Crimson red filled the girl's dream tonight, as it did with all nights. Within the sleep-induced illusions, everything was the color of fresh blood, her eyes seeing even the earth beneath her soles as mortal. Yet, tonight, Maere lacked presence in her dream, and the source of red was different still. Fire filled all of her focus like a blooming lotus brought forth from inferno; she never recalls a fire like this, even in her previous life...
Flame was a powerful appeal to the senses, however... The only thing thing she felt was unshakable dread, her sixth sense running wild with premonitions of death. Things, no, something, was dying; what was dying?! The plume of heat was obscuring her vision beyond her perception of death, hiding the truth from her eyes. However, despite all this, it was her world, and she was fearfully aware something similar to her within the dream was being snuffed out.
Abruptly, through the roaring, she heard the voice ring clear: “Grasp the dream's wound...” The life within the fire was ending with all the impact of a shovel to fresh eggs, shattering everywhere like glass shards. The fire began to swirl as if drawn by mixing winds brought about by the death, spiraling inwards. The firestorm circled the killer, both condemning and answering them. The face, she could see through the heat haze, but just barely, wrapped in a jet black cloak. The face, though, was not the source of Death... Maere's formless eyes traveled down the shadow-wrapped fiend's body and up its arm. It was the gnarled hand, still gripping the now mangled and destroyed collar of a slight, almost ethereal, woman whose silver-blond hair still shone through the inferno.
The killer, wrapped in a shadow-forged shroud, had killed with their left hand. Was this her? Did she kill the woman?! No, no... That face, that face; had she just been killed? The face was too familiar, too similar, to her own. The dreaming girl's mind raced in a panic, probing her mind for an answer to this far too realistic vision of death. The voice, monotone as her own, spoke again: “And the dream ends...” The hand tightened around the faint, stringy remains of the corpse's neck, then was blown away without warning, the fire finally retaliating. The animate flames, guised in the form of carapace-like armor, pursued the killer, vanishing along with it. The dream, as foretold, was ending, but Maere felt her gaze forced to linger upon the slain woman who looked far too much like herself. The mouth, only slightly above the gnarled visage of death, moved, speaking softly to the deteriorating world around it: “But life marches on...”
The girl woke with a start, feeling as if she'd been throttled awake by some invisible force. She looked around erratically, eyes finally settling on the fledgling Bird who was staring at her with his soulful black eyes. “... Grasp the dream's wound...” The words slipped from her mouth involuntarily. “And the dream ends...” Her chest tightened fearfully, but she reached out, groping at her dream for its last words---she would not allow her mindset to be so addled. Once again, she reached out, truthfully now, to Bird, giving the puzzled crow a little pat on the head. “A-Ah... Hah... It's okay, I'm fine...” Was she fine, truly? The answer eluded her, just as it had the last time she saw the same dream.