Promises Unfullfilled: A Nightmare in 4 Parts

I tossed and turned all night. The Corpse Flowers did their work, I hope, but that doesn't mean I felt better immediately. Just the opposite. My stomach was lurching, my hands were clammy, and cold sweats kept breaking out on my forehead. When I did finally fall asleep, my mind was wracked with dreams that flowed one into the other like rivers and creeks. I was being held by the Shepherd, but when I looked up her face was my mothers. I heard a banging from behind her and tried to warn her, but all I could do was bleat like a sheep. My mother's face contorted in pain as she screamed. I felt her scream reverberate through me, shaking deep in my chest. Her head spun around her neck and turned towards me again to reveal Tali's face; screaming and in pain. The head kept turning, and each time it faced me I'd see a new face. Kayrin, Rholis, Trill. I was dropped to the floor as the figure of the Shepherd before me bowed over in pain and clawed at the dirt. Behind them the shadowy figure of the assassin that had burst into my home or the one that had attacked Veirtree and Loc plunged a knife over and over again into the Shepherd's back. The sick sound of splitting flesh always accompanied by a scream and a turn of the head. Now Charlie, next Panlo, then Ael. I tried to move forward but Death Dogs blocked my path. Their eyes red and the wounds we had inflicted on them bleed and smoldered. I reached for my crook or my Quarterstaff, but both were gone. I pulled my hood over my head, hoping if I couldn't hear or couldn't see that the torture would stop, but it didn't. I felt something wooden in my hand and looked. A bow. The Shepherd's figure reached towards me. Thistle's face now. The face was angry, not in pain. "Just DO something, Virdan!" Thistle's face shouted at me. I could see the shadowy figure raise it's arm. Its knife dripping blood mixed with an oozing dark shadow. I raised the bow as the Shepherd's head turned again, showing me my own face. I nocked an arrow and pulled back the bowstring. The shadow plunged the dagger downward as I let loose the arrow. The string snapped and my vision went black. I fell backwards and plunged into darkness.
 
I hit the floor hard in an alley in Rexxentrum, lying on my side. Three boys I knew from my youth stood around me. Two hurled insults; vulgar words I had heard too often whispered towards my mother and me. The third kicked at my stomach. I rolled over, letting his blows fall against my back. Any moment now Shendra would arrive and send them running. She always did. She was always there to defend me. She promised she'd always be there, that when the time came when I needed her most she would find me. But as the kicks kept coming and the shadows grew longer I knew she wouldn't come. I had to do this on my own. My crook lay near me in the alley. I reached for it and the kicking stopped. I planted it into the ground and hoisted myself up slowly, my back to the three boys. When I turned, I could see the three of them were made of shadow. No light lingered in their eyes. The ground in the alleyway sprouted corpse flowers and dark stains spread across the dirt from the feet of the three boys. I swung wildly at the boys with the crook, but it passed through them as if they were made of smoke. The boy who had been kicking me grabbed my face. I could feel the shadowy smoke of his hand fill my lungs. My eyes rolled back in my head and my body shook.
 
I woke up in my bedroll at camp. The fire had been put out and everyone was resting still. I reached over to gently ruffle Rholis's hair. It felt rough. He remained still. There wasn't a sound in the woods. I suddenly felt like something was wrong. Who was taking watch? Why was everything silent? I rolled Rholis over only to be met with a skull. A spider crawled from its eye socket. I got up and noticed a large dark bloodstain on the bedroll. I looked around frantically. Everyone's bedroll had the same dark mark. Everyone's body replaced with skeletal remains. A skeleton sat up in a tree and Trill, alive and unharmed, sat sobbing on a branch next to it. She flashed me the look she had when she discovered I had stolen her poison, this time her face wet with tears, and she flew off. I tried to call after her, but my voice caught in my throat. I tried to run towards her, but my legs tripped against each other. I fell and crashed into Tali's remains and their bony hands wrapped tightly around me. The skeletons sleeping around the camp roused themselves. Clothing hung loosely from their bones. Their hair attached to clumps of scalp. They approached me, surrounding me, reaching for me. And I knew that this had all been my fault. I slept and in my sleep something had happened to them. I screamed Healing Word over and over again but I couldn't save them. Everyone laid their bony hands on me and pushed me downwards. Tali's bones sunk into the earth below me and the cold dirt hit my skin like ice. I didn't stop. I tried every healing spell I knew. I cried out their names. I screamed for Shendra or Mom. Nothing worked. And soon I was alone. Buried. Cold.
 
A piercing light split the darkness. A sword shone brightly in front of me. I grabbed it and was propelled upwards. I erupted from the earth in a field of corpse flowers. The shadowy assassin was hunched over, feeding on the Shepherd who lay dead in the flowers. I stabbed downward, putting all my strength into the point of the sword. The sword pierced into the assassin. They fell and rolled onto their back. Shendra's face looked up at me through the assassin's hood. Blood and shadow pooled from the wound I made through her body and stained the corpse flowers a deep red. Shendra's voice, mixed with a deep, masculine voice, issued forth. "I will always be there. When the time comes. I will find you."
 
When I finally awoke I rolled Rholis over. He was fine, if not a little angry that I disturbed his sleep. Our watch was posted. The forest was alive with the sounds of bugs and nocternal creatures hiding in the trees. I clutched my crook closer to myself and rolled around, feeling a hard rock press against my flank somewhere below my bedroll. I reached to it, pulled it free, and threw it into the trees. I settled myself, and hoped I could fall asleep before being awoken to travel again.