Diana had been having terrible nightmares since she returned to school.
It wasn't anything new; nightmares had haunted her every night since that incident, but lately, they'd changed. They weren't just nightmares anymore.
They were worse.
And they were always the same.
She would find herself standing in a forest of willow trees, their drooping branches swaying like hair in the wind. Above her, the sky bled with the light of three moons. Below her, the ground shimmered with a thin, rippling pool of blood that stretched endlessly between the trees.
Her memories always stopped there.
How she'd arrived, forgotten. The previous instances of this nightmare — also gone.
She'd simply stand there, dazed, her reflection trembling in the red water beneath her feet. The air was thick with the metallic tang of blood. It clung to her throat, heavy and real.
She could smell it, which was wrong. Most people weren't supposed to smell things in dreams, especially not her, who had never had this happen before.
Then it would come.
A sound.
Soft at first.
Step.
Step.
Wet and dragging footsteps.
They didn't have the rhythm of human footsteps as they were too uneven and too heavy. Each one made the ground tremble slightly, and the echo carried through the forest like it was alive.
She'd turn her head, slowly. And in the distance, something would move between the willows.
The creature always appeared the same way: a blur at first, then shape and detail sharpening as it stepped into the light. It had the body of a wolf, gaunt and wrong.
From its back sprouted eight slick, glistening limbs like the tentacles of an octopus, each one dragging through the bloody water with a wet slap. Its face was a blank sheet of white flesh stretched too tightly over a skull, with only a slit where a mouth should be. A tongue slid from that slit, long as a whip, dark and dripping.
Two sets of deer-like antlers jutted out from its head, branching and twisting like roots searching for something to impale.
And then it would see her.
Her stomach would seize. Every nerve screamed the same command.
Run.
She would spin around, her shoes splashing through the blood pool, passing through the trees as fast as she could.
The beast's pursuit was instant. The ground shook with its charge, and the footsteps that were once just coming from its two legs had increased to four as it was down on all four like a true wolf.
She could hear it: the suction of its tentacles against the earth, the scraping of antlers against bark, the wet rasp of its tongue flicking in and out of its maw.
Run. Run. RUN!
She didn't dare look back, but she could feel it gaining.
The forest seemed endless, the air too thick to breathe. Branches clawed at her hair and skin. She could feel the pain, and yet, she wasn't being woken up.
To her, that meant this wasn't a dream. It couldn't be a dream.
Her lungs burned. And still — still — the thing behind her didn't slow.
Through the trees, she would always see it, the mansion.
Old. Silent. Its black windows were like eyes waiting for her.
She'd crash through the front doors, her chest heaving, slamming them shut behind her. The instant the doors closed, the sound outside stopped. No footsteps. No movement. Just silence.
The beast never followed her inside.
It would pace outside, sometimes scratching the wood once or twice before it faded as if the mansion itself was keeping it out.
Or was it something that was inside the mansion?
Once she was sure it was gone, she would step out from her hiding spot.
The mansion was decrepit. Cobwebs stretched across the ceiling like veins. Moss crept up the walls. The air smelled of mold and old wood soaked in damp. The floorboards whispered with every step.
Creak. Creeeeaaak.
She climbed to the second floor. The corridor stretched on forever, swallowed by shadow. Her own footsteps sounded too loud, echoing off the walls.
Then—
Creak.
The creaking noise wasn't strange. She had heard plenty of them whenever she took a step. Except, she hadn't stepped forward when the creak came from behind her.
She froze.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. She didn't turn. Not yet.
Creak.
Another creak. Closer this time.
The air grew colder as she nervously gulped, and she could feel something — a breath, faint and damp, brushed the back of her neck.
When she finally gathered the courage to turn, there was nothing.
Only the empty hallway stretched behind her. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Relieved to find that she was just being paranoid, she let out a slow, trembling breath when—
Bite.
A flash of agony seared through her neck. Something, or rather, two things, wet and sharp, tore into her flesh. She gasped, eyes wide, but when she tried to scream, she woke up.
The nightmare had ended, and she could recall every little detail of it.
It was always the same.
Every morning, she woke drenched in sweat, the ache in her neck still pulsing like a bruise. It was just a dream. It had to be. But it felt real. Too real.
Also, lately, food had begun to taste foul, as if everything were spoiled. Not flavorless like how someone who was sick would react to food, just… wrong. The smell of lunch made her stomach churn slightly. She'd almost thrown up yesterday but forced herself to swallow it down.
Was this because of the nightmares affecting her psyche, or was it because of Bell?
"Are the suns brighter than normal?" she asked her friend.
Her friend laughed. "No."
"Then why is it so hot?"
The girl giggled again, assuming Diana was joking. "Hot? It's practically freezing today."
But Diana wasn't laughing. Sweat rolled down her spine, and her skin prickled as though she were burning from the inside. Her hearing was sharper, too; she could hear the heartbeat of the student sitting two rows away. The scratch of a pencil felt deafening. Her eyes caught every flicker of motion. Her senses were sharper. Hungrier.
Was she just imagining it?
Was she going crazy?
It wouldn't surprise her if that's what this was. She was going crazy.
She wasn't sure.
She wasn't sure of anything in the world anymore.