melorah could not breath
could not blink....could not move from her spot...
as she beheld a pristine moment from a thousand nightmares past....

felt its after-birthing wind as the their precious weapon swept the world clean, leaving a blanket of glowing ash on the ground....
she felt her eyes fill with tears and her hand flew to her mouth to keep her soul from screaming....
she wondered how many times she had stood in this place, at the outer reaches of her dream realm....watching the world end....
feeling the disorienting real-ness of it, hearing strange sounds casting out from the distance...wondering at the work that is man....

she fell to her knees and watched the world pitch and heave, shuddering wild with its own radioactive fever-dreams...
with eyes burning she looked up and saw figures materialize, sizzling out from the ashen void, reality bending around them as they became more solid to her.
from the boiling clouds they shimmered out, framed by two writhing trees: a tall female with a body that seemed somehow alien and a very small woman with two long fingers slithering down to dangerous points...she went to the tree and began to whisper to it....melorah's gaze moved to the tall one...her eyes fixed on the woman's strange bare feet and the wooden boards that materialized beneath them.

"i am faydra" spoke the tall one, "and my companion is luscia....we are the keepers of the fifth key of your heart. we are the keepers of destruction, fear and rage."
the small one seated herself, her hair reaching for the tree next to them for comfort. she laughed softly to herself then grew quiet, eyes darting to and fro.
faydra stared into melorah and began to speak, her voice warm and soothing, "luscia's job is to scar you for life. everytime you experience something that is terrible she puts her beautiful fingers deep into your skull to extract the essence of the abominations....she collects them into pretty bottles and lets them ferment over time.....so she she can periodicaly give you a taste of things you'd rather not remember....."

"and what is your job?" melorah questioned from her seat.

faydra smiled wide, "everying else.... and i am a messanger."

"and what is the the message?" melorah heard her voice trail off.

"beware the machine, mistress. you know the machine is there...and you think the rest of the world does not know this. i have news for you, love: all the world knows the machine is there. here. you. me. us. it all. the world churns on with this knowledge everyday. what perturbs your soul is the feeling that the world is blind... it is not that your fellow humans do not the see the machine....acknowledge the machine. dare to say, it is far worse than that," her eyes grew wide, "is that they simply do not care. they have grown comfortable with the guidance the machine has to offer....the comforts and homogonized order of it all. you go against the grain though. you are different. you and a handful of others do not do as you are told. you do not close your eyes when you should. you are anomolies. wonderful anomalies. like a cancer....a blight...and the machine is taking notice of you and those things which ripple out from you."

melorah looked down to her hands. "what am i to do?" she asked, watching reality morph and distort.
"keep this in mind," faydra began, "the machine is old and its roots run deep now. you must come to grips with fact that you alone can not rebuild the machine, re-tool it to your likes and specifications... you can not change it...it is not for you to change it.....that is not your path......not your mission in this life...
no, no...in this life you must keep the machine from changing you."


note: storyline began somewhere back with a pic called 'rabbit holes'