Wildfire Riders

The thing sits at the foot of the bed, waiting for you to fall asleep. Its limited intelligence tells it that you wouldn't invite it near, and so it idles, ever patient, knowing the opportunity to bond with you will come soon enough. Until such a time, it watches, studying the outline of your form against the blankets, listening to the way you breathe.

It takes a while for sleep to come - you toss and turn as you try to get comfortable in this foreign bed. The creature remains still for the most part, its only movement to rear up on its arms to see if your eyes have opened. They haven't, but you aren't asleep yet, either, and so it stays put. Eventually your body goes slack and your mouth falls open. You breathe deeply, mind taken away from this world and spiraling into one of dreams and ether.

It waits a little longer, and then rumbles quietly as it lurches towards you.

It's about four feet long from tip to tail. It's a thick heavy shadow, weighted like any organic creature would be though this is no natural flesh; its skin moves like a viscous oil that's been forced to maintain a shape. The blob that makes its head is somewhat humanoid, but looking upon it, there are no discernible features, just blackness within the black. It does have an enormous mouth with thick rubbery lips, though, which is currently cooing at you as it lumbers up beside you. It moves by dragging itself around, the short tiny arms surprisingly strong given how frail they look. The body is wide at the shoulders, and then slowly narrows towards a tapering end. The slumps and slopes along its back make it appear vaguely snail-like.

It stares at you with eyes you can't see, another small, quiet gurgle as it prepares to adore you in the only way it knows how. The slits that constitute its nose twitch, inhaling your scent, and with a series of almost melodic trills it hoists itself over your body, scrambling up and pressing down upon your chest. It stares down at you, its spindly little arms to either side of your head, and those thick rubbery lips part as they cover your mouth and nose, creating an airtight seal so it may kiss you.

Your breath is now its breath. You're bonded now. Your life gives it life and sustains it.

*****

Your dreams change. The before - a jumbled mess of unmemorable images - is replaced by the sensation of plummeting into deep warm waters, your entire body submerged. Your eyes open. It's a beautiful cerulean color here, so clear you can peek down and see your feet as they wade against the current. You drift about, holding your breath, and the lazy thought that perhaps you ought to change your form crosses your mind. It's comfortable here, safe, inviting even. The desire to stay is strong.

You attempt the transformation, trying to summon the magic that makes muscle and bone shift, but for reasons unknown, nothing actually happens. You are as you were, clinging to your elf skin. The pressure in your chest builds as air begins to runs short. You turn your head up, trying to see topside, but there is no sun to guide you home, just infinite sparkling water as far as the eye can see. You begin to pump your legs, trying to force yourself to rise as the need for air grows more urgent. You're feeling a little light headed now, and again you try to force the transformation into that familiar, water dwelling creature, but it simply does not happen.

The lack of air becomes a cramping, and your chest feels heavy, almost like someone laid a rock upon it. Your eyes begin to bulge as your desperation for breath overcomes you. You rise higher and higher, but there is no relief in sight, just this never ending abyss that holds you hostage in its warm embrace. Soon you can't help it, your mouth opens as your body instinctively tries to gasp for air, and you feel the warmth of the water spilling in, flooding you, overcoming you.

You struggle and . . .

And . . . what? WAKE UP.

Force yourself awake. Your eyes shoot wide, and the thing above you coos again, its lips still sealed around your nose and mouth. The weight on your chest is real - it's the thing's body mass as it lays across you, granting you its kiss. Panicked, you shove it away, breaking the bond with an audible slurp. You suck air into your lungs, feeling the lightheadedness abate, your hand on your chest, eyes frantic as they search the darkness. The creature wails and keens, desperate to return to you, but something in the shadows pulls it away and swallows it whole. You can hear its plaintive shrieks, its agony over the forced separation.

And then, suddenly it stops, and you're alone with the darkness and your aching lungs.

It's early, she's still in bed, but then she's always still in bed when you wake. Something would be horribly awry if she wasn't. It's almost a comfort knowing that this new found laziness keeps her out of mischief until at least noon. You can plan your personal ventures around "the hours she's most likely to need you and/or cause you a migraine."

There are things to do today, a task the brotherhood has sent your way. Simply because you've been granted your freedoms doesn't mean they don't still have the occasional job for you, and when said job doesn't entail shit duty or saddling yourself with an afternoon of Whistler's blather, you take it. In this instance you're supposed to go to the Fleshwerks in search of a lieutenant who's gone missing. His box has been silent for three days, and they're looking for clues to his whereabouts.

