FicWad

-Jeffery sat on his stone throne, his fist pressed against his cheek as it held his head up. He was clothed in black armor designed to resemble human musculature with spikes protruding from the forearms and shoulders. His dark brown hair grew wild and uncombed, and his hard eyes watched the show in front of him with cold intensity. His throne room matched his own appearance. The walls were black rock with screaming faces melted into them. The room was thick with darkness, as if light were afraid to trespass. There were several wet stains on the floor, evidence of former guests, but at the moment, the room had only one other occupant.

-The woman was in her thirties, long blonde hair. She was on her knees, face contorted in agony and fear as she screamed for divine intervention. Tears streaked down the sides of her face, smearing her makeup. Her clothes were shredded, and her body was covered with superficial cuts. She pleaded for Jeffery to let her go, to spare her, but her requests fell of deaf ears. With the slightest gesture form his free hand, Jeffery commanded chains to come up from the ground to ensnare the woman. She fought weakly against her binds, but she only succeeded in lacerating herself further. The chains pulled her down on her back, her limbs sprawled open.

-“I must admit, I am disappointed,” Jeffery said. His voice had a bored edge to it. “I gave you every opportunity to fight me, to stop me, yet here we are.” Jeffery stood up and walked over to the woman. A black cloak grew out of his shoulders and flowed in the air despite their being no wind. “You didn’t even make me break a sweat.”

-“I’m sorry,” the woman said. Her voice was high and panicked, broken with sobs. “I can do better next time. I swear!”

-“Oh I doubt that,” Jeffery said as he knelt down over her head. He looked down at her without a trace of sympathy. “You are weak and pathetic. You only fought out of desperation, not desire, not hatred.” He reached down and traced a finger down her cheek. He rubbed the makeup between his fingers with a look of disgust on his face. “You wasted the time I gave you with your vanity. Well if your so eager to get fucked, I can arrange that for you.”

-Jeffery smiled as he stood up. It was a wicked smile that promised pain and misery. He walked back to his throne without another word. As he turned to sit, he tore off his cloak and tossed it on the ground near the woman. She had to crane her neck upwards to see it float gently to the ground, inches away from her. Jeffery snapped his fingers, and the fabric began to move. It rose and fell as if there were something inside it trying to get out. The woman’s eyes grew wider with horror as the bulging mass pulsed more violently, and long, segmented legs emerged out of its sides. Two pointy fangs sprouted side by side, and nearly a dozen red eyes appeared above them. A giant black spider took shape the size of a car, pinchers twitching with anticipation.

-The woman let out a blood curdling scream at the sight of the monstrosity. The spider’s legs tapped the ground, getting a feel for themselves. The creature noticed the woman, laying on the ground before it, exposed and helpless, and it raised itself up and scurried over to her. The woman struggled to get loose, but her bindings held fast. Soon the spider was standing over her, its fangs dripping venom onto her face. But rather than bite her, the spider turned around while standing over her so it‘s body mirrored her own. The woman looked down to see some kind of large stinger protrude from its abdomen. Her mouth opened to offer objections when she realized what was going to happen, but no sound came out. The spider thrust its stinger in between the woman’s legs, and into her body. Now sound came out.

-The woman screamed and begged for help, but no help would come. The spider forced itself into the woman further, and a fresh coat of blood spilled out onto the floor. The spider’s body pulsed and rippled as the woman continued screaming in protest to its efforts. The spider finished what it was doing and withdrew from the woman. Thick blood dripped from its stinger as it backed away. The woman relaxed her body and cried softly, thinking it was over. Her crying was punctuated by a sharp scream of pain which caused her to shut her eyes and clench her teeth.

-When her eyes opened, they were filled with a mixture of fear and confusion; she didn’t know what was hurting her. She looked down at herself and shrieked as she watched her stomach bulge and swell up like a balloon. Her stomach was writhing as whatever she had inside her fought to escape. The woman snapped her head up, looking at Jeffery and screamed, “It’s not real. None of this is real!” she screamed louder when her stomach was ripped apart by dozens of fist-sized spiders. They swarmed out of her body, scattering to the darkest corners of the room. Some of them slipped in the blood and gore of their womb. The woman opened her mouth to say something else, but instead of words, one of the spiders crawled out. The woman’s fingers flexed into claws, her muscles became spasmodic, and then she went limp.

