Nightmares of Insanity

Prologue

A lone figure walked down the street. Fog swirled around her feet as she disturbed its thick rest. Her boots made an echoing noise as she strode forward. At her hip hung a saber, polished and clean, yet seemingly shadowed by some unknown force. A long trench coat covered this woman's body, keeping the dreary morning from permeating her skin. Her left hand was sheathed in a black leather glove, her right encased in a metal gauntlet with barbed knuckles. A silver mask covered her face, letting only her brilliant purple eyes shine through. They were laced with a look of weariness and anger.

A scream tore through the silent fog, followed by the metallic sound of clashing steel. The woman drew back her trench coat, revealing a revolver strapped to her left side. She drew it slowly  with her right hand and cocked it silently, making her way down the street, clinging to foggy shadows. 

Another cry as metal struck metal.

The women made her way up to an alleyway, in which the battle raged. She peered down the alleyway cautiously, and spotted what she had been hunting.

A shadowy figure stood over a terrified young man. It raised a menacing looking barbed axe and brought it crashing down. The young man managed to block it with a flimsy looking metal pipe, but alas, it was wrenched from his grasp and went spirally down the alley. A guttural laugh followed, demonic and filled with malice. It raised it axe once more, a dark liquid dripping off of it and staining the ground, which caused putrid smoke to raise into the air, choking the defendant. 

Bang!

A shot rang down the alley, striking the figure in the side of the head, and passing through, leaving a trail of shadowy smoke and dark liquid. It wrenched its head to the side, roaring down the alley at the woman, who stood with an extended arm and smoking pistol. She cocked the pistol again and walked forward, letting loose another shot.

"YOU!"

The beastly figure roared out as he absorbed the second bullet that was shot at him. The bullet passed through the beast in much the same way the first had. He lunged forward, his weapon raised high and laughed maniacally . With a flash of steel, the woman drew her saber, blocking the barbed axe and sending another round into the beast, yet this time, the bullet connected with something inside its center mass. It reeled back, retreating down the alley way. It laughed maniacally once again, and started to speak in a guttural, hissing voice.

" Ah, Ashling DeGenesis, what an unfortunate, yet expected, pleasure" It smiled to reveal a full set of twisted steel teeth.

"Why do you terrorize this man?" Ashling's voice was laced with authority, but still had the feminine ring of a young woman behind it.

Another laugh, "This man fears his religious outcast and evil, his Satan. I am the incarnate of this nightmare."

"Realize this, Night-terror, I have slain hundreds of your kind, and you are soon to be counted among them."

The Night-terror hissed and lunged forward, crossing the intervening space between Ashling and itself in a searing flash. Its weapon fell upon Ashling with a bone crushing might, but missed its mark, instead cutting through her trench coat and blouse sleeve, and narrowly avoiding her arm. She counter-struck, bringing her saber down on the center mass of the creature, once again hitting whatever was inside him.

"So there is your essence." She muttered to herself and cocked her pistol, firing again.

A cloud of putrid green smoke expanded from the creature's body. It screeched and flailed its weapon around, striking and lobbing off lantern poles, the oil igniting on the pavement, flames spurting into the air. Ashling stabbed again, her sword passing through the center mass of the beast and pinning it to the ground as a circle of flame surrounded them. The creature laughed maniacally and started to rant.

"He is coming, he is feeding off of Night-terror power. He is returning. Hail Hain, hail."

"What are you bloody blabbering about?"

"The incarnate is coming." The maniacal laugh pierced the flames.

The creature continued to flail, striking Ashling again. She clung to her sword and started whispering an incantation.

"I use this power in which I was bestowed with at birth, the power of Coalescing, and I banish you to your realm of darkness and purify your essence with light!"

The creature laughed and screeched beneath her, his form seeping through the cracks in the pavement and evaporating in the flames. Yet as he disappeared, he repeated over and over again, "He is returning, he is coming, hail Hain, hail." 

And he was gone. Ashling stood and sheathed her saber, which had been covered in an acidic dark ooze. She holstered her pistol and watched as the flames sputtered out under he heavy blanket of fog that had returned to the alley. She then turned and went to where they young man sat in utter shock, and placed her gloved hand on her forehead.

"Sleep now, and remember not what you see or saw this night, as your nightmare has dissipated."

With those words, the man slumped over, unconscious yet unharmed, to awake later, confused and disoriented.

Ashling turned and went to exit the alley.

"I have returned."

She whirled around, her hand on her sword, yet faced nothing but a dark foggy alley way, and shiver down her spine. "The creature wasn't lying", she though, her hand remaining on her sword.

If only she new this was the beginning of sanity's eminent destruction.

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This is just a working prologue, subject to any and all changes. Suggestions and any and all feedback is encouraged and welcome. Thank you for taking a little time to read this short beginning to hopefully a long story.