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Before I could be swept away in the vaguely forming memory, the voice spoke again, “Little ssssister, I wassss waiting for you.” I heard what sounded like a body slithering across the ground and the disgusting slap of flesh, but I didn’t dare move, didn’t dare turn around.

“D-dylan.” I squeezed my eyelids shut as a single tear cascaded down my cheek, resting on my lips.

“Little ssssister.”

“Bianaca!” That was Kace, his voice laced with terror. And it was that hitch in his tone, the fear emanating from that one single word, that finally had me twisting towards my step-brother.

Or the monster posing as my step-brother.

A slimy white slug, easily five times the size of me, slithered behind a wall of folded up mats.

My breathing was shallow, huffing in and out, as flecks of light danced in my vision.

“Dylan?” I repeated, unable to peel my eyes away from where the creature disappeared to.

“I’ve been waiting for you, little ssssister,” he hissed, and those words…

They were the same words he said the day he—

“Leave me alone!” I screamed, my voice catching. “Leave me the fuck alone!”

The Dylan-creature left its hiding space, sliding towards me.

Disgust filled me, as did a horror so strong and potent that I threatened to lose consciousness.

It had a large, slug-like body, its color reminding me distinctly of cracked eggshells with marks of jaundiced yellow scattered throughout. Slime oozed from its pores as it crawled across the floor, its arms nothing but two tiny stubs that made wet, slapping noises against the gymnasium mats. And its face…

It had the distinct features of my step-brother, with its blue eyes and crooked nose, but everything about it was distorted. One of its eyes was larger than the other, while thick wrinkles circled its face, giving him a narrow-eyed appearance. Where his mouth should’ve been was nothing but a gaping maw, easily the size of my head, with two sharp rows of teeth layered into a circle.

When it spoke again, its lips didn’t move. The sound seemed to reverberate from the creature’s body, echoing off the walls of the gym.

“Little ssssister.”

“Leave me alone!”

It continued to trudge towards me, leaving behind a wet trail of slime. Its deformed head cocked curiously to the side, its larger blue eye fixated on me with an unnerving focus, while the smaller one rolled back into its head.

I took a step backwards, my hands searching for something, anything, I could use as a weapon. My eyes latched on a weight rack a few feet away, in the corner of the gym.

“Take off your clothes, little ssssssister.”

The memory of that night bombarded me.

Those threatening words.

His hands on my skin.

My hoarse screams…

“No!” I ran as fast as my legs could carry me in the direction of the weights. Behind me, I could hear my men screaming and the Dylan-creature’s deranged laughter, ending on a hiss.

Its wrinkly body took up nearly an entire floor mat as it continued its slow crawl towards me.

My hand closed around the nearest weight, though I knew a weapon as small as this would do nothing against a beast of that size.

Oh god.

My death flashed before my eyes so vividly, I wondered if it had actually happened before. If I was in a continuous loop in Purgatory where I would die a million times, all because of Dylan.