You take the first flight out of Dalaran, feeling the temperatures drop as you leave Crystalsong and clear the mountain pass that puts you in Icecrown's grasp. There's no need to check in at the Shadow Vault; you already know all you need to know about the young man. The truth of the matter is everyone figures him dead, but no one is forgotten in the Brotherhood of Ebon Knights, no one is left behind

Your feet touch down on the muddy ground, sabatons clanging as you trudge along the curving path. You pull your sword from its sheath, lips twitching at the metallic hiss as it comes free. It's a comforting presence in your hand, an extension of your own arm.

You hear gurgling from beyond the ledge to your right, the telltale song of ghouls, and you brace yourself for an onslaught, ready to eradicate any scourge standing between you and the cave entrance where the lieutenant last reported his position. You hoist the sword up and . . . notice something odd. The weight seems off. Most people probably wouldn't even register it, it's that slight of a change, but you have such a symbiotic tie to to the thing that you can't NOT notice it. You peer at it, turning it over in your gauntlet. The pommel is the same, there are no chips or breaks along the guard, the blade itself is flawless and glimmering like a jewel in the early morning sun. Everything appears exactly as it ought to appear. Why then does it feel so strange?

You're not given too long to ponder it, as the ghoul pulls itself over the ledge and stampedes towards you with two of its brethren in tow. The thing's hands, once human, are bony and clawed, pieces of greenish meat and sinew barely holding it together. You arc the sword towards it, feeling its middle give way, splitting open and pouring a black sludge onto the ground as it crumbles into a chittering heap by your feet.

Well done, my love.

Her voice, here and now, is less than ideal. You grit your teeth as you spin around, your plated elbow taking the second ghoul in the jaw and sending it stumbling back before you lunge for the third, piercing it through the chest. There's a keening as its ripened innards tear apart. Though it's skewered like a kabob, the ghoul still attempts to swat at you, forcing the sword deeper into it and through it, its desperation to feed on you such that it will effectively kill itself for a single taste of pink, living flesh.

Deeper. Push it deeper, yes. YES.

She's panting now, moaning lewdly, and if that isn't the worst sort of distraction, nothing is.

"Not NOW, Woman."

You wrench the sword free and throw your weight at the one regaining its bearings behind you, your broad shoulder meeting its chest and knocking it onto the ground. The sword arcs with a delicate whisk of air as you lob the thing's head clean from its shoulders, watching it roll down the incline almost like a child's ball. This body too falls, bleeding terrible things into the tainted earth.

Gods, feed it to me. More, love. MORE.

Incredulous, horrified, and not just a little bit furious, you stare down at the box on your hip, wondering what in hell has gotten into her.

Strangely, the lights are off, the box is off. You never turned it on in the first place.

Your arm goes limp as you try to work it through, trying to figure if this is just an enchantment gone awry - perhaps a little game of hers. She's enigmatic at times, certainly, but never cruel, and this borders on a meanness she reserves for the worst of her enemies. So why, then? What have you done?

Closer. I want its blood. Closer, darling. I need to feed.

"What the bloody fuck?"

The sword begins to quiver in your hands, and you feel it pulling? Yes, pulling you towards the mess you've made of the ghouls. The tip touches the pustulant fluids of your kills and begins to glow an unearthly green as it absorbs the scourge's essence, sucking it in with quivers and frenzied giggles. You can hear a noise almost like someone using a straw in a near empty glass - a hideous, frantic slurping that's followed by near orgasmic groans.

Divine. So divine. My sweet, sweet Jak.

You drop the sword and stare as it, just watching the thing feed on the taint of the land around you.

Because really, there simply isn't anything else for you to do.

Mirrors and reflective glass are wondrous things, aren't they? Smooth to the touch, cool when it's hot, and INCREDIBLY useful. Nothing's worse than being unable to see oneself before leaving the house for an important business luncheon. What if your hair's a mess? Or there's . . . bits of food in your stubble? Or a blob of maple syrup from Gladys's remarkable french toast breakfast dripping from your lower lip?

Mirrors, yes. An important part of your life. Also a remarkable accessory when trying to prove what a ponce you are to everyone around you.

And so this morning is like every other morning. You gently wake the beautiful, blanket stealing beast sleeping on top of you, nudge her until she's coherent enough to express hunger, ring for food, and shortly thereafter enjoy breakfast in bed. Sated, you slip downstairs to the courtyard to exercise. After an hour long routine, you bathe the sweat from your body, shave, muss your hair so it looks stylish but not TOO stylized, and go about choosing your suit for the office.

You're adjusting your cufflinks when you spot the dark blob in the mirror behind you. It's strange, not a reflection per say but more of an inky darkness hovering in the middle of the glass. It looks like liquid, rippling like a puddle being rained on and clearly not right. You approach the thing, staring, unsure of what to DO with it.

