Requiem for a Dream, Chapter One (Superhero Fiction in Progress)

For Wrath and For Ruin

                The collective unconsciousness is not, as some believe, a sapient force comprised from the enlightenment, experience, and perception of the billions of individual humans on Earth. It is rather a separate dimension, a new world, fashioned from the instincts, desires, and dreams of those people. It is the Mindscape. It is my home. And I have missed it.

                 I was, for a time, inextricably linked to the mind of the Anglo-Saxon, New Yorker, Tom Callahan – trapped by an old enemy that is by now long deceased. I was shut off from the Mindscape, although as Tom dreamed I could speak with him, even escape into the young man’s Earth. As I once protected the sleeping from dangerous denizens of the Mindscape, I began to protect the waking from the dangers of their own world, fighting crime and heinous supernatural entities. It is a sad irony that the most brave, noble, and virtuous of mankind must hide themselves in costumes and behind masks, but many such souls I counted as friends.

                But, well, now I’m… “ free” I suppose is the way to put it. It’s not explicitly important how I got here, what happened to my friends, or to Tom. Nobody needs to hear that story just yet, and truthfully I do not wish to tell it. Stick with me long enough and maybe… someday I will. No, the important thing is that I’m home now – and it’s ruined! And whoever did it will pay.

                His name is Xaphnos Wundervayn and he is the last of the Psychwardens, an ancient order that once stood guard over the Mindscape before he had been veritably exiled. Gazing in all directions, the vengeful, sable-skinned figure soon discovered it hardly mattered where he looked; thick smoke rose into the clouds, a faint mist of blood stung his nose, and ashes of memories blanketed the land. An arid, salty wind jostles the tattered, indigo cloak sprawled haphazardly across his body, and a gust bearing a long-unheard wail blasts the hood from his head as misplaced sadness burns his cheeks. He pauses a moment to reflect, an empty, slackened expression pointed toward the ground, before he kicks a skull out of his path with his heavy plated boot. And now, reaching the top of the hill he sees it – a tower, standing in the center of a ruined city, built of bones, stained red, circled by wisps of black cloud and the vulture-like Zruuc. Zruuc – all grease-black feathers and sharp, wicked barbs. The city, Amaranthus, choked by bright red flame, was once the shining jewel of the Mindscape and Xaphnos’ birthplace. Only a close friend would notice his eyes growing ever more red.

A powerful wind laden heavily with nostalgia overtakes Xaphnos, forcing him to sweep his cloak hastily about his face, and to stumble backwards into a vivid recollection of his home. Images fly past his field of vision, and as he falls he changes, losing an inch or two of height and several pounds of bulk. Finally, his cloak fades away and he lands, in a wooden chair, dressed smartly in a white suit and periwinkle shirt. He is much younger and when the wind with its dizzying tide of sand and colors and shapes finally dies down he is sitting in the foyer of a small, old house. A teenage girl with rainbow colored hair stands before him, a mournful look on her opalescent, almost glowing face, and she says something to him, but he cannot yet hear her. She finishes her thought and stands still a moment before she frowns and then hugs him.

“I hope we can still be friends,” she says innocently.

“So do I,” Xaphnos agrees.

And with that she trots out the open front door to Xaphnos’ home and out of his life. He sits there for an indeterminate amount of time, long after she has passed out of his sight. Finally, he stands and tugs at his pale blue shirt cuffs, sighs, and walks to the door. But he never gets to the door. Suddenly, he’s walking down a street quite far from the house. It’s the same day, but not the same time. He walks alone, his steps heralded by an alternative pop song, taking in the idyllic weather and the tranquil scenery of the suburbs of Amaranth. How can life be complete?*Since it’s not an entity*That completely completes any so linear shape? When the pieces are in one piece*New pieces fall away*It never seems to end*So let it be.

He stops to stare in wonder at a grand basilica of a building with sprawling towers and battlements befitting a relic from ancient Baghdad or Babylon. His heart is broken he realizes now and her name, Spectra Apollyon, interrupts his thoughts just before a small kittybat interrupts his steps. The small intelligent cat with bat wings and squinty eyes skitters in front of him and between his legs nearly causing the young Xaphnos to trip and fall.

 “Kittybat, please, watch where you’re going,” Xaphnos says sternly.

                Like Xaphnos, this creature is young and naïve. It stands to its hind legs and peers up into Xaphnos’ eyes, turns its head, and twitches its ears. A soft, red glow plays over the kittybat's head as it communicates, though it never opens its mouth.

                “{Why are you so sad?}” the kittybat’s question is more felt than heard and the feeling catches Xaphnos off guard as much for its strangeness as for the insightful empathy behind it.

                “How did? I... I don't want to talk about it.”

                “{Please feel better. If you’re sad, I’ll be sad.}” and at that Xaphnos’ poor heart breaks a bit further. He reaches down and grabs the kittybat gently, and as Xaphnos lifts it into the air it licks his finger. Raising the creature to eye level, Xaphnos grins a small grin.

