by Brant Danay
Sniffing the air, Chariah snarled. Not only had the Oneirophage left trails of blood, dreams, and severed limbs in ten directions, but he had spread his scent and sprayed his venom down all eight corridors and along both staircases as well. Closing his eyes, Chariah psychically probed the nearby halls and chambers. The Oneirophage was gone, or, more likely, had cast a cloaking spell to disguise his presence. Chariah knew with the black wisdom of the most enlightened demons that to proceed would be to trigger a laid trap. But the Omnibeast belonged to him, and contained several traps of its own.
Chariah retreated down the hallway from whence he came, back through the dungeons and upwards through the ship until he reached the oracle chamber. Therein could be viewed entire maps of the Omnibeast, and he could look through any and all of the living spaceship's internal eyeballs as well. Stepping into his oracle chamber, Chariah connected the various snakelike tubes to his body and soon hung suspended by a multitude of umbilical cords in the zero-gravity, studying several glowing, three-dimensional cartographic projections of the Omnibeast and its every tunnel and chamber. The visceral tubes held him aloft in the grips of their vacuum-like suction, and the supine demon dangled, hovered, spun, and somersaulted gently in the middle of the chamber, floating weightlessly in mid-air as he tracked the Oneirophage through the various oracles. Chariah tapped into and overrode the nervous system of the Omnibeast through the psychic umbilical cords, temporarily controlling its every function. He closed doorways and sealed off levels, then began sending pyropathic thoughts through the umbilical cords, setting controlled fires within the Omnibeast to flush out the Oneirophage. He would trap him with flames and use the conflagrations to herd him directly into the Bloodbong.
Watching the fires burn through the oracles, spreading in three directions at once, Chariah observed the miniature simulacrum of the Oneirophage in the glowing projections of the Omnibeast's innards, fleeing through the labyrinths as flames roared and smoke billowed around him, as passages flashed open and slammed shut and entire corridors and chambers rotated and writhed and crawled within the spaceship, bearing the frantic Oneirophage in their clutches. Satisfied, Chariah disengaged himself from the umbilical cords and exited the oracle chamber as they retracted. He then made his way to his meditation room, where the Oneirophage would momentarily be dropped through the ceiling into the waiting doom of the Bloodbong.
The Necrodelic waited with black patience. Morbidly, time passed.
*
A shot of flame raced down the corridor like a hungry phallus, ejaculating smoke, a sexual piece of Hell eager to rape the Oneirophage to a crisp. The fire caught the Oneirophage in mid-imbibement, suckling dreams through the bloody Umbilicus, which was embedded in the nipple of one of the Necrodelic's flesh supply, pillaged from the dungeons. With a violent start, the Oneirophage withdrew the Umbilicus, severing the nipple of the demoness in the process with a wet popping noise and leaving it twitching on the floor below. Prodding his chained line of victims to action, the Oneirophage fled the conflagration, leading his bound prisoners down the corridor to an intersection, where more flames awaited. The assaulting heat drove him left, the two gouts of fire coalescing into one and chasing him through the spaceship.
The fires herded the Oneirophage through the maze, springing up from the floors beneath him, blocking off passageways, driving him deep into the Necrodelic's vessel and trapping him in small pockets of safety against the fleshlike walls. The Oneirophage wondered if the Necrodelic was somehow planning to smoke his flesh from a distance, if there was some intricate framework of piping that even now stretched through the ship to his jet lips. Smoke swirled and heat beckoned as the dream-eating serpent attempted to ascertain his adversary's intentions. Impaling his hostages through the skull with his sorcerous straw and imbibing their dreams, the Oneirophage enhanced his psychic abilities and formulated a counter-plan. Slipping into a lucid dream state, he called upon the serpentine soothsaying powers of his subconscious to witness Chariah in his meditation chamber, awaiting the fall of the Oneirophage into the boiling plasma of the Bloodbong. The Oneirophage visualized every aspect of his counterattack, virtually living the experience in his lucid dream state, so that when he carried it out in reality it was during a psychedelic trance of deja vu.