-“It’s real enough,” Jeffery said as he watched the woman’s body vanish without a trace. He let out a disappointed sigh, and his new pets removed themselves from his presence. “So much filth in this world. My Kingdome for a worthy opponent.”

-“You could always fight me,” an unseen woman said. Jeffery looked at a wall and a woman seemed to materialize out of the shadows beside Jeffery’s throne. She had short black hair with bangs that threatened to conceal her right eye. She was dressed all in black leather that seemed lighter than it should have been. A dark, flowing trench coat followed in her wake as she walked up to her husband.

-Jeffery’s stone cold expression melted into a warm smile at the sight of her. “No,” he said “I don’t think you could bring yourself to harm me, and I know I could never attack you with the intent to kill.” Jeffery stood from his throne and walked over to Raven. He put his arms around her, bringing her close to him and kissed her passionately on the lips. She moaned softly in his embrace, and when their lips separated, she rested her head on his shoulder.

-“I’ll just have to prepare the next one better so they can entertain you longer,” she said. Her voice was soft and dreamy. She opened her eyes and noticed Chaos staring at the two of them. One of Jeffery’s many demons, Chaos looked a like a mix between a dog and a gofer from hell. He was about three feet tall with very mangy and patchy fur. His head was a white skull with two horns curving backwards, and his fangs and mouth were disproportionately large for his body. He watched his masters with his large tongue hanging stupidly out of his mouth and his head tilted to one side, trying to figure out what was going on. His large red eyes watched them without blinking, but Raven paid him no mind. He wasn’t real after all.

-Jeffery released Raven and walked out on his terrace which overlooked his kingdom. He rested his hands on the railing and looked out on a world or darkness and nightmares. The ground was a black volcanic rock that moved like flesh. The sky was cloaked in living shadows that chased away the sun. Unspeakable monstrosities roamed free as far as the eye could see. It was the world Jeffery had created: the Dark Territory.

-But none of it was real. Jeffery had learned several years ago that all of it was just an illusion created by his own mind. He was in a coma, in a hospital somewhere in the real world. Every rock, every creature, every person in this world wasn’t real, with the exception of Raven. Ironically, the person who helped Jeffery acquire this knowledge was the very person who created this state of affairs in the first place: Jason. But Jeffery didn’t mind, not really. In this place, he was free to do anything he wanted. In his world, he was god.

-Jeffery felt two fingers trace up and down the back of his neck. The touch sent an electric tingle straight to his brain. Raven wrapped her other hand around Jeffery’s stomach and pressed herself up against his back. “I’ll help you pass there time until the next one arrives,” she said. Her voice, a seductive whisper. Jeffery let out a content sigh as she continued to massage the back of his neck, swaying side to side in synch with Raven. All the tension left Jeffery’s body, and the world became a little less darker, responding to his mood. The Dark Territory was a part of him, a living being which catered to his every whim, conscious and unconscious.

-Jeffery knew that by ‘next one’ Raven meant the next real person who arrived in their world. Jason had been the first intruder into the Dark Territory, but he hadn’t been the last. In the years since Jason’s defeat and exile, there had been nearly a dozen others. None of them had been as challenging as he had been, but they had provided Jeffery and Raven with enjoyable distractions. Jeffery knew that his vengeance on the world was just an illusion, so torturing the imaginary people in it no longer gave him satisfaction. The intruders, however, were real. Jeffery tormented them until their minds could withstand no more. He wasn’t sure what happened to them when they disappeared. His best guess was that they either died or retreated back into their own minds. Either way, he enjoyed their suffering to no end.

-Raven continued to massage the back of Jeffery’s neck. She knew it instantly relaxed him. After so many years together, she knew him inside and out, though she didn’t know anything about his life before she had met him. She only knew that he had been treated very badly by the world. The rage with which he had lashed out at it was proof of that. Despite his dark nature, Raven willingly worshiped him. Before Jeffery, Raven had spent an indeterminable amount of time in a black void of hellish nothingness. Removed of all sensation other than her own self awareness, she had been all alone until Jeffery had saved her. Not by any conscious effort on his part, but his mere presence and force of will had brought Raven into the world which he had unknowingly created. He had saved her, and for that she would do everything she could to make him happy. Sometimes that meant coming up with challenges to satisfy his rage and desire for destruction. Right now, it meant sharing his bed. That was something she enjoyed doing as much as he did.