And so you blink, and blink again, and turn on your heel and walk out of the room.

And past the hall mirror, which has a similar black blob in it.

You keep your eyes averted.

You walk by at least three more mirrors, and where you'd usually stop and check yourself before going out the front door, you pass them all like they simply don't exist, lending the rest of the household a pause. The servants peer at your back like you've lost your mind: Master Whitten not checking his reflection on his way out the door? Unthinkable!

You don't say why, you don't mention the blob of black seen in your bedroom and in the hall, you simply make your way to the carriage and shove it out of your mind as best you can. The roll of the wheels over the cobblestone streets distracts you enough that you can start thinking about the day ahead of you, the business luncheon at Galahad's, the meeting with a client in the afternoon.

The front of your building has big windows, shiny ones, and as you pull your front door key from your pocket, you see . . . the black blob again, taking the place of your own reflection. You try not to look, but you can't help it, and you watch in horror as the thing forms a more defined shape. The shape becomes a face, the face gains color.

It's an old woman staring back at you as intently as you're staring at her. She has plum colored bags beneath her white, filmy eyes. There are browned liver spots all over her forehead. Her hair is a stringy gray that's matted to her head with grease, splotches of scalp showing through in spots. The edges of her pale lips are cracked and bloodied. She lifts her hands up to the glass, pressing against it from 'her side', her fingernails ragged and yellow. You jerk your face away and thrust the door open, tense, expecting her to be waiting inside, but the strange thing is, there's no one there.

When you look at the window, she's looking back at you. From the other side.

Again you try to deny it, to tell yourself that this is a trick, an illusion, but when you glance at the metal front of your filing cabinets, she's there again, staring back at you. Every reflection in the office has her countenance.

Your desktop. In the shine of your tie tack. Your letter opener.

You close your eyes and count to ten, willing it to go away, wanting only to see your own familiar features wherever you look.

But it's never that easy, now is it.

Forks are sharp and hurty.

The alternative of course is dull and not-hurty forks, which would be horribly inefficient. For starters, they wouldn't stab much food and then we'd be forced to eat things like meat with spoons, or worse, our fingers. It'd set the whole race of humankind back thousands of years, to have to eat without our implements. So forks being sharp is good, yes?

Even if they're hurty?

The late night crowd is in the Pig - men, women, and cats are gathered around the table, sipping food and ordering the evening special. You're not quite sure what Reese has put in the evening special, mind you - it looks like some pork, a little chicken, maybe some turkey and beef bits with mixed vegetables. Whatever the case, people like it and keep ordering it, and it doesn't smell terrible, so it's likely not toxic. You sling another few plates out, avoiding a dwarf whose fingers seem to be straying disturbingly close to your bottom, and work your way back towards the kitchen. The staff is working overtime to keep up with the influx of customers tonight, and you keep one ear on the barkeep and one ear on the cook to make sure everyone's served in a timely fashion.

And then something stabs you in the ankle of your right leg.

It hurts quite a bit, and you yelp, hopping on the other foot and muttering a string of curses. The cook looks up and frowns, slinging a plate across the counter at you. You grab it and limp towards the customer, a surly old man in the back who gives you the evil eye. A few mugs are ready for delivery at the bar, and you pass those out as well before going back behind the stairs to look at your . . .

OW.

It's in the back of your calf now, a splintering pain. You look down, at what could have possibly gotten you, and just see a fork laying on the ground. Frowning, you peer at the bar patrons - looking for a prankster in the midst - but no one seems to be giving you the least bit of attention. There aren't any slingshots pointed at you, or bows with tiny arrows.

You give Reese your excuses and gimp your way towards the back room, pulling your pant leg up to look at your injuries. There are three tiny punctures in a row on both your ankle and the back of the leg. You're not bleeding too badly, but it still smarts, and you rub them with a frown, trying to figure out exactly how . . .

DAMN IT.

Another stabbing sensation, and you jerk your head towards your arm and see . . . a fork falling to the wayside. There's a clang as it clatters across the floorboards. Your free hand grips your now injured bicep, and you swing your head, trying to see exactly who's doing this, what's going on here. There's no one nearby, no one even remotely close to you. Aggravation makes way for confusion which makes way for trepidation. .

There's a flash from the corner of your eye.

