Legends of Amacia: Mysteries of Tiamat
Nightmare Mutations

At three in the morning as heslept in Harry’s guest room, Hannibal’s dreams turned very bizarre andtroublesome. The throne room he saw in the vision oozed into his dream thatviewed everything from above. The Emperor sat on his skull throne surveying theroom as two figures were brought before him. In an instant, Hannibal sawhimself being dragged in chains before the tyrant by several burly guards. Theguards also brought forward in chains a feline woman of exquisite beauty withlong dark brown hair, silver fur, and deep bluish-green eyes dressed as hewas…in tattered combat fatigues. As Hannibal watched the dream from above, theguards threw him down in front of the Emperor with the feline woman. TheEmperor walked off the dais, grabbed Hannibal by the chains, and beat himsenseless with his fists. Hannibal jerked in his sleep as the Emperor pummeledhim in the dream. The dream abruptly faded away into something much worse.

When the dream solidifiedagain, Hannibal found himself sitting in a strange metal chair in heavyrestraints completely nude and barely conscious. The chair appeared to be in ahigh-tech lab of some kind that remained vague and blurry. This time, the dreamtook a first-person view and not the passive aerial view. He gradually camearound in time to see a huge mechanical eye hovering over him with dozens oflarge six-inch thick mechanized tentacles touching him all over his body…fromhis feet to the crown of his head. Each tentacle had a needlelike protrusion onthe end that acted like a hypodermic needle. Hannibal felt the needles of themechanized tentacles poke him and he felt something like liquid fire fill hisbody and mind, eliciting a shriek of agony from him. A crunch at the base ofhis skull from one of the tentacles sent him careening into darkness, whichslowly resolved into a view of the same chair from above. He stared in numbedhorror as he watched a giant mechanized eye six feet across hover over hisbody, which remained restrained in the chair while dozens of mechanizedtentacles pulse with every heartbeat. Hannibal watched his body physicallychange slowly from male to female; his immobilized body screaming in primalagony while the tentacles remained connected to him. His vision wavered as hewatched the transformation proceeded, apparently caused by the strange machinewith the tentacles and Cyclops eye. Sensations of tingling followed by fierypain filled him as the nightmare faded away with the chair holding his mutatedbody just before the mutation finished. The Black Prince’s haunting maniacallaughter echoed in Hannibal’s mind when the darkness swallowed him the thirdtime.

The fourth time the darknesslightened, Hannibal discovered he couldn’t move. He also noticed that hefloated high above a vast chamber where women of every size, type, and racewere being tormented physically and sexually in every possible way by the samemechanized eye and the tentacles that mutated him. Hannibal saw no men in thischamber, only the machine using any and every mechanical means to torture thewomen. A cacophony of moans, shrieks, and cries of pain mixed with pleasureassaulted Hannibal’s ears as he witnessed acts of extreme degradation beingcommitted on the women by the monstrous machine. Seconds after seeing where hewas, Hannibal noticed not only that he was a mutated woman with moderate-sizedbreasts, but that also his arms were cut off just above the elbows and his legswere gone sixteen inches below the hips. Straps around his severed arms and legs,one around his neck, and one around his abdomen fastened his mutated body to amahogany table that resembled a trophy plaque. Horror flooded his mind as thenightmare became unbearably real to him. He had been mutated and mounted aliveas a trophy as if he were some kind of animal. He tried to reject what he sawand felt, but couldn’t deny it. The realism of what he experienced caused himto question if it were real or just a hideous nightmare. “Oh god,” hewhispered, tears spilling from his eyes until he tasted the salt of them. “Whatin heaven’s name is going on here? What’s happened to me? This cannot be real.There’s no way I can be a woman trapped in a place like this. I’m not a woman.I’m a man. I know I’m a man. I can’t be a woman trapped in this infernalplace.” Hannibal paused a moment, watching the indescribable tortures of thewomen below him on the floor endured, their cries of despair, pleasure, andpain echoing in his ears. He closed his eyes and cried, “This is inhuman! Whatam I seeing? These girls…oh god, these poor girls! They’re being ravished inways I never thought possible. Oh Lord…please Lord, no more; I can’t take this!It can’t be real! No one should be treated like this ever! Why am I seeingthis? Please let me out of this nightmare!”

The machine eye with thetentacles suddenly dropped in front of Hannibal and looked him in the eye asone tentacle gently caressed his cheek. In a distinctly soft feminine voicethat had a pleading quality, the machine eye declared, “There is no escape fromthis mechanized hell for us, my Lord Beowulf. Please free us from this placeand this everlasting torment inflicted by the infernal Emperor upon us.”Hannibal gasped as the image of a beautiful woman with snow-white hair andhazel eyes appeared in the giant machine eye. “Please free us, milord,” theimage murmured, “and know the power of a completed soul that resides withinyou. Please free us!”

