators have been branded. They’re golden at the seams, as if they were dolls, their foreheads are blackened, and their wings have been removed. The feathers drift away, gently, and soundlessly falling into the void below, burning as they go. And my eyes catch something moving in the deep. From the darkness rise more winged beasts; hulking and pale, inhuman, and wicked to watch. They are warped, fangled creatures with smoking eyes and dragon’s breath; and their armor isn’t golden but almost rusted and charred. A scent fills the air that can only be described as rotting flesh, and I finally let go of my resolve.
My stomach rolls in a way that I couldn’t prepare for, and I drop Alex to vomit through the bars. Fear bubbles in my gut and another violent wave of sickness washes over me. I close my eyes and inhale through my mouth, trying to steady myself. If this wasn’t a dream, and it had to be a dream, what was I going to do? What were any of us going to do? What was I going to tell my son? A lie? An obvious lie? Alex is yanking on my legs, but my head is spinning, and madness is coming through. Where was I? How did I get here? How was it even possible? I count back the hours and the days, and I could’ve sworn I’d just tucked Alex in last night before falling asleep myself. I’d eaten a whole pint of ice-cream; I’d finished the last episode of that stupid medieval soap opera everyone had been talking about; and I’d fallen asleep in my own bed. My head throbs again, and I begin to wonder if it wasn’t a migraine but perhaps an injury. I hadn't checked, I hadn’t thought to check.
My stupor was interrupted by an angelic song. I opened my eyes to find that not only had the beasts disappeared, but they’d taken the damaged gladiators with them. Aside from that, the singing was coming from the Valkyrie. It’s not any language that I recognize but her voice is still captivating and strangely hypnotic. Unfortunately, her voice is not enough to dull the cries and screams or curses falling from the lips of prisoners. It’s also not enough to calm me, in my sorry state. I’m pressed against the bars again, my hand trying to find Alex but when I turn, I realize it’s because the cage door has opened again. The children, all of them, like little cherubs are being drawn out by her voice. This time, it's not by brute strength but seemingly by magic. Fathers and mothers around me, kindred to me, are crying in pain and I realize that Alex is missing.
Adrenaline kicks through me and I shove the people crushing into me aside but cry out to no avail. How could I have let him go? Even for a second? I scramble around the cramped area, doing all I can to plow through but it’s for nothing. I gather with the others who are binding together to stop their children from carrying themselves off, yet it’s all to no avail. I watch it happen, the children just fall asleep, floating away like the clouds above; caught up by the wind and careless. Anyone who dares to hold on, overconfident, falls into the pit below. We cry out for our lost children, gut wrenching and agonized, but it falls on deaf ears. And as the children pass by the Valkyrie, she gives them wings. With a wave of her hand and sweetly blown kiss, cherubs are born and ready to play. They sway around the Valkyrie with affection and wonderment. Laughter fills the air in a sweet simple song and heartbroken cries make the chorus.
I see Alex, dark haired and dark eyed, now winged and with her. He’s been brainwashed and I let it happen. . . I clench my fists and grind my teeth so hard they almost crack. Hot bitter tears streak my face while blood begins to pool in my mouth.
It’s just a dream, I tell myself. It’s just a dream.