You swing your head back, screeching, narrowly avoiding the fork trying to wedge itself into your face. It plings as its prongs dig into the wooden wall beside you. Dread rises as you watch the fork actually wiggle itself from the wall and turn around, hovering for just a moment before it careens at you again, this time going lower - for your throat or chest, you can't quite tell. You throw yourself down onto the floor, landing with a grunt as the air is forced out of your middle. The fork also falls with a clang. You watch it skitter and hiccup across the floor of its own volition, shimmying and shaking as it flops about.

I need something to trap it. To keep it . . .

You spy the empty pickle jar on the lower shelf of the table beside you. As the fork arches up again, vibrating and preparing to sail, you grab the jar and unscrew its top. It flies at you, so fast it's hard to keep track of the gleaming silver streak. As it's just about to impale you, mere inches from your nose, you swing the jar at it in a wide arc. The fork is swallowed by the glass, plinking off of the bottom. You're panting as you screw the jar's lid back on, watching the fork jump around inside like a jumping bean.

You settle it down on the shelf beside you, your heart hammering, eyes fixed on the inanimate object that has suddenly become far, far too animate. You don't want to think too hard about what could have caused this, but at least now it's over.

With a groan and a shake of your head, you make your way back to the kitchen, stopping short in the doorway at the realization that there's . . .

. . . a lot more cutlery where this came from.

It's a big bed, a nice bed, a double at the very least. There's a mountain of fluffy pillows, and a feather stuffed mattress cover beneath your sheets. The blankets are soft and thick. There's even a throw pillow or two, though they usually end up on the floor at some point during the night. Such luxury looks a little out of place in the simple dormitories of Stormwind University, but you wouldn't have it any other way. Not in this, at least.

You return home a little later than usual, and can feel the tired behind your eyes. It's been a long day, you'd like to sleep. He's in bed already, rolled away from you, but you can see the gentle movement of his shoulder as he inhales and exhales. His back is bare, a blanket bunched around his waist. You pull your top off and throw it aside, your boots thudding to the floor by the door. With a stretch and a soft sigh, you start to crawl up the foot of the bed to lie beside him.

Your head hits the pillow with a woosh, and you peer over at his sleeping face. There's a soft smile on his mouth, the lips tilted up like he dozed off thinking of something sweet. You reach your hand out, stroking his cheek with the side of your pinky finger.

His skin feels . . . cold.

Strangely, it isn't cold in here. It's rather warm if anything. You gently tug on the blanket at his hips, trying to move it up to cover his chest so he doesn't get any chillier, but the stubborn thing doesn't want to move. After a futile few minutes of struggle, you give up, pulling your side of the blankets up and scooching towards him, intent to give him your body heat instead. You roll over to shut the lantern off, but before you do your eye is caught by a splotch of black that's suddenly appeared on his cheek.

You stare at it. At first you think it might be food crumbs, or a spider, but it almost looks more like a mole. You've seen this face in all of its guises, and never before have you noticed a blackened birthmark. A quick glance at the ceiling tells you nothing is seeping in, nothing is dripping down, and so you wet your finger and reach forward, thinking to wipe this mystery substance away and go to sleep.

Then the skin around the spot turns . . . greenish, and the green begins to spread.

Your eyes widen to enormous orbs in your face. You push at his shoulder, whispering his name, willing him to wake from this living nightmare. He doesn't stir, and if possible, he's even colder than he was before. Your gaze never leaves his face, even when the green hued flesh ripples and goes yellow, and beneath his eyes, gray. And then his eyelids begin to . . .

They're peeling. His eyelids are peeling off his face.

The lips shrivel like overripe plums, going dark purple and black, splitting open like overripe fruit and spilling a potent smelling sludge down his chin. Soon they fall off all together, and the gums recede, making a horrible, rictus grin appear in his decomposing jaw.

You scramble away, screaming, and watch as the rest of his body goes from beautiful and lifelike to quivering and pustulunt. In places the skin bunches up, forming these strange curd-looking flesh tags that crack open and ooze. The stench is terrible now, and you cover your mouth and nose with the back of your arm, shaking your head in disbelief.

Your eyes water, your heart pounds, and abject terror spills through yoru guts as the man you love fall to pieces right before your eyes.

"The gnomish device of the buzzbox has changed society as we know it! This amazing technology keeps family and friends close with the push of a few buttons. Create frequencies where multiple people can chat, or - if you prefer quieter, more private conversation - open up a personal line. Fitscrankin Communicado's twenty four hour customer service will assign you your own frequency number, and no two are the same! Simply press 4-1-1 and talk to your operator today!

Fitzcrankin Communicado is a member of the Azeroth Communications Commission. All restrictions apply.

- Written on the box of the Fitzcrankin Model 4B miniature buzzbox.

