Allan suddenly heard what sounded like rain, and his eyes were still closed when the first drop struck his cheek; it was cold.
He flinched.
Another landed against his forehead, followed by another against the bridge of his nose. Soon dozens struck his skin with a soft, almost gentle touch, and for a few seconds, Allan didn't move.
He simply lay there with his eyes closed. His body felt strangely weightless. There was no hard ground beneath him, but something cool shifted underneath his back.
It felt like Water.
Allan slowly opened his eyes. A pale blue sky stretched above him, but there were no clouds and no sun, either.
Just an endless expanse of blue.
He blinked.
"Where..." His voice came out weak, and he tried to move his arms. They slid through shallow water. Allan's breathing stopped then; confused, he lifted himself onto his elbows, causing ripples to spread outward from his body.
He seemed to be lying in the middle of a body of water.
The water was perfectly still beyond the small waves his movements created. It stretched farther than he could see, reflecting the strange sky above him like a second world. Allan stared at it, confused and disoriented.
Then another drop suddenly struck his cheek. As he wiped it away, he noticed that his fingers had turned red.
Allan froze.
For several seconds, his mind refused to understand what he was seeing. He slowly looked up, and another drop struck his palm.
Red. Thick. Warm.
It looked like…blood. His stomach turned as he realized that what was raining was not water.
"What...?"
Another drop hit his face. Then another. Then hundreds; it was as if the sky began to bleed. A crimson rain descended from above. Allan scrambled backward through the water, staring upward in horror.
"No." He said as his voice trembled.
"No, no, no...what is this?" He continued.
The rain intensified, and more blood splattered against the surface of the lake, staining the water around him in expanding crimson circles.
Allan covered his head.
"Stop." The words barely escaped his throat.
"Stop..." But the rain didn't stop.
It only grew heavier. Then Allan noticed something, the blood wasn't coming from clouds, as there were no clouds.
But there was something else up there, covering the sky.
At first, Allan couldn't make sense of what he was seeing. His eyes struggled to focus, but then the shapes became clearer.
Bodies.
Thousands of them, no… maybe millions.
They were everywhere, merged, twisted together, layered over one another until they formed something that wasn't a creature, but wasn't quite a mass of corpses either.
Human arms protruded from the endless shape, as well as animal limbs, wings, claws, skulls, fangs, long distorted faces, bodies with too many joints, bodies with none, and among them—Allan saw voranths too.
His heart stopped.
"No..."
The creatures were fused, humans melded with beasts, animals merged with things Allan couldn't identify.
Voranths' bodies intertwined with human torsos, their limbs stretching into other forms before disappearing into the impossible mass. Some faces appeared to be screaming, and others had their mouths open in silence.
Some looked directly at Allan; it was as if the entire sky was alive, and it was raining blood.
Allan couldn't breathe; his chest tightened.
"No."
He stumbled backward, causing the water to splash around his legs.
"No, no, no, no..."
His breathing became faster, but he couldn't get enough air, and his hands shook violently.
He looked around desperately, but there was nowhere to run, as the lake stretched endlessly in every direction. The sky stretched endlessly above him as well, and everywhere he looked, there were bodies.
Too many bodies.
His vision began to blur. "Get away from me!" he screamed, as his voice cracked.
He turned and ran, but the water slowed him immediately, and every step became a struggle. His legs felt weak and his lungs burned. He didn't know where he was going, but he didn't care; he just needed to get away.
Away from the sky, from the blood, from those eyes.
"GET AWAY!" His scream echoed across the lake, but nothing answered.
The panic consumed him, making his heart hammer against his ribs so violently that he thought it might tear through them. He couldn't breathe; his fingers went numb, and his chest felt as though something enormous had wrapped itself around his lungs.
He dropped to his knees.
"I can't..." His breaths came in short, broken gasps.
"I can't breathe..." His vision narrowed.
The edges of the world disappeared, and Allan pressed both hands against his chest; his entire body trembled.
He squeezed his eyes shut; he wanted to wake up.
"This is just a nightmare." He said to himself.
It had to be, and he had to wake up.
He waited, but nothing changed, and the blood continued falling.
Then—the rain suddenly stopped.
Allan's eyes opened to notice the lake had become silent.
Not peaceful, but silent. The kind of silence that felt unnatural. He slowly raised his head and noticed that the sky was no longer blue, as darkness had begun spreading across it.
It crawled across the sky like ink poured into water, swallowing the blue inch by inch, and forcing the bodies to disappear beneath it. The blood stopped falling as well, and the lake became clear again.
Allan remained on his knees, gasping for air, as the darkness continued spreading until it covered everything above him.
Allan stared upward, and his breathing slowly began to settle.
One breath, then another.
His hands stopped shaking, and the pressure in his chest eased. He didn't understand what had happened, but somehow...
He felt safer; not entirely, but safe nonetheless.
Then he noticed someone, or something, standing several meters away.
A dark, cloaked figure standing on top of the water.