I was four years old when glimpses of my past life had begun to haunt my dreams, turning them into desolate nightmares. I woke up in a cold sweat each night, with the same recurring scene of faceless corpses scattered across a burning desert wasteland seared into my eyes. It wasn't the kind of thing a child should be dreaming of.
After birth, I had little awareness of the comings and goings around me. I was a frail baby with empty thoughts and doting parents, raised in a wooden cottage atop a small grassy hill.
On my fifth birthday, the headaches and blackouts started. The village doctor hadn't the faintest clue what the cause was. I sat in my bed, listening to the doctor explain to my parents that I needed to see a proper doctor from the city. They cried, knowing that they could afford no such thing.
The village doctor continued visiting me for the rest of the year as a courtesy to my parents, despite being unable to help. I was given various herbs and liquids to no avail. The headaches continued, and my nightmares worsened, becoming more and more vivid each night. The unknown wasteland became a battlefield, swords scattered among the sand. The sea of corpses had grown faces... familiar faces.
I woke up on my sixth birthday with a calm, eerie sense of awareness. I pried my weak body up, and sat against the wall. I leaned my head back, and listened to the drumming of raindrops hitting the roof above me. My eyes wandered to the open window, and my gaze travelled across the night sky, admiring the serene sight of yellow stars flickering against the backdrop of the endless void of space. It felt like I had seen this same view thousands of times before.
Something clattered against the ground in the house, interrupting my state of bliss. I pushed myself off the bed, and quietly opened my door an inch. The hallway was dark, with a faint light emanating from the kitchen doorway. I heard another object hit the floor, and I pulled my door open. I stepped into the hall and began tiptoeing towards the noise.
I peeked around the corner, and stumbled upon the sight of both my parents with their knees against the ground and their bodies slumped over. My mother was staring at the ground, with her long auburn hair dishevelled and covering her face. My father was looking straight ahead, quietly sobbing.
I sheepishly waddled into the room with the intention of comforting them, but all thoughts of solace evaporated as my gaze locked onto the horrifying spectacle that held them captive. There, in the dimly lit corner of our kitchen, bathed in the eerie glow of an orange lantern, stood a 7-foot tall creature.
The abomination loomed above my parents. An amalgamation of horror that defied mortal comprehension. Its grotesque form was stripped of skin, revealing its nightmarish anatomy. Sinewy muscles writhed like serpents, pulsating veins throbbed with each forsaken heartbeat, and its internal organs glistened with fresh blood.
Though almost human in proportion, its elongated arms nearly brushed the kitchen floor, their razor-sharp claws scraping against the ground, each tip dripping with an unknown black substance. The stench of decay and the metallic tang of blood filled the air, making my throat constrict with revulsion.
But it was its head that seared the mind's eye with unrelenting terror, bereft of emotion or consciousness - a void of soulless malevolence that defied the very essence of existence. Its presence was an affront to the senses, a cosmic blasphemy that whispered of ancient evils beyond the veil of reality.
I dropped to my knees. My arms hung from my sides, my muscles devoid of the strength to make any kind of movement.
The creature took one step forward, blood dripping from its body as its muscles constricted.
In an instant, before I could even fathom the horror unfolding before me, the creature struck. In a single motion, its arms slashed through the air, and its claws tore through the very fabric of existence. My parents, motionless, were caught in its path, their lives extinguished in an instant as their bodies split into pieces. The walls and ceiling were painted with a canvas of blood and viscera, transforming the kitchen into a human slaughterhouse.
I found myself drenched in a shower of crimson. The thick, coppery smell of blood overwhelmed my nostrils, making my head swim with nausea. My body trembled uncontrollably. I wanted to run... yet, I was paralyzed, unable to tear my eyes away from the gory spectacle before me.
The walls seemed to close in around me. The once comforting familiarity of my home had become an ungodly nightmare. Blood pooled around my legs, staining my clothes with the life essence of my beloved family.
An unremorseful, harrowing voice entered my head.
"It's... nice to... see you... again... king."
Death itself had whispered in my mind, its vile presence staining the very essence of the world. It took every morsel of strength, every ounce of willpower, to lift my head and turn my gaze to the unspeakable horror towering above me. It had no eyes. No discernible facial features. And yet... it was looking at me. It was speaking to me.
The creature disappeared into the shadows, its unnerving words reverberating through the fabric of my existence. I was left among the ruins of my life, staring at the blood-soaked walls and scattered limbs of my parents. With each heartbeat, the trauma etched itself deeper into my consciousness. From that moment on, I was condemned to carry the weight of that encounter, forever tormented by the vivid, gruesome memory of the slaughter of my family at the hands of a horror from beyond this world.