As the flames raged past, the Oneirophage ducked into a rising blister on the sizzling wall and dragged his remaining hostages in with him. Once inside, he cast defensive wards to insulate the small chamber from the firestorm, hissed several cloaking and camouflage spells, and then shook the Umbilicus once, like a switchblade. A small, saw-toothed dagger shot out from its tip. The Oneirophage placed the ridged edge under his chin and dragged the miniature saw down his throat, over his chest, and past his sternum to his lower belly. The large slit caused loose flaps of snakeskin to open over his breast like the folds of a robe, and like a robe, the Oneirophage slithered out of his snakeskin to stand beside it with a new, shimmering, wetly glistening set of tattooed scales and reptilian integument unveiled to the universe. He held the limp snakeskin in his right hand, then chose one of the male hostages, one of his approximate size and hair color, to hypnotize with his kaleidoscopic, ophidian gaze. The mesmerized victim adorned the shed skin limb by limb, like a suit of armor. Like ophidian leather, the snakeskin clung tightly to the sacrificial victim, his legs pressed together in the tight cocoon of the serpent tail, his left hand brandishing a spider glove, his penis ensheathed in a snakeskin condom, and a dead skin mask complete with shed fangs about his face and head. The Oneirophage sealed the serpent leather hermetically with the Umbilicus, spoke a series of hypnotic commands into both of the doppelganger's ears, one for each hemisphere of the brain, and then thrust him into the inferno of the spaceship corridors.
The Omnibeast immediately detected the imposter Oneirophage in its labyrinth, its senses perceiving the shape, size, tattoos, and male energy of the Oneirophage and being fooled by the ruse. The ship continued to set the controlled fires as it had been commanded, herding the false dream-eater deep into its labyrinths and far from the real Oneirophage. The fires continued to burn around the Oneirophage's sorcerously cloaked sanctuary, so there was nought for the serpent demon to do but wait with predator's patience and imbibe the dreams of the captives he had dragged inside the giant blister chamber along with him. With a swirl of his hand, as though by legerdemain, the Umbilicus transmogrified, and the Oneirophage was soon slumbering in a psychedelic dream trance upon a bed of perforated, bleeding corpses. Oblivious to the conflagration without, the Oneirophage slept as peacefully as a parasite hibernating in a deathmonk's brain.
19
Severed limbs floated at the surface of the Bloodbong's heart-chamber like detritus from a shipwreck, like vestiges of genocides left behind for carrion-eaters and carrion-smokers. Whirlpools and tides created a danse macabre of arms, legs, and torsos, body parts rearranging themselves as if trying to find their proper partners and rebuild their mutilated bodies. The psychoactive ingredients of the flesh, bones, and organs hit Chariah like a white-hot warhammer. He breathed in, the slow systole of the succubus. He breathed out, the slow diastole of the incubus. Instantaneously drugged, he stared enraptured at the expressions of death on the floating faces, as if animated in their moments of realized mortality, and saw arms reaching for him through the transparent chamber, like those of zombies. The Necrodelic, rocketing with the phantasmagoria of higher consciousness, saw his death-oven boil the corpse-pieces to nothingness, dislodging fingers and toes, decapitating heads, extracting organs, peeling skin and muscle from arms and legs. In psychedelic tranquility, Chariah awaited the presence of the Oneirophage.
The fires that burned through his spaceship would deliver the serpent demon directly to him, chasing him through the Omnibeast's labyrinths directly into the Bloodbong. He closed his bloodshot eyes and listened, his evil clairaudient powers at their peak, as the crackle of flames and the soft susurrus of smoke were joined by the sound of reptilian scales being dragged acro
ss the pulpish floors of the spaceship corridors. Chariah could hear the Oneirophage's sibilant breathing as he approached, could feel his heartbeat like sonic booms in his flesh and soul. As Chariah inhaled more smoke, more flesh from the severed limbs and torsos floating in the boiling blood of the necromantic pipe, he heard the rush of firestorms above, the silence of the Oneirophage halting as he was cornered, the sharp clicking of iron gears, the groaning of trapdoor hinges springing open, the rush of air as the Oneirophage fell one hundred feet to the adamantium floors of the flesh reservoir, the scrabbling of his long fingernails as he struggled to climb the sheer, sloping sides, the sound of reptile scales sliding down the metal inclines, the loud clap of another trapdoor opening in four pieces, and then the satisfactory splash of the Oneirophage falling into the boiling lake of ichor in the heart chamber of the Bloodbong.