A gigantic image of the BlackPrince’s head and torso above the waist appeared in the machine eye behind thewoman and devoured her as she shrieked, to the utter horror of Hannibal. Bloodgushed from the image of the woman as the hideous maw of the Black Prince bither top half off, leaving the lower torso and legs standing as the beast chewedthe woman, blood spurting from his infernal mouth. The demon then ate her lowerhalf with great relish. After swallowing the ghostly woman, the Black Princeglared at Hannibal as blood dripped from his demoniac maw. “She is mine, as youare, Beowulf,” the demon hissed. “You cannot stop your destiny. You shall bemine and hang as my trophy for all eternity. No one defies me and gets awaywith it, least of all an insignificant maggot like you who has betrayed us.”The Black Prince then roared and swallowed Hannibal whole, sending Hannibalplunging into darkness with a shriek.

Hannibal felt as if he werefalling into the depths of hell. Cries of despair escaped his lips only to beswallowed by the darkness around him that was so dense he couldn’t see his ownbody. His descent slowed as the darkness lightened for a fifth time. When hetouched down, the darkness fled, showing he was lying on top of an unknownmountain in a crystalline Stonehenge-type circle that spanned five hundredyards. The crystal monoliths surrounding him stood fifty feet in height andglowed softly as if energized by something. He felt strange and abruptly lookeddown at his body, immediately noticing he was still a woman with moderate-sizedbreasts, but now wearing a plain gray dress. A gasp escaped his lips as he felthis face and chest to confirm his horror. As he stood up, Hannibal noticed alarge crystal monolith ten feet tall by five feet square just to his left inthe center of the crystal circle. The translucent crystal monolith made aperfect mirror, reflecting everything around it, including Hannibal. He lookedinto the crystal mirror, seeing what could be considered his female counterpartin the reflection. His beard was gone and his black hair streaked with grayreached to his waist as a pair of breasts covered by the gray dress looked backat him in the reflection. He also noticed that the woman looking back at him inthe reflection seemed to have slightly feline characteristics in the face andeyes. “Oh no,” he moaned. “What in heaven’s name is this insanity? Why am Istill a woman? I know I’m a man. I can’t be a woman. This can’t be happening. Imust be having a nightmare because that can’t be me. What does this mean? Whydo I see my female counterpart when I look into this thing? I know I’m a man.”

No answer came; only themocking laughter of the Black Prince echoing from every direction. A noise fromoutside the crystal circle attracted Hannibal’s attention. His face paled whenhe saw a horde of hideous alien creatures defying description outside thecircle, slavering, and testing the perimeter they could not breech with theirclaws and tentacles. “You cannot escape your destiny,” the Black Prince’s voiceechoed in Hannibal’s ears from beyond the darkness beyond the alien horde. “Youare mine. You cannot escape me, and a worse fate than this will befall you ifyou dare to challenge me. I’ll devour your soul myself and feed your rottingmutated corpse to my old friends here from the abyss beyond. They hunger onceagain for human flesh as they did in the Days of Darkness. They shall feastupon your kind. It’s the inevitable destiny of your pathetic species to betheir food. None of you can escape the damnation and extinction of yourspecies. The mistake of your creation will be purged from this universe.”

The ground inside the circlesuddenly gave way and Hannibal fell into a hole with a desperate cry. Adifferent, yet loving voice whispered in Hannibal’s ear as the darknessswallowed him yet again, “Do not fear, my son, for I am with you even if this nightmaremutation comes true. Even the smallest person can change their fate and thecourse of history, so do not be afraid.” For what seemed an eternity, Hannibalfell in utter darkness until it lightened enough for him to see his body lyingin Harry’s guest room. The speed of his fall increased until just before hehit.

Hannibal woke with a start,bolting to a sitting position in the bed and kicking off the blankets. Sweatsoaked his pajamas. He looked around wildly and quickly pulled off his t-shirt,throwing it aside. Hannibal felt his chest as he looked down at it, confirmingthat he was still a man and not a woman. “Oh god,” he moaned, slouching as heheld his head in his hands. “What a terrible fucking nightmare. What’s goingon, Lord? What does this hideous nightmare mean?” When no answer came, hesighed and looked at the clock. It read 10:50 AM. Outside the window, the sunblazed high in the clear blue sky, making it warm morning with a slight breeze.With a groan, he got up, grabbed a change of clothes, and went to the bathroomto refresh himself despite his throbbing head and stiff muscles.