He battled his way out of the torturous place called sleep. When was the last time he had sleep?
He didn't know what the word means anymore or the significance it carries. When he close his eyes every night, pretending to sleep, His mind take him to dark places where he accost monsters, and killed them, lots of them.
He had kill so may he did lose count.
The darkness is all he knows now. It has become his world. He had embraced it, he did love it.
"Home of my enemy shall be my home, for there I shall find him and killed him in his sleep, cursing him to the darkness within darkness. For not all men who dies in their sleep had a blissful end."
The nightmare he had to day, is different. A bady, a new born, a girl, a little girl. Her eyes, emeralds, saphires, precious gems that spark in him an unfamiliar longing.
What an effect the baby had on him on the battle field where he now stood with his fangs and claws trickerring blood.
Black blood of the loathsome creatures he did been killing.
The baby reached out to him and smiled, grabbing him by the finger. The contrast was heart wrenching when the delicate white tiny hands squeeze on his bloody finger sweetly and cackled.
He tries to free his hand but it held on to it. he found himself trapped by the grip of a newly born.
The pain he felt in his heart at the sight of the delicate thing in this land of darkness made him toss and pant, struggling in bed.
He thought he did woke up from sleep, but he only woke up in another one. These days he can woke up in sleep within sleep till his reality itself looked like a nightmare.
But he didn't fear the monsters. This however, he feared. This is new to him.
"Please come Nebulous, he is having one of those nightmares he can't wake up from…" Shilla said to the old gun man.
Kogna locked eyes with Nebulous…. it was becoming too much to bare. They rarely sleep these days. If the man is on bed they sleep, if he is awake, they cant sleep.
Why did he safe him from death? Only one answer came to his mind.
"Because his is your grandson," But no, how long can he keep consoling himself with that answer?
His grandson is dead. He should have let him die. Why did he save him from death only to have him in hell in this reality?
"Why not let me do it, if you can't do it? that man is not Spooky. Spooky is dead. You have resurrected a monster."
"why not leave gunman. Leave and never come back. And if I hear you speak such blasphemy again, I shall be forced to kill you first."
"Hold your peace crony. I want to leave but I can't because I don't want to be glancing over my shoulder for the rest of my life. Every time I tried, the man catches up to me any way.Hell, he bonded not only them damsels to him, but every damn person on his path."
Kogna stopped speaking as they got to the door of the shack where the most dreaded lord is cought up in a different world.
Kogna whispered to Nebulous, "how about, we leave him in this damn places he got himself locked in his sleep and go out own way?"
The force that threw Kogna against the wooden wall, caused the shack to shake.
Damn! it was the woman again. How the man get lucky with all them pretty once who can also fight, Kogna wondered.
"Tell me why I should spare your life hitman?" Shilla griped Kogna by the throat agains the wall for the fourth time in three months.
"Put me down before, let me tell...", Kogna replied forcedly through his constricted windpipe.
She released the constriction to allow the man to speak, as nebulous rested one hand gentle on her shoulder to ease the tension that was edging her to turn into a pantheress.
"damn you fish-woman. Don't you know by now, that I have a bloody problem with my mouth. it cant keep shut for too long, and I am frustrated like hell…
weeks gone by, man never have any full sleep, drop me now, let my feet touch the ground where it belong…"
Shilla release the gunman slowly, sympathizing with him, as a smile crept to her lips..
"I totally agree with you gunman. You have a big problem with your mouth. keep it in check around me," Shilla said before releasing her hold on Kogna.
Their commotion might have awoken the lord, who know sat on the side of the bed staring at them all.
"My lord, you are well…" Shilla said and approached him midway but stopped. He didn't want her here. She has come to understand almost all his nuances.
She went out into the cold night with Kogna following behind, they both knew they were not needed.
"Tell me about babies, old man" the alpha instructed.
"Have you seen a baby in your sleep?" Nebulous asked.
Not hearing any replied from the man, Nebulous pursued;
"Babies are symbols of new beginnings, a new life… growth, peace, hope, happiness."
"That is not what I saw, none of the things you are mentioning. It was lying on the battle field where we killed the gorilla clan on our way here. It laid on the carcasses smiling at me and grabbed me by the hand…."