The drugged, semi-conscious Chariah opened his dilated eyes to watch as the Oneirophage dissolved. The Necrodelic breathed in, and snakeskin began to slough and disintegrate, tattoos began to melt together and embue the hot plasma with strange colors. Jaws unhinged, fangs fell out, venom hissed and spat on the surface of the churning pool. Chariah began to leave his physical perceptions behind, diving through the astral plane, downward and outward, before being caught in the soulmate's gravity of Mother Chaos. She embraced him with lithe pink arms, kissed him with purple lips, and spoke with the voice of a disembodied siren.
"...your enemy, the Oneirophage, lives yet...open your eyes, my dark darling...return briefly to your flesh...and partake of sooth..."
Chariah's eyelids fluttered open as though from hypnotic suggestion. He fixed his gaze upon the Bloodbong and then, with a single inhalation, smoked the snakeskin from the Oneirophage's body. Tattoos split and exploded, large chunks of scales fell sizzling to the bottom of the pipe, and the serpentine face of the Oneirophage loosened and then detached, revealing the face of another beneath it as the dead skin mask floated to the bubbling surface. Chariah recognized the features of one of his prisoners, whom he had cast into his dungeons in some distant past. An impostor, wearing the Oneirophage's scales and posing as the ophidian demon. Chariah had the snakeskin, but not the snake. He had not captured the dream-eater; he had only captured a dream.
Chariah smoked the flesh of the doppelganger with one breath, simultaneously resigned and vengeful. His black spirit drifting back down into the astral plane, Mother Chaos regathered Chariah in her limbs and whispered, "...come with me...and I will show you where the Oneirophage has taken his sanctuary...you shall haunt while I shall heal... "
Chariah already knew psychically that both the Oneirophage's astral and physical bodies were embedded somewhere in the Omnibeast. He followed Mother Chaos through parts of the spaceship which he had consumed with fires on the physical plane. On the astral plane, salamanders still lingered about the burnt wreckage, hovering in the heat alongside the ghosts of pyromaniacs, hungry for karmic smoke and ash, craving the feel of the flame through the dimensional fabric one last time.
The fire elementals scattered and watched from a distance as Mother Chaos and Chariah floated through the suppurating corridors, to the large black antechamber which had been forged partly by sorcery, partly by fire, and partly by agony during the inferno. The Oneirophage's astral body was semi-conscious inside, lost in dream and not responsive to the spectral world around him. He lay curled like an embryo in one of the ship's numerous blisters, filled, on the astral plane, with ectoplasm. Mother Chaos slowly burst the pustule, leaking shivering ectoplasm into the vibrating atmosphere. Chariah reached in and dragged forth the Oneirophage. The procedure resembled an abortion.
The Oneirophage's eyes flickered open but shone with disorientation, projecting razor-bladed rainbows from his dreaming mind out over Chariah's black flesh. Chariah was startled as the sharp beams of color lashed criss-crossing wounds over his astrosome, having not expected the Oneirophage to awaken into astral consciousness. He quickly realized, however, that the Oneirophage's astral consciousness was extremely minimal, as the dream-eater once again closed his eyes and slept, seemingly oblivious to the imminent jeopardy inherent in the Necrodelic's sable presence. Snarling, Chariah attacked the astral body of the Oneirophage, raking his face with his claws. The Necrodelic, however, had unwittingly lavished the Oneirophage with the pain he enjoyed, the masochistic ecstasies which stimulated his dreams, and these dreams now played themselves out in kaleidoscopic oracles floating in the air, coalescing into images of fire, rape, and Satan. The Oneirophage began to instinctively devour the dreams orbiting his brain, licking them up with forked tongues and sucking them out of the air with his third eye, all the while gaining strength, and ultimately awakening into complete astral projection. Jerked suddenly into his astral body, the Oneirophage's vibrations were sometimes severe, like that of a maggot being electrocuted. Drooling rainbows, he arose and turned weightlessly to engage the Necrodelic in battle.
Mother Chaos saw this as she healed the Omnibeast and uttered a spell of sleep from her purple lips. Just as suddenly as his astrosome had awakened, the Oneirophage fell once more into dreaming slumber. Alighting at the Necrodelic's side, Mother Chaos took Chariah by the hand. With one caressing, healing finger, she erased the scarlet wounds criss-crossing his face and chest.
