Sylas let out a agonized scream as his torturer drove the nail bit into his temples, blood flooded his vision as the screw was driven into his skull. Falling in and out of the blackness, he did his best to hold on, lest his consciousness was forever lost to the abyss of pain that threatened to overtake him. Over and over again his torturer would visit him by night and drive him to the depths of insanity, drilling holes into his skull, sawing off limbs, and hanging him by hooks from the ceiling, Sylas losing consciousness as the blood ran freely from the holes and tears in his battered flesh. By now, he must look like a ragdoll, bits and pieces of him sewn together, only held together by a fine string of flesh and sinew. Over and Over again Sylas almost gave up, but just as he let himself fall into the abyss, he would wake up.



Welcome to My Nightmare.



Sylas sat bolt upright in bed, his lungs aching as he coughed on the air he couldn’t seem to get enough of. Clutching the sheets in his still spasming hands, he screamed in frustration, wishing someone could hear him. Like anyone could. His foster mom was hitting the bars every night, and his foster father was like a zombie thanks to near lethal doses of sleeping pills and Valium.

His entire frame was still shaking from the stress of his once more near-death experience. The nightmare always came and went, one week a month. The other nights of the month pure bliss compared to the horror he found those nights in that dream. Putting two fingers on each hand up to his temples he checked to see if the holes he felt in his skull really were there. He felt a faint indentation on either side; he jumped out of bed and ran to his bathroom, to see if there really was something there. He looked closely in the mirror, he saw a red starburst of burst blood vessels beneath his pale skin on either temple, but as he stared in horror, they quickly faded away, as if nothing was there. Even though he could not see anything, he could still feel it. Before with his other injures, there was nothingness, now them actually showing made him realize just how f***** over he was.

Like bad blood, the disease, the affliction that tainted Sylas' mind had trickled down the generation. Always affecting each male next in the family line, so there would be no male heir to their ancient family. Century after century, their rabid nightmares had only been classified as various afflictions. With Sylas' brother Matthias, It had been violent fits of hysteria and severe insomnia. Or at least that's what Sylas' family had told him when his brother turned up dead at the age of 14, Sylas was only 8 at the time. But that's not what Sylas remembered...

~~~~~~~~~~~~
9 years earlier
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sylas awoke to the sound of screaming, it scared him more than anything ever had in his entire life. The agonized screams of a tortured soul echoed through the thin walls of the Mason house. 6 year old Sylas's feet pattered frantically up the wooden stairwell as he ran into his older brother Matt's room. His eyes grew wide as he saw his brother writhing under the sheets, body contorting like it was being crushed by an invisible hand. Matt's back arched, his eyes snapping open, but the irises were milky white and clouded with pain, his mouth open in an invisible scream. Sylas was too terrified to come any closer to his brother, he just stood a bit away from the foot of the bed and watch, horrified beyond beleif. His brother finally collapsed, panting. Sylas tiptoed forward calling to his brother to see if he was hurt.
"Mattie...Mattie are you okay? Did something hurt you? Is there a monster Mattie? Mattie can you hear me?"
His brother suddenly spasmed again, his body contorting in impossible shapes, Sylas almost expected his spine to snap as he jacknifed upwards, his body under the will of what Sylas could not see.
"BROTHER!!! MATTIE!!! LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!" Sylas yelled, hoping to dissuade whatever was hurting his brother.
Sylas heard an unknown ripping noise, a sickly wet one, like tearing flesh. Matthias was laying on his bed trembling, his back arched, body stiff like a board, the sheets wrapped around him like a shroud. A blackened stain was beginning to spread on the sheet above Matthias's stomach. It spread, like someone had spilled a glass of red wine. Dripping down his chest, and running in rivulets down off the edge of the bed. In the silence, all the little boy could hear was the sickly dripping sound, his brother's pained breathing, and his own thudding heartbeat. The room was thick with the scent of blood, and another foreign scent. The scent of chemicals, not yet known to young Sylas. Even the boy knew that this room smelled of death. Suddenly, there was an eerie silence that smothered the room, and the dripping slowed.
"Mattie? Mattie is it over? What's the matter? Is the monster gone?" Sylas asked, tenatively, his voice shaky.
Step by step Sylas got closer to the bed, the chemical scent got stronger and almost unbearable, there was also another scent, one of rust and agony, this one he knew was blood, there was no mistake. Now Sylas was really terrified. There was something horribly wrong here. Sylas leaned in, Matthias's body suddenly spasming again, his eyes flew open, and he grabbed Sylas's face and dragged him close to his face. Matthias's nails left deep bloody gouges across the little boy's face, and his staggered breath smelled of those same chemicals. Matthias choked out something to his younger brother as he fell into a poisoned coma of death.
"Never never wish upon a cyanide and arsenic lover and beware the nightmare that lives close to heart."
There was a dull thud as Matthias's bloody hand fell and hit the wooden frame of his bed, his hand still contorted into a sickly expression. His body was still contorted too, the heavy breathing had stopped and now there was only silence inside his ribcage, the blood dripping like a deadly rain, his eyes had rolled back into his skull. The air of the room still smelled of blood and poison, Matt's blue veins sticking out everywhere on his body, veins shivering as the blood still pumped it's last few courses through his corpse at an inhumanly fast rate. Sylas just couldn't understand what had happened. He shook his brother, again, and again, trying to wake him. Finally giving up, the little boy crawled up onto the bed, his clothes and tiny hands covered in Matthias's blood, he curled up beside his brother, wrapping his small arms around his brother's neck like he always did, falling asleep in his big brother's arms as if nothing had happened.