*

-Melisa Jenson awoke screaming hysterically in her hospital bed. It took three orderlies to hold her down long enough for a sedative to be administered. Once she had calmed down, the doctors and nurses weren’t surprised when she said she didn’t remember anything before her accident. Nor were they surprised when she said she didn’t have any idea why she had been screaming less than an hour earlier. None of them had really expected her to.

-No one knew why the coma patients in room 401 kept waking up. Every patient other than the original two came out of their comas within a year or so. There were rumors of course. Some believed it was a holy miracle. Others of a more practical nature believed it was mere coincidence. No one suspected the connection between the new patients, and the two originals. One, a young girl named Whitney Witeman, the other, an older boy named Jeffery Dunnel. Neither of them had ever shown any signs of waking up. They both slept soundly, all but forgotten by the world. No one imagined that the two of them were responsible for waking up every other patient that was put into the room with them.

-Although no one knew the cause of this inexplicable phenomenon, they didn’t hesitate to exploit it. Anytime the hospital received a coma patient, they put him or her into room 401. The staff even had a pool going on how long it would take the new arrival to wake up. They also bet on how they would wake up. Not everyone had a hysterical fit as Melisa had. Some simply opened their eyes, some shook uncontrollably, others were catatonic for awhile. There was a lot of debate over why so many of the patients awoke violently, but the general consensus was that awakening from a coma was very traumatic in most cases.

-Because of this state of affairs, it was no surprise that the hospital staff placed five comatose patients into room 401. Though there were some that felt these patients didn’t deserve the chance. Apparently the patients were all members of a local biker gang: the Fallen Angels. They had been involved in a serious accident that had killed most of the other members of their group. Though it was highly unusual for so many people to be put into a comatose state in one accident, there was speculation that it had something to do with an unknown substance found in their blood works. They wheeled the patients into the room one at a time, four men and one woman. None of them had any identification on them, so the staff didn’t know their names. As an inside joke, the staff planned to ask when the bikers woke up in a few months.


*
-Back in the Dark Territory, Jeffery lay naked in bed with his arms folded behind his head and Raven asleep on his chest. His eyes shot open as he sensed a new arrival. It felt like someone gently touching the inside of his head, a slight pressure of a rival consciousness. He had felt it when Jason had arrived, though he hadn’t know then what it meant. Now he understood that it was his mind detecting the intrusion of another will vying for control of his world, but no one had ever been strong enough to usurp Jeffery’s control.

-Not only was Jeffery made aware of the newcomers, but he could judge how strong they were based on the “ripple” that was made by their arrival. Whoever this latest newcomer was, they were stronger than the last one had been, but not as strong as Jason, and certainly no match for Jeffery. He was about to close his eyes and go back to sleep when he felt another new arrival. This got Jeffery’s attention. There had never been two new arrivals at the same time before. Sometimes Jeffery had to wait a year between them, so his eyes widened when he sensed the arrival of a third consciousness, then a fourth, then a fifth.

-Jeffery laid their with his eyes opened and the hair on the back of his neck standing on end as he waited with his breath held for another arrival, but none came. He let out a shaky breath. Five…There were five new arrivals all at the same time, and at least one of them was nearly as strong as Jason had been. A shiver ran down Jeffery’s spine, but it wasn’t fear that gripped him. He was excited. He had never fought more than one enemy at a time before. He had entertained the idea of keeping one intruder alive long enough for another to arrive so they could join forces against him, but they always tried to jump the gun and overthrow him before their help arrived, and Jeffery was forced to destroy them. Now there were five new arrivals. Jeffery’s heart raced at the thought of fighting five enemies at once. It would be a battle worth remembering. He felt more excited than he had in years. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep with a smile on his face. Tomorrow was going to be an interesting day.