Your buzzbox is on the end table, the switch set to "listen only" This allows you to hear others talking without having your own words broadcast. It's too early for you to be chatting at anyone, anyway - you're yawning and fumbling about, your eyes filled with sleep and sand.

A rude ray of sunshine strikes your face and you cringe, shaking your head until you can see. That's when you hear the hiss of the buzzbox behind you. You glance at it over your shoulder, expecting to hear someone speak, but nothing follows the fuzzy blitz. The noise leaves as quickly as it came.

With a sigh and another series of jaw-unhinging yawns, you pad towards the washroom to run yourself a bath. You test the temperature with a toe, smiling at the liquid heat awaiting you. In the other room, the box goes to static again, barking sound before going quiet. You ignore it, submerging yourself in the hot, steamy water, your eyes fluttering closed.

You're relaxing, or trying to, when another string of sound spills out, hissing and spitting and hissing again. It's unmelodious and harsh, and isn't at all pleasant to listen to. It is not conducive to relaxing in a bathtub, that much is for certain, and so you hurry the bath along, wanting to figure out what's gone awry with your buzzbox.

Clean, somewhat awake, and a small headache pounding behind your temples, you get yourself dressed. You examine the device all over, front and back, searching for signs of malfunction. Nothing looks wrong with it, but that doesn't mean it's not misfiring. Sadly, the mechanics of the thing are beyond you. You tuck it away and make your way to town, thinking you need a repair. There are four more blasts of white noise from the box before you even get to the shop, each louder than the last. You try to turn the volume down but it does no good - the thing screeches its staticky message regardless of the settings.

The shop's name is Mick's Machinery, and the gnome (presumably Mick himself) seems a good sort. He takes the box and unscrews the back, toying with the delicate parts inside - arclight spanners, screwdrivers, and other odd thingamajigs flying. He talks to himself the entire time, stopping to scratch his green head in confusion as he takes parts out and replaces them. After a short while he admits he can't find the problem, but he does offer to upgrade your device to the newest model for the lowly cost of three gold pieces. It sounds like a good deal - at least, you'd get a better version that won't misfire - and you walk out armed with the old box and the new in hand.

You're at the corner of the dwarven district and Old Town when there's another shriek of white noise, and this time you can hear whispers behind it - some kind of odd tongue you've never heard before. It's not just one voice, either - it's many, and they all seem to be saying the exact same thing in a steady monotone. Whatever they're chanting, it makes you uncomfortable, and you shrink away, your mouth pinching tight in distaste.

You intend to head back to the shop, disheartened that the gnome replaced one bad bit of technology with another, when a woman you've never seen before walks by. As soon as she nears you, the buzzbox attached to her belt makes the exact same sound yours made, and the cacophony begins again. The phantom chanters are louder now; their words actually make your ears hurt. Screams begin to filter in, too, adding another layer to this terrible symphony.

You grit your teeth. An old dwarven man walks by, and his buzzbox kicks up with more whitenoise. The unwelcome voices are in stereo - broadcasting from both of your buzzboxes, the woman's, the dwarf's - making the chant seem louder and nearer and so much more awful.

You drop the devices and cover your ears, wanting to block it all out, but no matter how hard you try you can't seem to escape the sound.

Perception is a funny thing - things like "big" and "little" are subjective assessments. For example, a human woman at five feet tall would be considered big to a gnome, but little to a seven and a half foot tall elf.

The same of course can be said for other things pertaining to size. In this case I'm referencing rooms.

The average sized bedroom is approximately twelve by fourteen. To some, this is sizable, and to others, not so much. It's enough to house a twin sized bed, a dresser, an end table and a desk, that much is for sure, but you can't fit too much in there beyond that. Some consider it adequate - they only need what they need and anything else is just excess fat. Those looking for more luxurious surroundings would disagree and deem it rather insufficient.

Let's add another element to it, then. In order to give the illusion of size, you can rearrange furniture to open up bigger tracks of free space. People do it all the time, shuffling their personal effects around to try and convince others that they have more room than they really do. Another way of "tricking the eye" is to toy with shadows and light, trying to draw attention away from the darker recesses so you simply see more. Again this will make the mind think "large" when in effect it may not be.

None of this blather would matter much to you, except you have a distinct problem in that your perceptions of size seem different than usual. Things that fell comfortably into the adequate category are now definitely inadequate. More so than that. They're stifling. Everything seems to be closing in on you. It's . . .

