Featured Creature: Priest of Vz

" In the dream, I was at a business meeting or presentation of some sort.  There was a large crowd of people surrounding a meeting table.  The presenter kept losing his place and starting the presentation over. 

I was distracted by a man in a black suit standing at the window and away from the group.  He was looking out across the cityscape with his back to the group.  He had his hands joined behind his back and occasionally I thought I heard him whisper something.  The presenter bumbled his speech again as I rose to ask the man to join us.

As I stepped away from the group, the light began to dim as though the sun were setting, but then I realized that the sun couldn't get to us anymore, the sky was filled with clouds of smoke.  The fluorescents flickered and fluttered in the half light.  I looked back to the group, but they were gone.  The room was long and empty.

The man in the black suit still stood unmoving by the window.  His whispers had become muttering.  It wasn't English, but he was still speaking too softly.  I couldn't figure out the language.  I moved closer to ask him what was happening.  Outside flames licked at the windows.

I felt something sticky on my foot and realized that there was a pool of some black ooze all over the floor.  The man in the black suit was standing in a pool of it.  It flowed away from him and across the room.  I suddenly became very afraid.  I tried to back away as quietly as I could, but each step in the ooze made a sticky sucking noise.  I slowly edged towards the door.

The man turned away from the window.  He seemed distracted as though he were solving a math problem.  He walked slowly along the edge of the windows.  As he walked I noticed a small wound open in the crease of his forehead.  The same black ooze on the floor began to dribble down the bridge of his nose.  He made no notice of it and continued muttering.  I stood stock still in the half light, praying that he was too absorbed to notice me.

He turned at the other end of the room, beginning to pace.  Still absorbed in math problem he had begun to mouth the words of it as he walked.  The black ooze from the floor began to pour from his mouth.  Once his back was to me again, I moved towards the door, but now the entire floor of the room was filled with the black ooze.  It was like walking in warm mud.

The man turned again in his pacing and I held still.  The wound on his forehead had gotten larger.  As he drew closer I realized that an eye was emerging from the wound.  Oh that horrible eye!  I found myself shivering under its gaze.  The room had grown frigid.

The man turned again, moving back towards his original position.  He's had loosened his hands now and was gesturing as he explained his math problem to the air.  He was growing excited, speaking out as he walked.  I realized then that the eye in his forehead was watching me.

"Vin prykhodyt! Ya proklav dorohu yoho narodzhennya!" 

I still couldn't understand him.  As he turned again, I made a final rush for the door but I was stuck fast in the black ooze.  The eye had emerged fully and watched me intently as he paced.

There was something strange with the air around his head.  The arc of a dimly glowing halo moved through his head and up into the ceiling.  It rolled with his pacing, growing brighter as he moved.  It seemed to be a series of characters, but unlike any written language I'd ever seen.  They burned the air with a greenish aura.  They rotated so quickly it was impossible to track them.

"Zdayetʹsya, u nas vidviduvach."

He stopped and turned to me, smiling.  The air above his head grew dark and the ceiling disappeared into it.  I felt a sinking and my stomach knotted and cramped.  Rows of teeth lurked in the darkness over his head.  I edged against the wall.

"Ekstrasensy povynni buty oberezhni, shcho vony bachat."

He stepped away from the window and towards me, smiling.  He moved in close and grasped my face in his hands.  In the firelight, he leaned in closer as if to kiss me.  That horrible eye looked at me directly.

"Vin pryyde dlya vas.  Tse bachennya ne dopomozhe vam."

 I woke screaming."

{Sharpie and Uni-ball Vision Elite Pen with tones added in Adobe Photoshop}