The Trickster’s Hat

"Trick, Trick, Trick, my most prized gift." The woman rested Trick soothingly within her bosom as she began to speak.

With a mirthful smile spread across her lips, she gently stroked across Trick's golden blonde hair.

"You're kind."

"Kinder than your father even."

As if hit by a truck, Trick's heart sunk within his soul, his mind swimming in a depthless pool of thought.

The woman continued to speak, but her words fell on deaf ears, as who she spoke to was completely immersed in concerns of his own.

Trick held onto his head in grave annoyance as his mind screamed three words that echoed loudly within his head—

'SOMETHING FEELS WRONG!'

The woman still continued to speak, her wordings fading away into obscurity as Trick was drowned in an aching multitude of thoughts.

'Something is wrong!' A voice within Trick's mind screamed out, causing him to firmly hold onto his head.

As if counteracting the earlier voice, another screamed out.

'Of course, your body has assumed the nature of the child that sat here earlier on.' Trick shook his head in disaffirmance once more.

'No, no, no, that's not it!' Another voice enveloped with a cloud of frustration cried out.

'Something much more sinister, something I've failed to notice!' 

A reassuring voice then whispered into the ears of Trick's rattling mind.

'The flood, it must be the encroaching oceans of blood.'

'NO!—'

'That can't be it!' In a frustrating scream, another voice counteracted the reassuring one.

Trick felt as though his head was about to split into innumerable pieces, as several voices debated the cause of the calamitous feeling that burned the innards of his soul.

'The sky is painted in a scarlet hue from the sorrows of this realm. And the moon is weeping, shedding its tears in sadness for this fallen world.'

'These otherworldly experiences must be the problem, yes that must be it!'' The same mollifying voice muttered into the hearing of Trick's mind, trying to find a reason for his odd feeling that something diabolical was afoot. 

But the counteractive sounds of another voice screaming in rage wasn't far behind.

'No, no, no, no, no, no, no—'

'NO!…'

'THAT STILL ISN'T IT!' Trick clenched more tightly against his head, his grip getting tighter each passing moment as excruciating waves of pain resonated through his head.

His eyes flickered shakily as loud voices, each having differing opinions, clashed in the battlefield which was now his mind.

That feeling, that strange calamitous sensation which cried out from the very depths of the innermost parts of his ripping mind. It scratched and clawed, wept and begged, all for sole purpose of—

Drowning any conciliate feelings of peace that roamed Trick's mind in the dark oceans of unease.

'Som—SOMETHING!'

'SOME—SOMETH—SOMETHING!'

Multifarious in number, several concerned voices all tried to word out one depressingly concerning statement within Trick's mind. 

The voices were unruly, each one trying to overtake the other in speech, until they bizarrely merged into one harrowing shout of restlessness.

'SOMETHING IS TERRIBLY WRONG!'

However these were all the voices of Trick that bore his innermost anxieties. 

Trick had finally noticed something quite strange, though this was not the source of the stings of wrongness he felt cry out from his mind, however it also grazed the concerns of heart. This was…

Since before he begun surfing through the endless waves of his thought—

'Wasn't a woman speaking to me earlier?' Trick wondered in question, turning his attention to the odd woman in whose soothing embrace he rested. And as he did—

He witnessed a horrific sight.

Trick trembled in sheer terror, shivers of fright streaming through the entirety of his being as he watched in awe, the grim state of the woman.

Her eyes were clothed in darkness, the void within them seeming to plummet into the deepest depths of the abyss. 

Yet within that void, something could be seen exuding from its insides as horrid streams of blood flowed through her eyes.

As the grim blood flowed through her eyes, so did her skin adopt a pale appearance washed in the horrific complexion as that of a dead body.

Yet even as she sat motionlessly still, covered in the blood of her bleeding wounds while still having the complexion of a corpse, one thing she did sparked a familiar feeling of dread within Trick's heart, and that was—

The pleased smile she wore across her face.

Within Trick's mind, the warriors of his anxiety had picked up their weapons, resuming their clash on the battlefield that was now his mind. 

Those same depressing feelings of concern had resurfaced at the sight of the woman's haunting smile. Leaving Trick with but one thing to ponder.

'Why does this feel so familiar?'

As though catalyzed by the woman's horrific transformation, the crescent moon spewed out more blood from its innards, raging the already vexed floods onwards.

'Why does this feel so familiar?' Trick questioned within his mind as the rapid floods swept both him and the woman.

He tried so desperately to save her, trying to hold unto her while weathering the floods.

'Why does this feel so familiar?' The same voice cried out.

Trick was bewildered by a strange feeling of not letting go, a feeling that held him in chains from ever leaving the grim woman to the fate of the bloody sea.

'Why does this feel so familiar?'

The pungent odour of blood assaulted Trick's nostrils, the strong waves of the bloody seas doing its best to try to submerge them under its sinister currents. 

"Why does this feel so familiar?' Trick was overcome with grief, perplexed at what his next move would be.

The waves were rapidly rising, the woman was slowly slipping off his grip, the blood was making its way into his mouth, the stench tormenting his nostrils.

'Why does this feel so familiar?'

There was no hope, in an instant the woman would leave his grip, in just a moment he would be swallowed by the unforgiving sea of blood, soon he would be drifting lifelessly beneath the waves of the bloody ocean. 

Soon…

HE WOULD BE DEAD!

He wiggled and swayed his body, desperately trying to stay afloat. The woman had left his grasp.

'Why does this feel so familiar?'

Just as quickly as she left his grip, a monstrous torrent of blood collapsed onto him, submerging him under the waves of blood.

'Why does this feel so familiar?'

He was finally underneath the ocean's bloody surface, floating lifelessly within its dreadful holdings.

'WHY DOES THIS SEEM SO FAMILIAR!' He yelled out within his mind, as the same burning feeling of concern still lingered, troubling his very soul that something was indeed wrong.

And just then, as Trick drifted deeper and deeper into the abysmal zones of the ocean's bloody depths, a soft whisper left the lips of his thoughts.

'Wait a minute—' Trick's eyes remained firmly shut as the last bubbles of oxygen escaped from his lungs.

Then his eyes snapped open, the voices that wept anxiously at the wrongness of his situation finally getting the answers they yearned desperately for, as a loud scream enveloped Trick's mind.

'HASN'T THIS HAPPENED BEFORE?!'

Just then, time seemed to take a pause as everything slowed down, before bizarrely freezing in place.

In a sudden burst of energy, Trick was dragged from beneath the depths of the ocean's bloody hold, flying high up into the scarlet skies.

His ascent then stopped, positioning him before the presence of the crescent moon.

Trick was left confused as he floated stationary in the scarlet skies, everything had immediately gone from crazy to insane.

But before he could even think properly, a horrifying face was etched on the grim moon.

Red eyes that reflected a torturing fury gleamed before Trick's very sight, and on the bleeding moon's face, a dreadful scowl was formed, sending tormenting shockwaves of fear resonating throughout Trick's body, soul and spirit.

"YOU REALLY ARE—" The crescent moon spoke with an intimidating voice.

"A CURIOUS CHILD"