You're lying in bed, willing your body to rest, but sleep is being difficult. You toss and turn, unable to get comfortable thanks to a poorly placed mattress lump, or an odd angle of your pillow, or a sneeze, or . . . any number of things, really, that boil down to your mind is too active to succumb to rest. After a while you sit up and reach for your lantern, turning the switch. The room looks the same for the most part, though it seems smaller than how you remember it. You chalk it up to weirdness, or the fatigue you know is there but simply won't manifest, and open a book, attempting to bore yourself into sleep.

Ten minutes later you look up and . . . the room looks smaller again? No, surely not. That makes absolutely no sense. You pinch your eyes closed and count to ten, hoping to clear the fog away. When you open them, it's worse yet. How is it your room looks to be half the size it was before? You take a deep breath and notice that the air is tight around you, too, like there's less of it to breathe. That can't be right at all. You look at the little table beside your bed. It's just as close as it ever was, it hasn't been pushed away from the wall or positioned differently. Nothing around you seems out of place, really. The dresser is flush against the opposite wall still, though it does look significantly closer than it was. It's supposed to be ten feet away and seems more like it's five?

I must be really tired. Really really tired.

You slam the book closed and force the lantern off, burying your head in the pillows. You breathe deeply, evenly, willing sleep to come and get you out of this bizarre situation, except the air feels like it's running short again. Long hauls of oxygen feel more and more like little futile puffs, like you've just run a marathon and have to gasp for air.

A window. I need to open a window. I must be going mad.

You roll back over, waving to the side to turn your lantern on again, except there is no lantern anymore. Your arm strikes wall. You shove yourself up into a sitting position, hands going to either side of the bed, feeling smooth wall on every side, surrounding you. The air goes thinner still, and you hear yourself wheezing as you try to breathe.

The room is shrinking. How is it that the room is shrinking?!

You push yourself onto your knees, fingers searching for a seam in the wall, a break so you can free yourself, and your head strikes the ceiling - or the top of this . . . thing. Box? You feel like you're in a box now, and your heart starts to pound in your chest. You huddle in, trying to make yourself as small as possible as the bed starts to shake. There's the sound of crackling as the wood of the bed frame snaps and breaks. Your mattress thuds to the ground with a jolt.

The walls are moving in

Compress. Compress more. Less air. Smaller.

You have to pull your legs up to your chest to fit in your box. Your fists punch against the encroaching walls, trying to force their way through, but it's no use. You gasp and pant and your mouth falls open as you start to scream, feeling the wall at your back pushing you into the wall pressed against your feet . . .

And then it stops. All of it stops. The air returns and the bed is as normal as it ever was, save for you lying in a tiny little ball in the center, gasping for breath. Your swinging, punching arm makes contact with the lantern that ought to have been there all along.

It crashes to the floor, glass shattering.

The one thing all of us have is the knowledge that we are unlike any other person in this world. No two people are exactly the same. Some may look alike, sound alike, smell alike, but there will be differences if not in tastes or mannerisms then in things like thumbprints, thoughts and dreams.

There are few guarantees in the world, but our individuality is one such guarantee. We are each our own person. And so it is unmistakably disconcerting when we find that this guarantee has been tossed out the window and fed to a pack of wolves.

It is a day like any other day. The sun is missing thanks to an enormous, tenacious storm cloud that moved in from the north during the night. The steady stream of drizzling rain ought to have cooled the temperatures, but no, it's a humid wet, the kind that makes clothes stick to skin and hair go limp. You have some business in the city before you go north, and you walk alongside your horse, eyes straight ahead.

Some stare at you as you pass, perhaps because of your station, perhaps because of the too rigid set to your shoulders or the unnatural stiffness of your gait. Whatever the reason, it does not bother you enough to warrant addressing. People will stare at things they do not understand, and you've recognized from the reactions of repeat associates that you are not so easily understood at times.

You turn into the shop you need, leaving your horse in the capable hands of the stable boy who ushers the behemoth around back. While the live mounts chitter and swish their tails or rake claws and hooves against the floor boards, yours stands perfectly still in his stall, eyes straight ahead, head arched proud. The creature shares many of its master's traits, something that pleases you for reasons you can't explain.

As you walk inside the door, a bell rings to herald your arrival. You glance up at it for just a moment, and that's long enough for your brother to sidle in next to you. There's a metallic hiss as his plate rubs against yours. You turn your head, perplexed by the willingness of this stranger to impede into your personal space - space is something you've seen humans get odd about - and notice that the individual beside you...

... has your face, your face exactly. He has your plate too, and he's looking at you the same way you look at him. Everything about him is a duplicate - even the tilt of his head and the set of his mouth is yours.

