Dreamscape
Gather round darlings whilst I spin you a tail full of wonders beyond imagination, let me feed the flames of your dreams that you may partake of its lessons. There is much to be learned from the tragedy of the Rosen family.
Child’s Play
Tiny digits gripped the thin fingers of mother’s hand, young eyes wandered over the beautiful roses that adorned the path to their country home. It was their custom to walk among mother’s roses; she had been growing them for years nurturing them carefully with her own hands. She had taught him to love the roses as she had, she had taught him to tend them and watch them grow. She had taught him both their sweetness and their sting. He Knew them like he knew himself, yet today seemed so average so normal. He found himself wishing for something new something special that would make this day unlike any other day….a wish he would forever regret.
Out of the corner of his eye he watched as a man from the bushes with almost no sound, his mother snatched away from his tiny hands. The man stood tall holding his unconscious mother by the neck. The man looked at him jeering, “Hey kid, tell your dad he had this coming...” The man pulled a knife from his sleeve and drove it deep into mother’s heart, blood spurting as she smiled one last time. “Run…before he gets you too…” Her words came so weakly from her lips as she breathed her last. The man dropped her to the ground besides the roses she had worked so tenderly growing, those very roses would drink her blood…her last gift to them.
Shock….Terror…..Pain…….all erupted from the small mouth as his mother lay in a crumpled, bloody heap. The screams curdled the very air, the man startled from the sudden force. Suddenly the ground trembled as roots shot from the ground binding the man to the ground where he stood. The rose bushes grew rapidly surrounding the man in their thorny embrace, his blood now to be their water. The thorns grew long impaling him without mercy. Then as quickly as they grew, they receded leaving nothing but the clothes the man had been wearing. The murder was never seen his body gone seemingly devoured by the roses.
Soon the young boy found himself standing in black with his father by mother’s grave, buried in her favorite place…her garden. In the center she lay surrounded by her roses they bloomed beautifully for her and they never seemed to fade in color. The boy tended his mother’s roses, every day he spent hours with them. They were his mother’s legacy and her memory, and he would never let them fade.
His pain was not yet done; one day while tending the roses he heard a shot from the house. He took off like a shot only to find his father blood soaked on the floor a man holding a pistol standing over him. He gasped and the man turned smirking, “So you’re the last piece to be finished.” The man turned and started towards him, but he did not stand … no he ran... His young legs fled to the garden…his sanctuary….his only place. As he entered the garden gate a shot rang as the man had put a bullet through his chest….. his body stumbled into the bushes the thorns pressed to his tender flesh the blood dripping from his chest….”So I will feed them one last time….just like mother…” The Man stepped into the garden a grin on his pitiless face, “So you’re still breathing eh kid? We will just have to fix that.” The gun was cocked for the final blow. The man raised his weapon to claim his last victim, when the roses began to take his prize. The body of the small boy that lay amidst their thorny vines was soon embraced, but the sensation he felt was most peculiar, he could feel the vines entering his body and the pain at first nearly overwhelmed him. Soon the pain was nearly gone he felt his wounds gone his very existence now alive in the plants he so carefully tended. The roses released him as he stood slowly to face his assailant, The man bewildered decided he was seeing things and raised his firearm again this time he would pull the trigger and another shot echoed but the bullet found nothing. His target was gone…vanished like the breeze. Suddenly a thorny hand slashed across his neck ripping his jugular and throat all to pieces the man staggered and fell to the ground as the blood soon over flowed onto the ground.
The young boy stood over his corpse…”Feed on him my friends ….make him pay for his crimes.” The roses grew rapidly once more to consume the corpse leaving no trace. The boy had his father buried next to his mother in their beautiful garden with every intention of guarding them forever. His naïve mind failed to realize that he had no way to pay for the house he had grown up in…his parents had worked hard and had left him a significant portion of money but he had not the resources to maintain such a house… he was too young, He was soon whisked off to a foster home the state promising to keep the property and the garden well-tended until he came of age…..a promise that was not kept for every keeper that entered the garden was never found…it soon became known as The Bloody Rosen Garden.
The boy did not stay in any home long his dark persona frightened those who took him in the thinks that flashed through his eyes weren’t human they often said. He had no desire for people….he hated them…..people had taken the things he loved most from him…..his mother, his father, and now his roses. He tried growing roses a few times but he was forbidden to even be among plants, because the state feared he would relive his painful experiences but in reality it was his only escape from them.
He soon wandered from the foster system just vanishing from the house, he found his way home… to his garden where he wished to remain.
The Reality
Alas no false tale was this story for it is indeed the tale of our darling top hat wearing friend, for there he sits upon the wall looking down upon the world, upon his lips a wicked grin filled with the utmost madness. Red eyes flashing with glee at the thought of spilling blood upon the filthy streets leaving the body of yet another victim at his feet. Oh how sweetly the voices whispered to him, “oh draw their blood for us, and make them squeal. “
He only whispered softly in return, “Not yet my darlings for there is one we must take care of first, see how patiently he waits for us.” Such a noble being standing to take fight against one who was filled with not but the utmost insanity, how interesting it would be to see how this battle would unfold. He arose from his crouch his typical hat perched upon his head; a well-worn top hat like many a fine gentle man or a magician would wear. Alas our friend is no gentleman, and well he wasn’t a magician either, though he could pull quite a few things out of his hat. He had also been known to put things and people into his hat, and well they were never heard from again, unless he wished them to be. His long white hair hung not only over his eyes but all the way down his back, giving him a rather peculiar appearance. This was not helped by his peculiar robes what reeked of fertilizer and soil. His boots were heavy and black and smudged with mud from his gardening habits. He held in his mouth a long black smoking pipe with a peculiar yellow smoke wafting slowly from the cup. He took several long puffs then refilled it with a peculiar dark mixture. Exhaling deeply a the yellow smoke poured forth from his open mouth across the dirty streets, the smoke left a yellow residue over everything much like ash from thick smoke, but this smelled sweet, there was no burn from the smell it smelled of honeysuckle freshly bloomed on a dew covered morning.
His smoke show was for the moment simply a distraction though he might find a more sinister use for it in a while for now it simply allowed him to land in the street relatively unnoticed, he drew from his sleeves a pairs of straight razors grinding the blades together to produce an ear grating sound that would plague even the weak of hearing. He allowed them to dance upon a passerby deftly slicing the femoral and the jugular arteries with one swift motion. Hmmm good to see his meticulous sharpening wasn’t going to waste, then again the tamahagane blades were not likely to lose their sharpness anytime soon. Should he be in need of something a little more pointed his Stiletto daggers were in easy reach concealed in the folds of his cloak. Now to further test the meddle of this stranger, at his feet the seeds buried deep in the earth began to bear verdant stems sprouting up through the broken and tattered streets, he looked onwards at his opponent. “Heheheheheheeeeee Why don’t you come dance with me?”
Such peculiar words spoken with the crack and shree of madness, he teetered as he stood his feet shuffling oddly as if he was dizzy or worse he was rather drunk. Though either could be expected of him he read his opponent like a book the smoke settling in around them. The cards were in play and the first ante check was about to be made who would come out on top? He continued to puff on his pipe breathing clouds of his yellow smoke all around but not a spec of yellow sullied his cloak yet everything and everyone around him would be unless they took care to avoid it, but what was to fear it was just smoke after all…..wasn’t it?
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