Thursday, May 23, 2013 - 6:02 AM EST



Did you ever have that feeling where when you woke up, or are about to wake, but you can't open your eyes? I mean really can't. You try and try but for some unknown reason, they just won't open. During this period when you swing like a pendulum between sleep and awakening, if it's associated with a dream, it's called Night Terrors.


Contrary to popular opinion, night terrors and nightmares are completely different. When someone suffers night terrors they are dreaming, yet when they awaken, they don't remember the dream. They usually wake up drenched in sweat with their heart pounding. Confused as to where they might be or what caused them to feel so discontented.


Nightmares are vivid - sometimes even lucid - dreams. You wake with the same sweat and the same pounding heart, but you remember some, most or all of the dream.


What you are about to see, is a night terror contrived and conceived inside the mind of your Angel of Darkness, Sebastian Duke.


You'll see it live and in progress.


He, on the other hand, will have no recollection of it.

---

Am I dreaming? Am I asleep? Awake? What? I know my eyes are wide open but I can see nothing. Just black. Darkness. I'm laying flat on my back on a soft, possibly satin pillow. Beneath me a similar satin-like material. That much I do know.


I try to move but I'm completely restrained. I can feel the sweat running down my head. Wherever I am, it's hot. Too warm for comfort. I lay there and realize my eyes are open but I can't blink. What the hell happened? Why can't I move? Did something go wrong when we unleashed Holy Hell on Jonathans warehouse?


It couldn't be that. Jacob and I watched Jonathan hang for what he's done to all of us.


Why can I not move? I don't feel like anything is physically restraining me. Nothing makes sense to me. I can feel the air around me getting thinner and thinner. Rapidly, at that. My breathing becomes labored as the air continues to thin. I'm trapped. Wherever I am, I'm about to draw my final breaths and join Jonathan in Hell.


My breaths shorten. My chest begins to burn as I'm no longer breathing in enough oxygen to keep my mind conscious. Slowly, I begin to drift. The eyelids I couldn't move before, are now beginning to droop. Beginning to shut. If I can't get free myself, I'm doomed. Destined to die right here in.... well.... wherever I was.


My lungs exhaled it's final breath when suddenly whatever was - but wasn't - restraining me gives way and I sit up. The lid of the crate I'm stuck in pops open and for the first time, I can see. The room - or whatever it is - illuminated very faintly with a reddish hued light. Where the light is coming from, I have no idea.


What I'm sure of is my breathing has returned and I couldn't be more relieved. I'm not one to fear death, but I'm certain I'm not in a hurry to get there. My strength is not yet recovered fully from my oxygen deprived state. I will myself out of the crate and fall out to the floor below. The floor - if you could call it that - was covered in dirt.


On my hands and knees I look over at the crate from which I just came from and I realize it's not a crate.


It's a fucking casket!


Death I do not fear. Caskets, on the other hand, freak me the fuck out. I stumble, well, more jump away from the pine box out of fear. I sit in the dirt with my legs bent and my feet flat on the dirt. My hands, slightly behind my back with my palms in the dirt, hold me upright.


I can hear something. I'm not sure what. It sounds like a high pitched squeal. I look diagonally to my right toward the sounds. I look back at the casket for a second and the casket has vanished. Something extremely strange is happening and I can't figure out just what the hell it is.


I look back in the direction of the sounds which get more and more clear. It's no longer high pitched. It's whispering. A door way become clear so I get to my feet. Walking slowly toward the door way the whispering gets louder and more clear.


CROATON!


I reach the doorway and notice it leads to a hallway. I can't make anything out other then there are walls and a ceiling like any hallway. It's engulfed in the same red light, only much more dim.


CROATON!


The whispers, still quiet, but getting louder. What the hell is Croaton?


I proceed through the doorway and I walk slow. I can feel my heart pounding. Racing. Pumping faster then I've ever felt it pump. The farther I walk, the closer the whispering seems.


CROATON!


I jumped to my right, startled. That whisper was directly in my left ear and I could swear as God as my witness, I felt breath!


I stand against the wall and I'm spooked. Real spooked. The whispers are now coming from the direction I just came from.


CROATON!


Hesitantly, I turn to my left and head toward them. I'm not even sure why. I'm not really in a hurry to find out what, where or who those voices are emanating from. I'm positive, I've never felt fear like this in my entire life.


CROATON!


Louder and louder the whispers grow. I continue to walk toward them, against my better judgment. It's almost as if I'm somehow being pulled against my own will. I walk directly into a wall. I stumble backward a little.


What the hell? I know this hallway was longer then that!


CROATON!


Now the voices are to my right. I feel as if I'm in a maze, but blind. I can see no features of the walls, floor, nothing. Nothing at all. Just red.


As I turn to the right, features are becoming clear. I can see smoke. Maybe steam is more likely. It creates more red as the light reflects off of it, but it illuminates the path better then previously.


I head toward the steam.


CROATON!


Then silence. Not a sound. No whispers. No more Croaton. I decided it was time to try and make some sense of all of this.



SEBASTIAN DUKE: "Hello!"



No one and nothing answers. I continue to walk forward and call out again.



SEBASTIAN DUKE: "Hello! Anyone there!?"



My voice echoes now. As if I was in a cave. Actually, I might be in a cave. Nothing makes sense to me anyhow, so why the hell not!?


Suddenly a voice cries out. It sounds like an aging man with particular accent I can't place.



VOICE: "The Angel of Darkness, are you?"



Is this some kind of joke? Was this guy really mocking me?



SEBASTIAN DUKE: "Who are you? What do you want?"

VOICE: "Well, if you're the Angel of Darkness, what does that make me?"

SEBASTIAN DUKE: "A fucking dead man if you don't tell me what the fuck is going on here!"

VOICE: "Seems unlikely, Sebastian Duke."

SEBASTIAN DUKE: "How do you know my name?"

VOICE: "I know all."

SEBASTIAN DUKE: "What is your name?"

VOICE: "Croaton."



What the hell kind of name is Croaton?



SEBASTIAN DUKE: "What is it you want from me?"

CROATON: "It is time, Sebastian."

SEBASTIAN DUKE: "Time? Time for what!?"

CROATON: "It's time for you to face your past."

SEBASTIAN DUKE: "I don't understand."

CROATON: "In time, you will. Are you ready?"

SEBASTIAN DUKE: "Seeing as how I don't have much of a choice, have at it!"

CROATON: "Very well. Sebastian Duke, prepare yourself."

SEBASTIAN DUKE: "For what?"



Whoever this guy is, is really starting to piss me off.



CROATON: "Prepare yourself to face the sins and demons of your past!"



I don't think I'm going to like this.



TO BE CONTINUED...