Page 32

6

NIGHTMARES BECOME REALITY

Iwake up, and it takes me a while to open my eyes. The room is different yet familiar, my arms feel numb. I look at the cause of it and notice the skin color difference. My arms are tied to the metal bed frame post.Not mine.

I try to speak, but the cloth tied around my mouth muffles my voice. I choke out a noise, a desperate plea. The figure in the corner doesn’t move. I feel the evil but also sense a form of familiarity. Despite the darkness, something about his presence stands out to me.

The air is thick with the stench of burnt flesh and blood. It clings to my skin, coats my throat, making me gag. That’s when I see it—the blood splashed across the walls, the lump of charred remains. The sharp, acrid smell of urine burns my nose.

I swallow down the bile rising in my throat. I’m sure… I’ll wake up.

The woman appears in the mirror on the other side of the room. Naked. Her engorged, veiny breasts hang heavily, unnatural, swollen with something that never came. The gash in her stomach gapes open, flesh jagged, as if something had been torn from inside her.

She presses a single finger to her lips.Shhh.

The man’s shadow moves closer and the glow of the dim lighting catches his face.

My heart sinks.

I know him.

And the overwhelming fear consumes me.

His hand moves over my legs, spreading them further apart.

"Stop." I try to scream, but it comes out as a garbled, strangled noise against the cloth. He hears it. He doesn’t care. His head rests on the swell of my stomach. His breath warm, heavy, and wrong.

My eyes dart to the mirror.

The woman is gone.

No—she’s beside me now.

Kneeling. Watching.

Her hands—ice-cold, clawing, unrelenting—force my face forward.

Look.

His lips press against my stomach. He coos. Murmurs words I can’t make out.

Soft. Possessive. Final.

My body moves on its own, like muscle memory from another life. I start wiggling my ankle, pressing the rope against the jagged edge of the bed frame, sawing it over and over. My arms burn from tugging against the restraints. The stink of booze, sweat, something rotten rolls off him as he hovers over me, his gaze fevered, starved. From behind him, his hand moves. A flash of silver as he show me his weapon. The knife glints under the weak light.

No.

I thrash. My breath is frantic and desperate.

"Shhh… shhh…" His voice slithers down my spine, making my stomach turn. I sob, the sound swallowed by the cloth.

"Mine," he seethes before moving lower between my legs. His mouth brushes my skin. I want to close my legs, kick him, scream, fight?—

And suddenly, my hand is free. The fabric around my ankle snaps under the strain. The other is almost undone, held together by threads and friction. Maybe it’s luck. Maybe it’s her. But my hand wraps around the glass flower vase beside the bed. And in one quick moment, before he can register what happens?—

I swing.

BAM.