Necrobowl #2

Hellscape

I woke, gasping, clawing at the fur over my face, the nightmarish hellscape of Necrobowl still vivid in my mind.

Necrobowl - The Battle For The Skull Of The Necromancer.

It felt appropriate to capitalise every letter in my memory. Although I’d woken in my own bed, the nightmare still felt real. It was a hellscape, kind of like Twitter but with actual, literal, trolls.

I tried focussing on my surroundings to bring me back to normalcy. My vision was dark and cloudy, but I could hear magpies warbling at the kitchen window, trying their luck for food. Cockatoos screeched at each other, doubtlessly fucking or fighting in the large conifers along the border of the back vegetable garden. Bear - stirring next to me in bed - blew gentle, reassuring snores, making me realise I was holding my breath. I took a few slow, controlled breaths.

In. Out. In. Out.

The scent of eucalyptus wafted in through the open window, sheer curtains flapping ever so slightly with the morning breeze. Smoke from the neighbours wood stove carried a note of bacon and garlic. My stomach growled, the sound surprisingly loud in the still morning.

Slowly my sight cleared and reality coalesced into my bedroom. Bear’s tousled hair fluttered across his face, caught in the jet stream of his snore. A stray beam of sunlight stretched out across the bed, its outline wavering with the dancing of the sheer curtain that allowed its admittance. Chonker, the stray cat who had adopted us nine years before, had been caught by the sun beam and lay sleeping at the foot of the bed.

The hellscape of Necrobowl started to fragment inside my mind. The screams of the dying started to fade, the smell of decaying bodies becoming a distant memory. The overall sense of horror, however, lingered. I forced myself to keep breathing, to take in my surroundings, to be mindful.

“Morning, Orson.” I realised the snoring had stopped and turned to Bear. He was stretching his arms and rubbing his eyes, looking impossibly cute as he looked at me through squinty eyes. “Sleep well?”

“Not really,” I replied. “I had a horrible nightmare!” I gave him a brief rundown on Necrobowl: the kidnapping, the fantastical races of beings, the lightning and the pyres of corpses which provide the only light, the manifestation of my ex-wife GG, the omnipresent death and horror, and the crazy-ass game which was like a version of netball… to the death. And with no rules. “But you were there,” I finished recounting my nightmare. “A manifestation of you as an orc, adorable and reassuring as always.”

He smiled and sat up, taking my hand in his. He didn’t utter a word of comfort… he didn’t need to. I sank into his shoulder and closed my eyes.

“But enough about me,” I said. “How did you sleep?”

“Perfect,” he replied. “I’m looking forward to today.” He went on to tell me his plans for the farm that day: relocating the chooks to a new hen house, planting some stone fruit trees in our fledgling orchard, moving the pigs to root out and aerate a new pasture, and arranging some volunteers to clean up the raging river at the end of our property.

As my Bear spoke, an ugly thought tugged at the back of my mind. I ignored it. I wanted to hear more from Bear. I NEEDED to hear more.

“How’s lambing season going?” I asked, hoping to hold on to this a little longer. “Do you need any help hand-feeding them?”

My eyes were closed as I rested my head on Bear’s shoulder, but I could feel him smile. He prattled on happily about the lambs, and the kitchen garden, but the ugly thought grew more and more insistent. It tapped and knocked and rattled at the hardware of my mind, until I relented and let it in.

My Bear is dead. He has been for six months.

With this realisation, my beautiful dream faded and Necrobowl washed over me. The smells and screams assaulted my senses as the endless horror of my new reality obliterated the sweetness of my past.

I took a moment to gaze at Orc’s sleeping face. We were huddled together in a hollow under a pile of dead bodies. Its fangs glistened in the firelight, its fur was warm and comforting - despite the smell - and its snores felt oddly reassuring.

I turned my head into Orc’s shoulder, closed my eyes, and wept.