Homesick Nightmares

[Kuzuru]

The mask handed to Kuzuru was that of a jackal. Black with gold trimmings and perky ears that pointed straight up, it almost appeared Egyptian in origin. He turn it over in his hand, inspecting it. Around him the crowd grew more violent, masked marauders jostling for position and damn near shoving anything in their way. Once or twice the demon was shoved and it took more than an ounce of self-control to contain his wrath. The Sage urged him to wear the mask and after another solid shove he obliged. It felt uncomfortable around his head, claustrophobic even. The elastic band cut into his skin and barely stretched far enough around his head. His vision was limited to two small slits and he wondered if the Sage had intentionally made the mask so uncomfortable.

Kuzuru followed his intrepid companion through the crowd. The eel-faced erudite stopped every now and again to make sure the demon followed, not that he particularly cared for the red-skinned bastard, but it would be nice to have a second set of hands should things go south. The fevered crowd had grown complacent now that there were no longer any outsiders among their ranks. Women, men, and children carried about their daily activities as if they were truly in a regular city. The demon watched them go about their business, and as he watched things grew more and more bizarre. Masked children came out of ice cream shops, toting cones filled with viscera and blood. People entered phone booths only to pull a revolver off the telephone receiver and shoot themselves. Blood and gore ran rampant and everyone acted as if it was a normal everyday part of life. The demon enjoyed blood, he enjoyed violence, but this was all purposeless to him, death for the sake of death offered little to him and the novelty of an ultraviolent city grew duller by the minute as there was no passion in it.

“Do you think we should go inside?” Kuzuru asked, keeping his voice just above a whisper.

“I’m…” the Sage answered, pausing to think, “I’m not sure, our first priority should be finding the dream--”

A distant explosion interrupted him. Outside of city limits, atop a ridge the two caught glimpse of a rising fireball. It was an ephemeral firefly, igniting the astral sky for but a moment before collapsing in upon itself. Both of them stood silent, their minds piecing together what they had just witnessed.

“Well fuck,” the demon began, “what do you think the odds are that she’s survived?”

The Sage didn’t answer.

Once again the church-bell tolled and spurred the robed-masqueraders to action. They squeezed into any and every open door. Kuzuru watched with stifled laughter as he watched them cram themselves into the monolithic buildings. The Sage grabbed his companion’s shoulder and nodded towards a set of unoccupied doors.

“Come on,” he said.
Kuzuru pulled his shoulder away and said, “fuck that noise, how do we know that’s not a meat grinder? Besides I’m tired of hiding, if rainbow-bitch is dead we’re probably not far behind her so we might as well do a little damage on the way out.”

After a few more moments the skyscrapers had swallowed every faceless pedestrian. Near-silence consumed the streets, the only sound being a distant and almost inaudible music track. The blood rain had ceased and the astral city had once again turned into a proverbial ghost town. Kuzuru and the Sage walked the streets, neither of them removing their masks. A noise not unlike the swipe of a cleaver into meat followed by a shrill yip caught their attention. The demon broke into a jog towards the source of the sound, and as he grew closer he could hear the baying of wolves. Turning the corner he spotted a man covered in blood and surrounded by dog carcasses. The man was wearing a rooster mask and a blood-stained letterman jacket. Kuzuru smiled beneath his mask, finally someone interesting.

Extending a series of blades across his arm the demon pointed a finger at Jacket and shouted, “you look like my kind of person chickenman, lemme axe you a question, do you ever use that thing on more than just dogs?”