                A sudden storm of sand and color kicks up nearly drowning Xaphnos out as he asks, “What’s your name?”

Before the kittybat is able to answer it is torn from Xaphnos’ grasp, as is the cobblestone beneath his feet, as is the grandiose Amaranth skyline, as is the rest of the world until nothing is left but a blur of red, yellow, and blue and a roar of rushing wind. At the center of this storm Xaphnos stands still, struggling to remember the little kittybat’s name. He is quite sure it told him, but frustrated, he finds that the name is lost. Finally the sirocco surrounding him quietly sweeps past and though he is yet the image of his youth, unsullied white suit and periwinkle shirt, Xaphnos is returned to the bleak hill overlooking the smoldering ruins of his hometown. He narrows his eyes and clenches a bare, midnight fist with a glint of very mature rage burning within his younger eyes.

                “This will not stand…” his whisper a low growl.

                After Xaphnos’ very next step the five Zruuc notice him, a chilling screech tearing through the air as the giant birds open their razored maws. Xaphnos snarls as a bloody stench pours over him and the Zruuc rapidly approach him in dive.

                “I don’t have time for this.”

                His dark skin and stylish clothes fade as his form loses substance. When the Zruuc ravenously plunge into him, they pass straight through and crash violently into the ground. Grisly black feathers and the sound of crunched bones fill the air. As he rematerializes, his face grows older, more angular, more scowling. His purple cloak furls about him, concealing his form, and as his foot touches solidly with the ground, the cloak is blown aside by a breeze revealing Xaphnos, the man, garbed once more in his well-worn armor.

                “We are the dreamers of the dreams. You filthy thoughts are not worthy to roost in these ruins. With your blood I consecrate this ground.” His words are firm, but his mind races. How could this have happened? Where are the others?

                “The dreamers of the dreams?” Xaphnos whirls around to see a deviantly alluring woman at the tower’s entrance, smirking with sadistic glee, wearing thigh-high, green stilettos and a revealing, crimson dress, “You have spent too much time among those soft, Earth-mortals, Psychwarden.”

                Xaphnos glares at her as she brushes a long shock of her wild, green hair behind her wickedly horned crown.

                “Kallith? You did this?”

                “I AM THE DREAMQUEEN!” and more than hearing the keening clamor, Xaphnos experiences it, drowning in waves of terror, despair, and exhaustion. He stifles an agonized cry and clenches his teeth. He slams his hands to his ears and clamps his eyes shut from the sonic onslaught. As the note of Kallith the Dreamqueen reaches its terrible crescendo, the ruined world seems to shatter like so many panes of glass and Xaphnos loses all grip on reality. Within his thoughts he sees different versions of himself reflected in the shards of the Mindscape as they tumble through an utter-black void. In one he stands in shining armor yet paralyzed in fear before an enormous werewolf-like creature silhouetted against a pale grey glow. In another he is just a small boy in a one-piece pajama, on his knees among a tangle of steel and concrete, with tears and blood and dirt all over his face as clutches the hand of his mother who is buried under the rubble. In another he walks, ragged and depleted, across a featureless plain, his cloak a tattered wreck and his face marred with age and wrinkles.

“Enough,” Xaphnos insists as he opens his eyes, but sees only blackness.

Narrowing his blind eyes ruefully, Xaphnos hears only a faint sound now, far away at first, like a baseball crashing through a living room window, only played in reverse.

“Enough!” he exclaims, this time the darkness retreats into the corners of his eyes until it is no more and he stares defiantly at the woman in red, “This is not your world.”

Kallith smiles overly graciously, holding it overly long and revealing two rows of perfect white teeth. A more beautiful smile you couldn’t find on television.

                 “You don’t know. Oh, Xaphnos, you don’t know? Poor thing, how could you?” she mocks sincerity for a moment and laughs, “They’re all dead, you fool.  The Psychwardens are dead. You are too, in time.”

                Xaphnos is confused, distraught, his brow furrows and he feels a leaden weight in his stomach.

                “Answer me this,” she continues, “Whose world do you think this is? It may not yet be mine, but it will never again be yours to protect. It is taken by Madness and Fear.”

                As she finishes her last statement images haunt Xaphnos’ memory. Upon hearing the name Madness he immediately remembers her forms. A cloud, floating in mid-air, upon which is Mother Whimsy, a young girl, lazily lounging, an ethereal tree sprouting from her brow, the fruit of which is anything from toy trains, to giant eyeballs, to miniature solar systems. In front of this menagerie stands Madam K, a plain-looking woman wearing a summer dress and carrying a yellow umbrella. Likewise, at the mention of Fear he sees two shapes: Lord Beast, the horrible, black were-creature from just a moment before, and standing in front of it, Mr. White, a modest-looking man in a plain business suit, hat, and tie. These are The Dreamqueen’s parents, and in any form they are monumentally dangerous. Within the Mindscape their power is unmatched, save perhaps by the collected powers of the Psychwardens. Outside the Mindscape they have vast influence, but are more easily defeated if one is able to challenge them directly.

