Lords of RPG

Hazel was floating upright about fifty feet above a desolate plain.  A grey featureless sky hung unnaturally above her.  There was no breeze and the air felt neither warm, nor cold.  But deep in Hazel's core she felt a bitter chill that radiated out to her extremities.

The gifted teenager knew she was within one her visions, but something was wrong.  She could not remember starting one of the vision exercises taught to her by the Matron.  She did not remember preparing to sleep either.  No, this vision was something different.  Something unwelcome.

Hazel closed her eyes, clenched her fists, and tensed her body in the way the Matron had taught her to leave uncomfortable visions.  She willed herself to return to normal consciousness.  But nothing happened.  A sense of panic rose up within Hazel.  It was as if something brought her here, and now it wasn't letting her go.

She slowly opened her eyes, and studied the surrounding land far beneath her feet.  It was grey and powdery, as though it was made of dust or ash.  Here and there the landscape was dotted with the ruins of buildings, rising broken from the ground like the jagged teeth of some horrid beast.

Whatever had pulled Hazel here...pulled at her now.  Tugged at her with increasing power, and she flew through the air toward a distant mountain.  The landscape sped by, a grey blur, there were buildings, a hallway, and then her forward movement stopped abruptly.  She was hovering a few feet off the ground in a great circular arena.  A tall thin figure stood facing her, just three paces away.  A cloud of violently swirling black flies buffeted him where he stood.  

The smell of decay coming from the figure caused Hazel to gag.  His black eyes were visible now and again through the swarming flies.  "You are the Virgin Oracle, are you not?

His voice made Hazel's skin crawl.  She did her best to appear brave.  "I am the Oracle."  Hazel looked closer at this figure that stood before her.  His skin was grey and split with rot.  Necrotic boils and swellings seeped black fluid, and maggots wriggled from holes in his flesh, fell, and formed growing piles around his feet.

"Well then.  I wish for you to witness the end of your world.  I think the end of a world deserves a witness.  A survivor to tell the tale.  When I've taken the life from everyone you've ever known...and everyone you've yet to meet...would you like to be the sole survivor?  Would that please you?"

Tears formed in Hazel's eyes.  The stung, and no amount of blinking would make them stop.  This was no hollow threat.  This was not mere bluster.  Hazel believed the dark figure before her.  She believed he was capable of what he was promising.  "I...it...would not please me.  If everyone is to die, then kill me first."  Hazel choked back a sob.  "If they are all to die, I'd rather see none of it."

The figure laughed, black body fluids flowing down his chin, and dripping onto his decaying chest.  There was something unreal about him, something that suggested he should not exist.  That he was an abomination...a insult to all of existence itself.  Heavy chains hung from his arms, waist, and legs...each of them ending with a broken link.

"Virgin Oracle.  Let no one ever say that I did not show you due respect.  I will grant you your wish on this matter."  The black swarming flies raced from their orbits around the man's body, and descended in dark clouds upon Hazel's vision-form.  The foul buzzing creatures filled her nose, and mouth, and ears, biting at her closed eyelids, and covering her entire form in an undulating darkness.

Hazel managed to squeak out a brief scream, barely audible above the droning of the flies, and then she was gone.

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Epilogue.

In the town of Wather, at the Half-Castle, a maid screamed loud enough to wake the dead.  Men in Grey ran to check on the woman in distress, and found her sitting on the floor outside Hazel's room, rocking back and forth.  "She's gone...she's gone...she's gone...the Oracle...she's gone...."

The guards checked on the Virgin Oracle, and quickly backed out of the room.  The Matron and Giovanni were summoned, and the maid was taken to her quarters.

The Matron walked slowly into the Virgin Oracle's room, Giovanni just behind her and to her right.  Upon seeing Hazel, the Matron fell to her knees sobbing, and Giovanni placed his large hand on her shoulder.

Hazel's corpse was pale and cold.  The sheets of her bed were tangled and appeared soaked in the sweat of night terrors.  As the Matron mourned, a single fly exited Hazel's gaping mouth, and buzzed out an open window.