"In the far-eastern icy corner of Wazarick, there once lived a young peasant woman named Alice. She was beautiful and fair, and most of all, imaginative. Her beauty attracted all: from farmers to princes. Rose after rose, coin after coin, she rejected all courtships without any hesitation. Why? Perhaps it is her wish to live a simple life; without a husband or a child. Or, perhaps, it is her obsession with reveries that she doesn't want anyone to relieve her of her only refuge. Though she loved life and the elements that wreathed her, she merely had no time to espouse and experience the follies of being a wife.
One day, while bathing in her intoxicating muses on a riverbank, a young prince came trotting with his chestnut horse, boasting an armor of gold and silver. Glistening light flashes upon Alice's eyes; its alluring luster dilated her pupils. Her fascination, though, halted there. She felt no love or curiosity towards the elegant young prince before her. The youthful prince kneeled and uttered honeyed words and verses of passion. This was not enough, though, for Alice only replied with a cold shrug before looking back upon the surface of the reflective waters of the river.
Overcame with anger, the prince forcefully grabbed the young Alice, and he had his way with her until he was satisfied. Wails of a woman echoed beneath the waters that day, and salty tears ran towards the night's river as Alice struggled to no avail. The night came, and the prince rode back to his castle, leaving poor Alice naked and wounded in the cold night's embrace. She went home, smelling of bleach and blood. Her parents were shaken by the sight of their lovely daughter. Yet she couldn't utter anything about her state, as if her tongue were ripped from her mouth.
Months passed, and she experienced the effects of labor. The feeling of someone feeding on her actions, from the foods she ate, and everything she ingested and did. The sense that is someone is tearing away from her very soul. And that someone was living inside her belly, floating in the fluids beneath her trembling flesh. She sought no refuge around her parents' prying eyes and her sister's mocking tongue. So, she went back to the only place that offered her solace — the riverbanks.
It became different after months of being deprived of its scenery. The once green grass became balding soils as viscous mud devoured nearly all that is verdant. Even the trees seemed awful and presented a macabre description. For each branch seemingly grew like reaching, thin hands. Even the once fresh air became laced with a faint stench of rotting. Still, despite this, Alice laid down upon the cold, dank soil before she closed her eyes to seek solace and comfort in her wild and vivid reveries. Even though horrible, she wanted nothing more than rid of the dreadful burden that lives in the caverns of her uterus — her unborn child.
Crunching dried leaves woke her from slumber. And upon looking towards the noise, she saw a white rabbit, that wore a coat, hopping towards a cave. She blinked upon seeing this queer sighting, checking if her eyes lied or deceived her. In a succession of blinks, the rabbit didn't disappear. It hopped and went closer to the cave's mouth. She followed this odd creature, and soon it vanished in the cave's fogged, labyrinthian interiors. But among the thick obscurity of the cavern's miasma glistened a blue-ish light. She followed without a second thought, and when she reached out to luminescence that the odd light brought, it grew into a blinding flash.
And then, there she was, among the vivid lilacs, roses, and other gorgeous floras that emitted lively hues. She was in the Dreamland. The smell of cinnamon, saffron and other spices introduced her nose to the world she was in. Her eyes glistened upon the sight of these wonderous flower-landed fields. Even the weight that held her down — her baby — felt like air and her stomach seemingly empty. She ran and ran until she reached an ancient-looking tree. And on its thick branches purred a talking cat. The maddening sight of its contracting feline eyes, the grinning which it etched upon its lips, were all too mad and abhorrent.
Even so, the fearless Alice approached the cat, and it rested upon her belly. Though it did not flap its lips, it talked. Saying to Alice that she should not go and wander far from it. And Alice did just that. The cat hopped and ran for the woods. Soon, Alice would follow. They ran and ran and reached a wooden house. The thick smoke that rose above its chimney wasn't ashen, nor was it black, but it's silvery-white. The kind of heavy air that writhed like living appendages of a slimy mollusk. Fear wreathed her heart. And yet, she still followed.
Inside the wizened and mossy walls of the shed-like house floats a mauve heart encased in a crystal-like skin. Though it beats, the see-through glass-like crystal remained intact. This sight, this thing, was ordinary for her since the dreamlands held other oddities that were more mind-boggling than a living heart without a body. Beside it was a looking-glass with a warping surface. When Alice looked, though, her visage wasn't bent and twisted in any sort. But when the cat's reflection reached her eyes, a horrible beast with an unintelligible figure and details— which no man could describe — rose and presented its horrible maws. A grayish liquid bubbled from its grinning lip; something a sort could relate to a mad hound or a feral fiend.
Alice, from seeing through the looking-glass, shivered upon the cold wooden floors. From the truth of these fantastical facades of lief plains and friendly creatures came fear and despair — afterward. Her lip dried as the cold wind bit its soft cherry flesh. Her cheeks, sullied by the lachrymal liquids that never stopped flowing, turned violet with a hint of gray. As deprivation and dread tore away her last essence of happiness, the wish-giver, Khamend-hur, presents itself. A golden glimmer hovered above her. Slowly but surely, the light dimmed to reveal an ivory chalice. 'I could give you what you wish... for a price.'