You are not sure how this is possible, and you are not given much time to process it, as the shopkeeper beckons you over and takes your list, assembling your items into a bag. Your new found twin stands behind you, in your shadow, his glowing blue eyes boring into the back of your skull. You pay for your groceries, wondering if the old man behind the counter can see the same uncanny resemblance as you, but he never acknowledges the copycat. He just takes your money, hands you your goods, and moves on to the next customer.

You tromp outside, hoisting the bag on your hip so you can turn around to face the too-similar ebon knight at your heels. Except he's gone now, vanished as quickly as he appeared.

It's an odd event to be sure, and your brain tries to wrap itself around the 'why' of the thing. Nothing obvious comes immediately to mind, and you make a note to ask others when you're in their company. Perhaps there is a sensible explanation for such a bizarre phenomenon. You retrieve your horse, packing your purchases into the saddlebags so you can make your way out of the city. By noon you're landing in the cold of the mountain passes of Icecrown, preparing for a day of duty to your order. You swing into the saddle, ready to take to the road, and...

... see yourself staring back at you from the Shadow Vault's mammoth archway. You approach the doppelganger with caution, but he never moves, just peers at you as intently as you peer at him. Your brow furrows and you think to ask him the purpose of this chicanery, but then he disappears again, abandoning you to your discomfort and confusion.

More questions swirl in your mind.

When dusk falls you've seen the phantom knight at least a half a dozen more times. There is no rhyme or reason for the appearances, he just shows up and falls into step beside you, behind you, or peers at you from a short ways away. The visits get longer, too. The first sightings were brief, less than a minute, but as the day progresses it's more like five minutes, and then almost ten.

By the time your feet hit the cobblestone streets of Stormwind that night, he's walking with you for stretches of a half an hour, and he shows no sign of going away.

First the toothbrush goes missing. You'd left it by the sink the previous night, as that's where toothbrushes really ought to be, and now it's gone. You check the floor by the sink, the trash in case it fell off the vanity, and even peek down the drain to see if it slipped in by accident, but there's no sign.

By all indications, the toothbrush has ceased to be.

The next thing is the hairbrush, which has apparently decided to join the toothbrush on its vacation. The concept of your grooming implements running away together is a fanciful one, and might have warranted a smile if you didn't have to go down to the apothecarium and replace the damned things at an ungodly hour of the morning. You try not to afflict the woman behind the counter with your morning breath as you hand her your silver, trudging out of the shop and back towards your room with your little brown bag of “get clean.”

You're walking past your bed on your way to the washroom when you notice . . . your pillow is now gone, too. It was definitely there earlier. For that matter, your head was in it not an hour ago, which means the thief has struck recently. Someone is stealing your stuff, either for profit (though what profit there is in a toothbrush, hairbrush, and a pillow you don't know) or to be a pain in the ass. Whatever the case, the perpetrator is likely still in the vicinity.

It warrants immediate investigation.

You put the apothecary's bag on the table by the door and drop onto your hands and knees to peer under your bed, trying to see if someone is hiding there, laying in wait for you to turn your back so they can steal more random crap. Nothing. You stomp into the bathroom, pulling the shower curtain aside to check the tub, and this too is vacant.

You're making your way back into the bedroom when you hear the chomping noises.

Chomp. Snarf. Snarf. Snort. Chomp. Riiiiip.

You stare at your closet, where the sound seems to be coming from. You fumble around, retrieving your weapon as a torrent of . . . pillow feathers shoots through the small crack between closet door and closet proper. There's a belch and another few puffs of feathers.

“Come out of there right now,” you say, hefting your blade in wait. Your legs brace apart as you prepare to take the infiltrator to task for their unwelcome – and utterly bizarre – pillow eating invasion.

The closet dweller says nothing.

“Come out. Now.”

There's no answer save for a small green arm reaching out to grab a fist full of feathers and pull them back inside. More snarfing noises ensue as the person-creature-thing eats them, belching and giggling in turn. You're confused and somewhat horrified, which is not made better by the little green arm snaking out again to pat at the floor, clearly looking for something else to pull in so it can feast.

With a frown and a muttered curse, you move towards the closet, pulling the door wide. On the floor, crouching with no clothes on, is a leper gnome. He has feathers all over him, and the chewed remains of a toothbrush handle by his left foot. He peers up at you and smiles, revealing two rows of very sharp, shark-like teeth, which answers the question of “what happened to your stuff” in a really twisted way. He stands up and laughs, pointing at you, lewdly circling his hips in a way that will make his dangle . . .

“OH GOOD GODS.”

