The murky day surrendered to the sharp shadows of night, all hope of serenity lost to the utter blackness of despair. A lifeless cloud of ominous oppression threatened the bleak world throughout the twilight of the day, delivering ill omens. In the foreboding, abysmal night, they had come. As the cloaked, hooded figures approached from the distance, terror and the silence of death in their wake, the warmth drained from my soul, leaving me pallid, chilled, and as dry as a corpse. I knew not what had been unleashed, only that it manifested before us, a vile parody of our figures, emerging from the swimming void of darkness.

Frozen in indescribable anguish as their phantom procession advanced, we seven mortals observed in abject horror. Enshrouded in our cloaks, their feet obscured by dank shadows, they approached as terror paralyzed me like taloned hands clutching at my throat. The leading entity wore Kiera’s blood-colored, velvet cloak. Feelings of black doom and woe invaded me, bludgeoning my soul into a hasty retreat, draining my life’s blood, and leaving only helplessness and desolation. The figure pointed at us, to me, its foul digit stabbing like an icy sword, as it pulled back the cloak’s hood. The stench of wretched rot filled my lungs, a fearful scream escaping me.

Although I felt the vibrations of my terrified scream escaping my lungs, my voice was inaudible. The shroud of deathly silence permeated all. The only sounds I heard were the callous, wheezing, sinister laughs emanating from the other six cloaked figures. Sounding more like the desperate last gasps of a dying, maimed man, their cackles lacked the resonance of the voices of living things, soulless and empty. Simultaneously mesmerized and repelled by the demonic vision before me, my mind, though splintering into shards of insanity, commanded me to close my eyes, to wash the horrendous sight of fright from my mind. I could not.

A brilliant flash of lightning, its color as pale as my skin, highlighted the horrific visage of the figure before me. It was my face, but more harshly beautiful than I, colder, more vile, sadistic. It was an evil, unsympathetic death mask, my inner darkness made dour flesh. Her hair billowed, waving in a ghostly, nonexistent breeze. Her lips were the color of dried blood, magnificent and harrowing. The mottled, grayish pallor of her skin was the sheen of death seen in monochrome; her eyes lacked the vibrancy of life, merely two burning embers of shrill, cold fire burning my soul with their gaze.

As the other six aberrations lowered their hoods, revealing monstrous, beautiful parodies of the others’ faces, the leader, my hell-born twin, opened its gaping maw inhumanly wide. Flecks of dried, dead skin fell from its rotting jowls as its lips cracked open. Black, vile puss oozed from the wounds. Still horribly beautiful in its power, its mouth held no teeth, no jagged fangs. In its cavernous mouth of despair was only eternal blackness, with malevolent creatures of nightmare swimming in the eternal blackness, so dark as to dim the light of the life-saving fire.

The other shadow creatures followed suit, pointing at my friends, their mouths revealing more twisted darkness, readying screams. Their communal wail didn’t bellow from their gaping voids of pestilence; instead, the wind howled in lamentation, great gusts of demonic misery assaulting my flesh. Feeling my pulse throbbing with fearful convulsions, I cried out once more, again silent, soundlessly screaming in uncontrollable terror.

Then, they vanished, leaving me questioning if I was dreaming or hallucinating. My sanity tumbled into a fiery, blackened pit of tortured despair. Simply blinking out of existence, accompanied by silent tridents of lightning, there was only wavering, dark nothingness, as if I had dreamed them.

“More wine?” Sylva asked me, her face a mixture of humor and concern.

The dark entities were gone as if they were a nightmarish mirage. The others were conversing softly, with feigned joviality, all of them warding off the coldness of the quiet, still night in their cloaks. Timidly glancing to where the figures had stood, horrified that they’d still be there, I saw nothing but the night’s cruel shadows, and heard nothing but my friends. The night was still dead, save for our bleak oasis of fire.

The somber fire did little to warm my quaking bones, perhaps the wine would. Quaffing as much of it as I could, I surveyed the area, unhallowed fear gripping me tightly. My cloak somehow lay beside me. My skin crawled at the thought of donning it, a devilish, undead nightmare doppelgänger having previously occupied it.

“I need fucked,” Kiera announced.

Standing, shirking off her red, velvet cloak, she proudly stood nude, her sensuous body a canvas for shadows. Lightning flashed as she cupped her breasts, her face glowing in the flash. Her countenance bore a sadistic, predatory expression, one of lusty hunger, one of malice. She spread her cloak on the musty earth before the eerie fire, laying down, fingering herself frantically, demanding that everyone fuck her.

The others, as if entranced, stood in unison, their movements wooden, lacking any impetus. As one, cloaks fell to the ground, all nude beneath. I hugged the wine bottle to my chest, afraid to join, afraid to watch, unable to move or avert my eyes. A beautiful pleasure such as sex should be arousing, not a disjointed nightmare borne of angst and terror.

Expressionless, cold, perverse in the stiffness of his movements, one of the men thrust his stone-hard cock into her mouth. He did not touch her. He did not moan; his hips only thrust mechanically into her throat and back, a sucking, clomping sound barely audible. Another of my entranced friends positioned himself between her parted thighs, plunging his cock into her velvety folds with sloshing sounds, slapping against her groin with vigor, but expressionless, still.

The others arrayed themselves around her, their faces frozen masks. Fingering herself, Sylva straddled them, a musky, viscous slime oozing down her thighs. Hands pumped on hard cocks, all pointed at Kiera. Sylva spewed vile discharge onto their nude bodies, one hand tugging her nipple so hard that blackened blood oozed from her clawing.

Transfixed, I watched in horror. Something nefarious, diabolical had consumed them. I felt no arousal, nothing but terror, helplessness, and despair. The night was deathly silent and cold, other sounds failing to permeate the circle of the fire. Kiera moaned softly and began chanting in a high, shrill, warbling voice, her speech coming in half-guttural grunts.

"Per carnem et sperma simus carnes.
Per libidinem uramus mundum.
Hoc sacrificio omnes desideriis serviamus.
Orbis terrarum super hoc infernum,
infernum meum super hoc mundo.
Per carnem et sperma nos sanos facit."

Raising the comforting bottle to my lips, writhing shapes in the wine, outlined by the flames, caught my attention. Horrified, I saw that the entirety of the liquid was swimming with vile maggots. Hurling the contaminated, sickening wine into the fire, I heard my friends cackling in a hollow, insane, baleful laughter.

They writhed in their fecund ritual of the flesh, no longer expressionless. While their bodies fornicated and violated each other, all their faces, now corpse-like masks of wretched death, faced me. Their expressions were full of hatred, vile anger, and had the aura of death and decay in their cold, hard beauty. They were not the faces of my friends; the shadow demons that I had seen approaching had possessed them. Nearing hysteria, I realized that they bore malicious intent. They started towards me, their bodies locked in a writhing mass of orgiastic, shadowy, fornicating horror.

…to be continued.