Fighting a Dream

It was a good thing we had installed an alerting system like this because had I not noticed it I might have had the pleasure of knowing what happens when you don't get revived. As I leapt out of the charging beast's way I felt something dig into my side, tearing my clothing and pulling at my flesh. It felt like I had just run through a rose bush. The smell of decay was in the air that rushed past my face from the creature's passing, it made my stomach turn and my head spin. As I stood up and faced the creature my head was swimming, I could hardly focus. I wasn't sure if it was the smell or the pain in my side but I had a hard time seeing this thing clearly, my vision seemed to be as if I were underwater with the shapes and shadows bending and turning before me. I braced myself as best I could but I was very unsure about the outcome of this when the creature so much made me think of the grim figure of death.

Every time it passed by in its charge the thorny things ripped into me again and again, each time causing things to get a little stranger for me, things just didn't feel real and my vision had funky colors in it. I knew it was a poison from the spines on this creature but I had to fight against the thought that this is just a dream and I should just lie down. The smell of death and decay in the area increased the longer this fight continued, not that it was much of a fight but more like dodgeball. I feebly tried to charge some force to use against this thing but my head was so drugged from the poison that I couldn't concentrate.

I was about to finally throw in the towel and drop to the ground when I felt a jolt of energy surge through me, it brought me out of my stupor though it didn't clear the poison from me and so things were still a bit hazy. I used this sudden alertness to my advantage and dodged the charging creature again and was able to pull enough energy to freeze it, the sound of liquid poison crystalizing in its spines was music to my ears. As it charged again I rolled out of the way and jolted it with some electric energy, the fragile crystals shattered from the surge and the spines on the creature exploded, causing what felt like a large chunk of something, presumably the creature, to smack into my leg. The explosion also caused the creature to drop to its knees in pain. It stood up again to come for me and I felt my head clearing, the poison seemed to be very short lived and the adrenaline rushing through me was helping clean it out of my system. I took advantage of the clarity and charged up another, larger frost attack. This time as it charged I dropped to the ground and let it pass over me, attacking it from below with the energy I had pulled forth. The beast roared in pain as the blood inside of it began to freeze, a couple more attacks like that one and I was sure its heart would be frozen from the cold blood rushing in. I spared no time waiting for it to come for me again, I pulled more cold energies forth and cast them into the beast and started charging them again as it turned towards me. Everything seemed to be moving so slowly as it tried one last time to take me down, my vision had cleared enough that I could see its still intact horns with their sharp barbs, these weren't the things that had poisoned me but they would easily kill me if I were to be hit by them. The creatures mouth was like a giant beak, it wouldn't rip apart its prey, it would grind them up in its massive jaw. The frozen blood on its skin had taken a lot of the stench away and made it hard to tell what this thing would have normally looked like. As I took all this in the creature was barreling towards me, intent on killing me before I could finish it off. As it closed the distance it started swinging its head side to side, I wouldn't be able to avoid getting hit and so, determined not to be the meal of a nearly dead beast, I unleashed my frozen fury into it.