Alice knew what must be done, so she strangled the cat until its eyes' hues turned black. When she felt no life within it, she tore one of its paws by gnawing the girdle bone that attached the limbs from its whole body. Madness and the desperation festered within her heart, and soon it became all she knew. The sharp claws of the paw met his stomach's skin — and soon her flesh. The Wonderland was a lie; the Dreamland was a loathsome apparition. It wasn't filled with lilacs, nor did its breeze smelled sweet. No, it's just as horrible as a nightmare. She tore her belly and chest until the sinews of her insides ripped apart from her ribcage. And all that was left was to remove her unborn child, and so she did. She clawed the sheath that protected the child inside it. And while she was doing all these torturous ordeals to claim her dreams and reveries, her body had undergone a disturbing metamorphosis.
Her fingers melded with her sharpening nails, and waists contorted beyond description. The sickening description of which became intolerable as seconds passed. Her tongue, even, parted itself in half — one could liken it to a snake or any cold-blooded reptile. 'Tarrant,' this was the only thing she uttered while she ripped the slimy flesh that encased the fetus inside her exposed uterus. Her soft voice turned into a coarse heave of air as the remaining skin attached to her body flayed. Whether she knew it or not, her wishes are becoming true. She wished not to experience horror. So she became one of the eldritch things beyond the looking-glass. And her malign wish to become unencumbered by her own offspring? It, too, was met. Everything she desired was being granted as her sanity diminished to derangement. And her beauty to nauseating disfigurement.
Her flesh trembled, but the pain was beyond her worries. Her will was sharper and powerful than any punishment she could ever endure. Then on, the young Alice became the only semblance of nightmare in the Dreamlands. Her child, too, wished for something in fear that he would die. Though unborn and undeveloped, the child had thought and reasoning. Alice, seeing this slimy creature writhe and clasps its tiny arms, growled before she mauled the child's hand. Her hatred, her malice, wants nothing more than for this creature to disappear. But the child wished for immortality; he would rather face eternal punishment than the infinite void of death.
The immortal fetus and the nightmare creature in dreams lived together in a perpetual punishment to be rid of something: of death and reality. To this day, both became the fiends in the shed. A vivid experience for every lucid dreamer that stumbled far from the path made by Xydas, The Dreaming God."
The winding tale of the man halted as a mirror manifested beside the crystal-casted heart. And emerged from the fleshy surface of the walls were the beast, fully healed from her wounds that Darion inflicted. Once more, Darion drew his sword, pointing at its tip at the slowly lurking fiend. Dismas stood his ground beside the tall ragged man, fearing not the fiend called Alice because he heard the story. The mysterious man, though, was still shaken because he knew something that they did not. The presence of the looking-glass means his life is about to end, but if he does not cease it, it means his newfound companion will die. So, with this in thought, he swallowed his fear and shattered the floating mirror, ending his life and the beast. The two slowly melted with the fleshy surfaces of the wooden house.
"You will see me again, right?" Those are the last words of the mysterious man, as he died for the sake of Dismas and Darion.
"Certainly, we will," Dismas said as lacrimal fluids caressed his cheeks, unknowingly tearing up for the man.
What's left of the house, in the end, was the heart and fragments of the mirror. Darion kneeled to the shattered mirror and grabbed a shard; to remember the sacrifice of a person he didn't know but grew fond of. He stuffed it down Dismas's satchel before wiping the tears off his face.
"It's fine, kid, he'll be remembered," and at this moment, a genuine smile etched on his lips. A smile that he had long forgotten, a smile he used to flash before these follies and unending tasks.
"O-okay," the lad stammered.
But then, in the recess of his leather bag, something moved. A thing budged inside, talking among the baubles and elixirs, muffled by the thick leathers of the bag's flaps and walls. The two looked and saw a book bound by skin and flesh instead of leather or hide. The exterior boasted a tough skin and slightly kinetic flesh while bearing disproportionate moving eyes and a moving mouth.
"I told you we'll meet again!" It screamed in joy.
But this can't be the man, they thought. The man died and melted; they saw that terrible event unfold with their own two eyes. Also, the voice and how it spoke were not like the man. The man sounds terribly ill and has a coarse voice, but this thing, this living book, sounds exhilarated and emits an almost piercing vox.
"Told you both!" The book cackled as it spoke, it as if it could eat needles at this moment and would still be in lief, in delight.
It is true, this is the man from before. Though, if it would travel with them, it needed a name, so Dismas said, "We'll call you Librom." The book pondered upon the alias that Dismas bestowed and smiled with its wretched mouth. Darion looked at this unbelievable sight.
"If only I could bring back my family from the depths of the underworld, even in the form of something inhuman, I would," Darion thought to himself. Then he walked away to the place of the emerald-ridden slopes of the Mountains of Avarice. And soon, Dismas followed, bearing the chattering book known as Librom.