"It was not crying? It was smiling at you on a battle field, probably holding you by the finger."
He was shocked to hear this from the old gun man, but he was not surprise. The man is like a wizard, with so many tricks than anyone he had come in contact with so far.
Nebulous wished he could tell the man the true implication of his dream, but kept his mouth shut. What possible answered can he give, that will not be a lie, but that part of the truth, that will not reveal the whole truth.
"Don't hold anything back oldman? This human cad that held me captive... We must find where it came from, and why she is after me, for I fear a day when it shall trap me to my doom".
Nebulous was speechless. Has the man lose all sanity? Is this his grandson kuga? His progeny, loins of his loins.
Has he known pain before in his life as troubling as this particular one? Fear, what is it? Nebulous had feel this way only once upon a time in his distance past when his Makilla laid deteriorating.
"My lord shouldn't take such trivial things of no consequence to heart. Nor literary either. It's a sign of hope. A new beginning."
"A new beginning of pain beyond agony. I can't bare this, only one of us shall walk the earth."
"As you wish, my lord."
"How shall we find this child old man?"
"The dreams shall illumine the way for you my lord." Nebulous offered, cloning what he actually thought.
"Stupidity is the way of a dreamer, and I am no dreamer, oldman."
"Dreams when taken literary loses the power of what they intend to communicate…" Nebulous offered candidly.
"I know what I saw, this human cad will cause my doom. it's not just about taking the dream literally, it's the way you feel in the dream. I felt weak and helpless under control of this baby," The Alpha replied in agitation.
"Then, we shall find it my lord."
"Good, old slinger." Nebulous knew that was a dismissal.
He walked out of the shack. Shilla was standing in the clearing in front of the shack with her hands wrapped hear bosom, perhaps to keep herself warm from the biting cold.
"Go to bed Shilla…. He is well," Nebulous offered.
The silver eyed woman, one of the prettiest panther maidens Nebulous have ever seen and have come to know, shake her head without no wordlessly.
If there was anyone who was suffering from all this, then it is this woman. she took a step back when nebulous approached her. But he saw the tears.
"Has he been hurting you again?"
"No… and how many times do I have to tell you that," she replied.
"Shilla, you have to help me out. You have to tell me his reactions to things."
"You and the slinger want to kill him. You think he is some demon brought to life. But I will get you both before you ever lay a hand on that man."
"He is my grandson Shilla, why will I want to kill him?"
"To safe him from the malice of himself, you did claim."
"And why would that be such a bad idea? He brutalizes you, sucking the essence out of you. Your breasts are swollen, his finger prints all over your broken body…"
"Stop it! he shall learn, I will show him the way," She said with finality.
Nebulous shake his head, and head towards the shack he shared with Kogna, fifty feet away.
The others have spread out their shack a mile radius to make sure nothing possess a threat to the lord. He shivered in the cold night at the irony of all that;
They are the ones who need protection from this monster of a grandson. He should have let the man die. He shouldn't have brought him back.
Is there hope? If there was any, how long will it take for hope to find them on this island.
Kogna sat by the fire, staring into the content deep in cognitive activity.
He seem not hear nebulous ambled into camp behind him.
"How is the mad king?" He queried Nebulous, as the old man take his spot opposite him, relaxing his spine on the boulder.
"Is that what you call him now?" Nebulous asked cocking an eye brow.
"You have a better name, oldman? hell, the man got we all spooked by his ways."
Nebulous was quite for a while, his mind was on the dream Kuga told him. There is a child. His blood
"I was thinking Kogna, about what you say in gist. There is a child…. It may be his and Ruby's. The child needs our help, from the evil of the father and Nka the grandfather."
"Whatcha trying to say crony…."
"Don't say the words, Kogna."
"You cunning old bag of bones…." Kogna taunts.
"Bones that will save my own… somewhere out there I have a great granddaughter whose love for her father poses a threat to her. He feels the little thing will kill him one day…"
"Be careful now, man. I don't want him come charging at this camp. The man has the ears of the wind."
"Not when I clone my sound from him, no."