Shroud: Jinn

5 - Scarlet

Prayers can wait.

Around 4:45 p.m., I nestled in bed for a short nap to calm my nerves. My eyelids grew heavy. Eventually, I found my body sinking slowly and deeper into the mattress. Everything in the room disintegrated into nothingness and my whole body dissolved like the foams of the sea, floating weightlessly as little swirls of wind as it entered a state of extremely delicate trance that we all called dreams.

A small piece of lace cloth in a deep scarlet colour, manifested in my dream, swayed in front of me in a seductive sashay and slowly rose above in a hypnotic twirl. Moments later, it twisted and turned sharply before dropping like a blob of red blood. Soon, it rose again in slow motion, grew in size and floated in the air. Long splotches of maroon spiralled their way out from it like ominous branches from an enormous tree. At the end of each branch, hung a fruit the size of a fist. Its skin glazed with a dark and glossy red hue. A hand entered my field of vision in an ethereal fashion and I realised that the hand was mine. It reached out to pluck the fruit but it was nothing like fruit.

It was a heart...and it was beating.

THUMP THUMP THUMP, it went.
THUMP THUMP THUMP, shivers it sent.
THUMP THUMP THUMP, it grew.
THUMP THUMP THUMP, my fear, it knew.

The beating heart squirmed closer into the depths of my hand, refusing to leave my grasp. It twitched and convulsed violently, contorting its form, trying desperately to wrap around me so that it could mesh its jerking mass into mine. The thundering of beating hearts filled the silence as each heart that hung like a teardrop at the end of each branch, glowed a sinister red.

One by one, the hearts morphed into infants' heads, all detached from their bodies, their faces contorted in silent, agonising cries. Each precious little face had brutal red splinters slashed all over and dark, rancid gooey substance oozed out from each violent crack. The branches now shed their barks and revealed slimy tentacles that had a glistening red sheen. Peals of spine-chilling high-pitched laughter escaped from the giant red blob in the middle which had now transformed into the terrifying floating head that I saw in my room the other night. Its blazing eyes burned like fiery embers as it tormented me with its menacing hiss.

In rapid succession, each of its tentacles popped the infants' head into the creature's mouth, one by one. The harsh, raspy, grinding crunch of each twisted bite echoed through my entire body.

The creature flew towards me in a mad frenzy and stopped frighteningly close. It opened its mouth wide and exposed a vivid image that would haunt me for the rest of my life. Mutilated infants' heads swished around the insides of the creature's mouth, mercilessly butchered by sharp fangs. A blanket of foul, putrid mist escaped as the creature hissed at me once more that it burnt my eyes with its rancid stench and the sensation was like an acidic burn.

I hollered in pain. My terrified screams sucked me backwards into a rush of black void and transported me back to the waking world.

I was uncertain how long I was out but I was drenched in a cold sweat, shaking violently in the sweltering heat. The familiar sight of my room materialised but something rather peculiar grabbed my attention. A tall black shadow was standing at the far corner of the room as though watching me intently.

I tried to shift my body to get a better view but I was held in place by an invisible force. I tried to move my head but even that was pointless. I could feel my insides still shaking yet my physical body was not. Something was controlling and forcing me to stay rigid like a corpse. The only thing that I could move were my eyes. It was terrifying.

The black shadow popped nearer and nearer until it was at the foot of my bed. It doubled in height and towered over me like a magnificent beast. My heart thrashed wildly against my ribcage, as though trying to escape desperately from the confines of my own body. I stared in horror as something heavy dropped its weight onto my chest with a mighty force.