                The Psychwarden’s eyes burn and glow as a radiant, amethyst energy plays over the heavy gloves of his clenched fists, “I have beaten your parents before. This time will be their deaths.”

                “Xaphnos, you’re a riot,” the Dreamqueen sneers, “Even with the help of that blabbering Spider, or the American and his frisbee,” she laughs, “you could not hope to harm them on their home turf.”

                “But Kallith, your only chance to dominate the Mindscape is over their dead bodies,” his eyes narrow menacingly.

                “You’re clever,” she remarks.

                “You’re easy,” he smirks mirthlessly.

                She matches his gaze and at last speaks, “You know this is all your fault. You killed the Psychwardens. You destroyed your world, Xaphnos, and you know it.”

                The Mindscape melts away from Xaphnos’ eyes and instead he finds himself in a hospital room, standing over Tom Callahan.

                “Stop,” he slams his eyes shut, but they are forced open again. This time he watches a modest-looking man in a plain business suit, laying waste to his home with hellish, supernatural power. The demonic man turns to him and winks.

                “Stop,” he repeats himself louder; tears bite his eyes which refuse to close. He sees himself approach Mr. White and a plain-looking woman wearing a summer dress. He hands Madam K a key shaped like a dragon; Mr. White hands him two human hearts, blood making a mess of the whole ordeal. A tear streaks down Xaphnos’ face.

“No… this wasn’t supposed to happen,” there is a hole in Tom Callahan’s chest, “NO!!”

The Psychwarden falls into the hole, lost to a maelstrom of oblivion, and Kallith the Dreamqueen laments, “Where is fancy bred? In the heart or in the head?” A fevered half-dream scatters Xaphnos’ thoughts and consumes him in fear as he plummets down, down, down through a forever of nothingness. He loses himself to a shattered memory, half-real, half-shrouded in the dream-real.

Xaphnos, Sandstorm, and The Spider are in conflict with Lord Beast and Mother Whimsy, fighting bitterly, managing only to survive. Sandstorm, a super-soldier and seasoned veteran of Desert Storm; The Spider, a vampire, a menace, or a totemic, wise-cracking hero depending on who you ask. In some desolate corner of a shattered mind, a demiplane, simultaneously within and without the Mindscape, an army of furies, bacchanalian wild women driven mad with lust and rage from Lord Beast’s influence, clash violently with Xaphnos and The Spider, but Sandstorm, also called Captain Ward, is separated from them. After being carried away by a swarm of giant bees, he now blocks and dodges through their vicious stings, using his round, indestructible shield as cover and firing a storm of bullets from the machine gun in his other hand.

Sprouting from the cackling girl’s head, an enormous octopus constellation writhes in the Mindscape’s sky, very much alive and with a mind of its own. It thrashes its vast reach of tentacles about the battlefield to attack Xaphnos and his ally The Spider who have their hands full already. The nebulous sea creature bowls through dozens of furies in its attempts to snatch up the Psychwarden and The Spider, crushing them and tossing them aside as the heroes fight off many more and narrowly escape being caught in its clutches. Lord Beast, though amused with the struggle thus far, roars fit to shame a lion and leaps upon Xaphnos from behind slamming him to the ground.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” the great black werewolf snarls into Xaphnos’ ear from a position of dominance, “And despite your best efforts, you will too.”

Already, Xaphnos could feel Lord Beast’s horrible pheromones going to work against his mind, tearing down his will to resist, awakening dark, alien desires that lay dormant in his subconscious. Meanwhile, Sandstorm, blasts his way through a horde of hornets the size of men, charging with his shield out front, and letting bullets fly furiously from the barrel of his assault rifle.

“Wundervayn!” he calls out.

“Captain Ward!” Xaphnos barely manages to blurt out his reply.

He fires a grenade from the attachment below the barrel of his gun, igniting the grand stingers before him in a fiery retribution, and after covering himself from the blast he hurls his shield through the flames. Xaphnos takes a deep breath of relief as he watches it come for his assailant, colliding with a deep impact into Lord Beast’s face, rolling the monster over, and then rebounding back toward Sandstorm’s outstretched hand. Though The Spider’s advance upon the prone werewolf is cautious, his trigger finger is anything but as he levels his heavy revolver, his Widowmaker, and fires seven poisonous rounds in quick succession.

“Take that! And that! And that, that, that, that, and that!” he shouts.

“Hahahahahaha!” Lord Beast and Mother Whimsy bellow in unison.

“Xaphnos, how do we kill them?!” Sandstorm requests.

“I don’t know,” is the Psychwarden’s shuddering reply, barely more than a whisper.