You swing at the thing, sword coming down with a crash, and the leper gnome flees, moving far too fast for comfort. It shoots between your legs and runs up onto your bed, pausing to do another horrible little gyrating dance before it lunges, those shiny flashy teeth gnashing all the while. You manage to block the gnomish aerial assault with the flat of your blade, but it doesn't seem to stop the beastie. He turns his head and . . . bites down on your sword, completely oblivious to the sharp edges cutting into the meat of his cheeks. He giggles maniacally as you swing the blade about, trying to dislodge him, but he clings to the steel like a monkey, arms and legs wrapping around it. He's hurting himself in the struggle, that much is certain – no one can body hug a sword and not be hurt - but the strange thing is it's not slowing him down in the slightest.

If anything, he seems to be laughing even louder.

You start to bash the weapon on the floor, trying to shake the little green bastard so you can cut him into two perfectly matched halves. He lets go and scampers away, tilting his head back to unhinge his jaw, revealing all of those too-white fangs in their gleaming glory.

“GOT YOU, GOT YOU!” He screams. With another laugh and an obnoxious victory dance that includes patting his own ass and air humping, he disappears like he was never there at all, the only evidence of his shenanigans a pile of half eaten feathers.

There’s a tentacle monster in your cooking pot. Of course, you don’t know this; you’re milling through the kitchen, opening the cabinet and sniffing spices to see if they’ll add the element of POW to your soup. POW is elusive – it’s a burst of flavor that surprises and tantalizes the taste buds, adding a layer of interest and sophistica . . .

Okay, you’re trying to cover the smell of the beans. They might taste good, but they have a weird odor, something between old leather and cabbage. It’s fairly stinky, so if you can’t find something to neutralize it no one’s going to eat your culinary breakthrough and that’d be a waste of an hour and a half of prep time. You minced the mushrooms really, really small.

You close the first cabinet and open the second.

Cumin, no. Oregano, no. Why is this so difficult?

Meanwhile, the Thing in the pot grows restless. A long tentacle pushes the top to the side, rattling it in the process. You dismiss the sound as steam building inside of the pot. “I’ll just turn the heat down,” you think as you open yet a third cabinet. Another five or six spices are opened, sniffed, and promptly dismissed as unsatisfactory.

Dang it. You may just have to start from scratch and forsake the beans the second time around.

The tentacles are as thick around as your wrist and have suckers like an octopus. The first of them is all the way out, the second follows, and then a third. Soon all six glorious five foot long tentacles emerge. They stick to the wall and begin to climb, strong enough to pull the creature’s body weight up, hoisting it so it’s now hanging from the ceiling above you. The lone eyeball in the blob of its head watches you rifling through the kitchen as you try to complete your meal.

Funny enough, it is also planning a meal of a slightly different variety.

Your face.

You spin back around towards your pot, hands going to your hips, a frown spreading across your mouth. It’s clear that you’ve made a horrible judgment putting the stinks-alot beans into the mix, and now you’re going to have to wipe the slate clean and start over. You grab the potholders from the peg on the wall and slide them onto your hands, slowly approaching your simmering, odoriferous masterpiece. You’re just about to pick up the pot and dump its contents down the sink drain when the tentacle monster makes his move. He drops the four feet separating him and you, landing onto your head. The thickest tentacles wrap under your chin, making it look like a perverse hat, but then it oozes down over your face and begins to hug. Hard.

You lift your hands, potholders attempting to grab the thing and get it away from your nose and mouth. Your eyes go huge as you wrestle with this horrible beast from the unknown, its suckers pulling at your skin and giving you a zillion hickeys of various sizes. You’re spinning in circles, running into furniture, knocking pots and pans and food askew in your endeavor to free yourself from the thing’s tentacled grasp. It doesn’t seem to want to let go. In fact, it grips your head harder, its little beak mouth chittering and hissing.

You toss your potholders aside and fumble around for something, anything, to use as a weapon. Your hands close around the handle of an enormous wooden spoon, and you use it to slap at the creature’s head. It doesn’t do much other than irritate it, and one of the tentacle tips starts to worm its way into your ear in response. Repulsed, horrified, and somewhat panicked as your air is slowly being shut off, you grab a cooking fork – one of the two pronged ones used to turn roasts over. With little ado you stab the sharp end into the head of the attacking monster. It keens, spasming as you manage to injure it. You stab it again, and again, its tentacles loosening abruptly. The creature is baying now. It starts to detach, frantic to escape your wildly flailing fork arm. You keep striking at it, even when it’s off your face and lumbering over the floor. It’s fast for a creature with no legs – those tentacles can really go, apparently, and it weaves back and forth almost like a snake undulating its body to move.

With a screeching hiss, it flings itself to the wall and starts scampering up, soon too high to reach with your fork.

A minute later it disappears into the rafters above.