"...your wrath betrays you, my prince...I asked for haunting, not violence...come now, beautiful Chariah...we shall haunt the Oneirophage together...our subtle specters shall visit him while he dreams...come, and I will teach you the ways of haunting ...just like I showed you the ways of love...my devotee...my black messiah..."
Chariah and Mother Chaos whispered subliminal messages, hypnotic suggestions, and self-destruct mantras into the Oneirophage's slitted ears. Mother Chaos breathed cold air across his body while the Necrodelic blew hot gases in his face. They summoned forth devices of agony from various parts of the universe, then tortured both his third eye and his mind's eye with branding irons, flaming drills, red-hot jackhammers, white-hot miniature scavenger's daughters, and a form of excruciating water torture utilizing the boiling saltwater of the lower Phlegethonic deltas of Hell.
The dreaming Oneirophage perceived them as an incubus and succubus come to copulate with him while he slept, interpreting their hauntings as a tantric assault upon his mind, a combination of rape and menage a trois, and it was of this he dreamt, his body trembling with the paroxysms of wet dreams and erotic nightmares while it sweated venom on the physical plane. The haunting had been executed to perfection, and a barrage of nightmares and suffering awaited the Oneirophage.
Mother Chaos guided Chariah back to consciousness in his smoke-filled meditation chamber, kissed the length of his returning silver cord and whispered, "...your ship is well and cleansed of its wounds, save one...within this one, the Oneirophage lies...remember, a dream is a double-edged blade, but higher consciousness is a barbed lightning bolt...battle well, my soulmate...my love..."
Mother Chaos faded and Chariah returned to the world of flesh. Her mystical words and hypnotic suggestions were like spiders laying eggs in his brain and spinning relationship-webs of vengeance. He detached himself from the Bloodbong, exited the meditation chamber, and made his way into the depths of the Omnibeast. In his drugged mind, Chariah vowed to inhale the Oneirophage's flesh, vowed to smoke the Dreaming Predator alive, and vowed to do so as the darkest and most powerful yogi who had ever existed, with complete control over his body and his breathing techniques, for as many hours as physically possible, and then a little longer.
20
Dreams spread like venom, venom like dreams, through the hallucinating brain of the Oneirophage, rising up like a tyrannical virus and poisoning his mind. His sleep was disturbed, and it was his own torturous slumber he dreamt of. Night sweats became hemathidrosis. Wet dreams resulted in chancres and priapism. The necrotic dripping vaginas of succubi infected him with gonorrhea and syphilis. He slept on a bed of nails, with a garrote for a pillow. His blanket was a straitjacket, cutting off his bl
ood flow and causing cramps in his arms, legs, and genitals. He cast it aside and was numbed by frostbite, the chancres on his phallus turning to chilblains. He wrapped his body within it again and became feverish. Rapid eye movement was like violent surgery. His mind's eyes were painfully squeezed in iron maidens of dream, turning even the hypnogogic processes he so desired, the beloved source of his addictions, into methods of torture.
He attempted to perform oneirocritics upon his own dreams while he dreamt them, with horrific consequences. Excruciating nightmares of his head turning inside-out and exploding were the horrific karma invoked by such autodivinatory experiments, followed by an eternity of vertigo and ennui as his decapitated corpse blindly wandered the universe, recollecting the shrapnel of his face, skull, and brains and reconstructing them atom by atom.
The nightmare of his head's reattachment was as agonizing as its explosion. A barbed, red-hot, floating, sentient needle ascended from the infernos of Hell and threaded itself with a thin string of flesh from his first penis, then used the bloody ribbon to sew his head back to his torso. His upper phallus slowly unraveled during the surgery, followed by his lower phallus, scrotum, and testicles, until he had been completely castrated over a period of several hours.
The Oneirophage moaned in the semi-consciousness which separates dreams like synapses, then fell silent as his skull grew over his eye sockets, ear slits, nostrils, mouth, throat, third eye, and crown chakra, forming one solid fusion of bone that rendered him blind, deaf, and mute, sealing the nightmares in and trapping him in a universe of horror and void where his head was its own sensory deprivation chamber. The nightmares were so intense that his body eventually rejected its own mind, and his brains slowly dripped from his penises until his skull was completely empty.