The alarm wasn't supposed to go off, yet the streets of the city called its residents to walk its treacherous paths. Sheering whistles of wind along slopes of feathers and autumn leaves in the air outside the apartment harmonised with the alarm’s calm klaxon, and the howl of the downstairs’ dog - like that of a wounded wolf - awoke the sun as it rose from its slumber.


Sinless, slow, but select, and his character wild yet caring, Michael slept solemnly that night, hearing the chatter of his young ones in the next room, and their beloved mother’s hand resting on his heart. Looking up from his sheets, he stared himself in the mirror above the mahogany desk of drawers beyond the foot of his bed, content with himself. Fear was seldom felt, for though these were trying times, the headhunter woke each morning, ran through the growls of cars on the way to work and waited through the hisses of office chatter before returning home past the whisper of fowl snarks.


However, like a passionate poison drifting in a vintage bottle, nightmares stole his sleep. He tossed and turned in early hours as his dreams wept darkness over his seamless life. Visions of his children gone and his woman in torture, he jolted and awoke on a desolate, unfamiliar island.


Unbeknownst to him, he existed now alongside creatures of immense power. Like an ant nest forming the dwindling dwelling to a pride of lions, the world decayed into the home of fallen angels. A glimpse, whistle or whisper could alert the beasts; their paralytic sirens distilled fear in the minds of men, integrity was necessary… panic was deadly.

Drums rhythmically ringing in his head, the stolen ached as he lifted himself from the ground. Hunger, fatigue and famine loomed in his eyes as he searched for sustenance and grey clouds above his vision cried rivers at the desolate sight of his melancholy.


One river, once parted by miracles, now stood wide and deep. Light emanated from the cavity in the hunter’s chest and shunned the darkness the creatures wept as they scoured the island searching for him. His sanctimonious efforts, once holding him high, only drowned him each time he tried to walk across the water.


In his mind, he heard screams of his woman and children from the mainland. The light from his chest drew him to the bawls as he bolted, blinking seldom for fear of missing a beast. He sped to the water, rattling and hisses came before him as terror filled his heart and the light dimmed. Knowing he had to cross the water, he dove away from the deep growls of the creatures following him. Colder than the blue of his eyes, the water hurt him as he was pulled by forces beyond his control, curses recalling him to the island of his nightmares.


Awaking, teardrops of light fell from his face as he wandered shifting sands on the shallow shore. The memories of the forgotten land slowly sifting through braids of lies, he stumbled away from the icy waters to the sound of choir.


Unbeknownst to him, he existed again alongside creatures of immense power. Morphing, rhythmic choir once born beautiful, deprived of light and became familiar hisses and growls. Sans hope, he fell nauseous as he cried, calling for his demise.


Poised by visions of tears of blood falling from the face of his beloved, he released a demonic cry to the skies pleading for release from this torturous, agonising hellscape. Alerted to his pain, the beasts assembled to the broken man’s bloody knees as he knelt with his face in the sand by his twisted hands. Their damson, rusted skin paraded the shoreline as he shivered in place, prepared to die. In a harrowing curse, he let out one last breath in a bellow louder than lightning as the aureate beam from his cavity sharpened to a bolt of daylight. The vibrating crystal thunder shot to the sky like a dagger of electricity piercing the scarlet clouds, their burgundy rain falling as bloodshed tears. The beasts cowered in fear as they buckled and fell to the ground in worship.


Michael’s eyes burned with the light of a thousand blessings as he commanded the waves to halt and the tides to ebb. He lifted his hand out towards the river and the beasts scurried to the water, drowning dozens by dozens and freezing in the cursed mire. He raised his other arm and the water receded forming an icy path decorated with walls of decaying beasts, he walked to the mainland.


Beast after beast fell dead in his presence as he trekked to the cries of his lost family, their crimson eyes perishing as they gaze on the blaze that became Michael’s body. In view of his family, stranded in a field of fallen creatures, he wandered through the damned domain. Reaching them, he embraced his kin and light illuminated the cursed province as his eyes edged open. Michael woke with his wife, haunted by perils of the night gone by.


The drums in his mind never halted and intertwined with the sharp hiss of the wind outside his window as his wife woke. The alarm wasn’t supposed to go off, yet it woke the family day after day, early morning each night. He’d escaped the disreality of his fever dream but the afterquakes of the beasts’ muffled cries haunted his thoughts, always and everywhere, forevermore.


Singeing sensations of the world in flames burned in his mind as he crunched to keel out of bed, he gazed himself in the mirror above the mahogany desk of drawers beyond the foot of his bed, discontent with himself. What was that world? Who was he? His gape shifted and focused from his figure, to his outline, to his eyes. They glowed with the fire from the fever dream and his cerebrum burnt as the flames bounced beyond and into his eyes. He hissed in harmony with the wind outside and shut his eyelids. Opening again, storms in his eyes, he calmed and saw nothing abnormal. Falling on his back, back into bed, he inhaled and rested.


The alarm wasn't supposed to go off yet, but its calm klaxon halted the drums and Michael came to his senses, to forget the dream, forget disreality, forget