The Devil's Odyssey

The Devil's Nightmare

Devils usually have pretty nice dreams, we're creatures of pleasure and live to fulfill our desires, so our nights are typically filled with dreams that are lovely, filled with happy memories or things we subconsciously desire, we very rarely have bad dreams, let alone nightmares. Tonight, isn't one of those nights.

Rias~

My eyes shoot open, and I'm surprised to feel sand beneath my bare feet, I hear waves crashing against rocks and smell the strong salty, damp scent of the sea. I look around and see that I'm standing on a beach in the darkness of night with no moon in the sky, and very few stars. "Hello?" I call out and my voice echoes across the beach, but my call goes unanswered. Suddenly, the sea turns angry, waves begin to get taller, thicker and crash against the coast brutally. Lightning crackles across the sky and thunder booms so loud it hurts my ears and shakes the ground beneath me. I cover my ears and shield my eyes from the lightning that lights up the entire beach when the white streaks slam into the sea and on the beach that I'm standing on. I recoil as a massive bolt of lightning crashes down right in front of me and I'm knocked off my feet from the power of the blast. I spit the sand out of my mouth and shake my head as I look back and now see I'm not alone on this beach, now there's a horse. Granted it's a beautiful horse, with a soft dark chocolate coat, black hair on his mane and tail and the most stunning sea green eyes I've ever seen, far more beautiful than I'd ever imagine I'd see on an animal. I'm surprised by the sudden appearance of the beautiful animal as he looks around at the storm and then down at me. Not only did a random horse appear, but a small screech comes from above and a small owl with very light brown almost yellow wings with black spots soars above the horse. The owl looks around at the sky it soars in and screeches angrily, the small bird descends from above and lands on the haunches of the horse, I then notice the owl's eyes. Not bright orange like every picture I've seen of owls before, but grey, a dark, stormy grey almost identical to the raging clouds above us. The stallion huffs and digs one of his strong hooves into the ground repeatedly, as if he's impatient. He then meets my gaze with those big pretty eyes with a look that almost seem to look at me expectantly like, well? We're waiting. I cautiously walk up to the stallion and slowly place my hand on his strong back, expecting him to recoil from my touch but he doesn't, he only huffs and digs at the ground some more, sometime today would be nice lady his eyes seem to say as he looks back at me while I pet him. The owl eyes my hand as I stroke him, her intense gaze almost seems irritated,  I go out on a limb and decide to mount the horse, which isn't exactly easy to do with him being so tall, wearing no saddle and us standing on a flat beach. I place both hands on his back and prepare to push myself up onto his back but the storm rages on even harder than before, lightning bombards the beach we're standing on and typhoons begin to form in the ocean.

The horse has clearly exhausted all of his patience because he bucks his rear up, flinging me into the air so I land on top of him and also earning an angry screech from his owl friend. As soon as I'm on top of him, he rears up and breaks off into a sprint down the beach as the air turns electric and multiple blasts of lightning explode behind us, chasing us. The little owl leaps off of the horse and flies beside us as the earth starts to crack and split around us, creating jagged rocks 20 ft high, the sand beneath us starts to swirl in a pits of quicksand and if that wasn't bad enough, the world around the horse and I seems to slow down, I look over and see the owl's wings flapping incredibly slow, my gaze shifts down and I see the horse's legs running in slow motion, as if time itself is even working against us. Despite literally everything around us trying to kill us, the horse runs side to side in zig-zags, avoiding lightning strikes extremely well for an animal alongside his owl partner who dives, barrel rolls and ducks the lightning and jagged rocks. I start to think we might get away, but my hopes disappear as quick as they arrived when a skyscraper sized wave of water crashes on the beach in front of us. The horse rears up and lets out a shrill yell as lightning strikes right besides us and blasts me off of the horse. I land in the soaked sand, my eyes sting from the sudden bright light and I hear the horse screaming wildly. I try to focus on the horses screaming and see that the wild stallion was blasted into the ocean and is frantically trying to return to the land, but the violent sea keeps pushing him further and further out. The owl appears above her companion and frantically tries to help him, she grabs tufts of his mane in her talons and flaps violently, trying to keep his head above water. I reach out and try to help save him but I'm powerless as the beautiful stallion gets pulled beneath the ocean surface. "No!" I cry as the stallion sinks into the depths of the sea, the sky then begins to crack and bang unbearably loud, shaking the ground violently as the sky opens and a giant cyclone forms between the ocean and sky, a maelstrom of wind, water and lightning. The maelstrom gets closer and closer to the coast and the poor little owl doesn't even try to fight the powerful wind, her gaze just stays down at the sea where the horse went under as if losing him stripped all the fight from her. The owl is swallowed by the maelstrom and disappears, I try to brace myself, but the maelstrom rips me off the ground and plunges me deep into the sea. I spin around violently and immediately feel the desperate need to breathe. I desperately claw my way up towards the surface but the more I swim the further I seem to get; I feel my lungs begin to tighten and my heart starts to pound violently. I can't take it anymore and I gasp for air but nothing but saltwater fills my mouth and down into my lungs. Water fills my lungs, and my vision starts to go black as I get weaker and weaker, and I get to the point that I can't even swim up anymore. I take one last look at the surface above that is still violently storming and then, the world goes still and then, darkness.