1. VISIONS...

Confusion...
This is all a blur
I can see nothing through this veil of shadows from the past

I know that I’m asleep but that does not mean these visions and voices are false

What do they want from me, these figures of ancient deities ?

I float through a twisting tunnel of harsh smoke
Words cannot describe the horrors trying to grab hold of my thoughts

The blood pressing to leave my head through aching eyes and pounding ears
The visions... the voices... the screams...

Silence...

At last I regain control of my senses
Only to find myself tied to an immense oak tree

The ancestors of the great northern woods reach for the sky
They seem to form an impenetrable wall of log and branch

This must be the first trial...

Endless landscapes endless agony
No salvation endless agony

Screams... rendering visions... rendering voices...
Rendering screams... rendering visions... rendering voices
Rendering screams...


2. A MOMENT OF CONTROL

Watching the maze of falling leaves
Not able to move
Not even feel the extent of my capture

A whisper in the canopy
A rumble from below

Nearer draws moonlight

The cracking of putrid soil
As vines retract from flesh

Darker still seems night

The empathy strong in mind
For descendants of time
Became my release

For a moment in time without boundaries
I was in control


3. THE SECRET TO ETERNITY

Breaking the moonlight, the shadow of a great castle falls upon me.

Breathing fire from the battlements
Gargoyles are watching me

As I approach the gates.
They almost look alive...

An icy gust of wind greets me in the gateway.
A warning perhaps...

The fog floating in from the surrounding marshes
Lies thick amongst the graves in the castle grounds.
I can hear the echoes of my own paces in the courtyard.

Why do I hesitate ?
Isn’t this what I’ve been searching for all these years ?
Beyond these gates lies the answer.

I have not knocked, and nobody has opened; yet the doors are still ajar.
With a strange feeling I enter the castle. Remembering the ancient words.

"In a castle of screams beyond a forest of blood
He sits on a throne of skulls carrying the secret to eternity"


4. THE CELEBRATION OF DECADENCE

My aching eyes slowly open,
Only to witness horror upon horror of unworldly proportions.
At first it is a mist of blurry images in front of timeless waterfalls
Descending from the sky itself.
What marvel is this, I wonder.

Eventually my mind conceives the inconceivable.
Ancient gatherings of decadence and lust, enslavement and torture.
The scent of greed fills the walls of this invisible room in which I lie

Of this invisible room in which I lie
Stillness of limbs

The texture of the air grows thick with disease
As I rise from a scorching river of wooden splinters.

The candles I light with a whisper of thought melt away in cascades of putrid blood from the lost children of this massacre, growing ever clearer though curtain of disbelief.

Ever clearer through a curtain of disbelief see they come to life
Twisted figures of crimson shadows devouring the flesh of beastly infants
Draped in their own intestines.

Misshaped animals feasting on the remnants of severed genitalia while broken crystal rains from above, cutting open the flesh of the bleeding crowd in iron chains.
Their screams failing to escape their months,
As they weaken from loss of blood.

I see only one way of escape,
Should my limbs not be subdued to these horrid acts.
Fleeing through the masses of disfigurement,
The cacophony of damnation crescents into deafening heights.
Stumbling through this apocalyptic scene

I finally reach the portal of my salvation.
Yet I cannot keep myself from imagining what awaits me on the other side.
I glance back at the dismemberment,
Strong in my conviction, and see the hungry anticipation of the chaotic masses.
It seems as thought they are eager to see me enter the gates to the unknown.
I take one fateful step and rid my mind of these obscenities.
Now I will never know...


5. THE TRUTH OF AGES

As the cover of darkness clears
I see that I have reached the source
Of the tormented voices haunting my visions
The gate from which I emerged

Brought with it a transformation of my own perception
The truth of ages has been revealed to me
The words of the ancient voice were not an epical myth
That everyone seemed to know about

It was the call from the darkness that lives in us all
I will now ascend the pile of skulls that were once
The heads of devoted worshippers,
And take my place upon the throne
Of eternity...

The end of my journey has been reached
And I offer you the chance to follow my path
Respond to the voices from within you

And the truth of ages shall reveal itself to you
Follow the call.