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This world is empty, barren, and very, very cold.

Despair.

Grief.

Shame.

The feelings seem to grow up from the ground like weeds, wrapping around my legs, sinking deep inside until I’m on my knees. I want to weep, to cry out, to scream, to beg for it all to stop. Too many feelings, too many emotions cutting too deep with sickening precision.

I grab my head, my fingers pressing on my scalp, praying for it all to stop.

I am sadness.

I am torture.

I am death.

And beyond death.

The words jab into my brain like an icepick and I have an even worse feeling that there’s someone inside my brain with me.

Not Jay.

Not anyone good.

Then suddenly it stops, so fast that I’m knocked flat on my back, sprawled on frozen ground and the moon seems to float away, to the other side of the sky.

I gasp, taking a moment to catch my breath before getting to my feet.

There’s someone here.

Down the path, heading away from me.

I can’t see them, I can only sense them.

And there is singing too.

Light as air, melodic and dainty. It’s halfway between human voice and chiming crystals.

And yet it’s familiar in a way that breaks my heart.

On the darkest of the nights

With a blood red moon so bright

Your mother will call you, dear

To put away your fear

Follow her quick down the hill

As they will not hesitate to kill

Her and all she could be

Then you, for all you see

So hurry now and listen

Run to the pond that does so glisten

Step in before she dies

And now you know it’s he who lies.

It’s my mother’s voice, changed into something inhuman, but still astoundingly beautiful. It’s a siren song that compels me.

I am unable to resist.

Jay! I yell out but my legs are moving and I’m running down the path, following her enchanting voice as it sings again and again its morbid tune.

Brushes scratch at me as I run, sometimes tugging at my skin and clothes like tiny clawed hands, my feet are bare and quick as I stumble across moss and rocks, occasionally sinking into something warm and sticky.

I try not to think about any of it, only thinking of my mother. I know I’m not supposed to believe it’s her, I’m not supposed to do anything. But Jay isn’t here and the more I run, that blood red moon filled with screaming faces swinging past me in the sky like a crimson pendulum, the more I don’t care.

I feel like I’ve snuck into someplace other than my dreams, where I can go unwatched, where nothing else matters. Jay can’t help me but I can’t help my mother.

Not real.

Not real.

Not real.

Not her.

His words still find their way into my brain, light as smoke. I shake it off, keep running through the thicket until the ground levels out and the trees close in.

The forest here is dense, tall firs soaring hundreds of feet high. The canopy blocks all but a tiny sliver of the moon and above me I hear the thick slap of leathery wings.

I don’t dare look up.

“Your mother will call you, dear,

To put away your fear.”

She sings, nearly weeping over the melody.

I keep walking. My fear is locked up. I have just one thought. To save her.

Finally I stop, a cold breeze blowing down the path toward me, as alive and strong as an oncoming train. It freezes me to the bone, coats me with a thin layer of ice. I stare at my skin, sparkling now, but as the ice melts, I bleed.

I lift up my arm, watching the dark rivulets run down, mildly fascinated.

ADA!

My mother’s voice slams into my head and I’m nearly knocked backward.

HELP ME.

I start running.

The dark woods seem to stretch on forever, moving up and out into a dark infinity. I can feel hot breath on my neck, the cold wind at my front, and yet I know I can’t fear, can’t think, can’t stop.

It’s wrong, it’s wrong.

But I must keep going.

I run, run, run.

QUICK!

THEY HAVE ME!

The woods suddenly stop, opening up to a pond, bare, skeletal trees rising up from the banks like bones. I’ve been here before in my dreams, the same but different, always changing.

This is a land of change, I think to myself, my first coherent thought in a while. A land of lies.

ADA!

Lies, lies, lies, I chant to myself.

“You’re not real!” I yell, suddenly emboldened, remembering all that Jay had told me. “You’re at peace, this isn’t you!”

“But it is, sweetie, it is.”

I whirl around.

My mother is standing ten feet behind me.

I try to scream but no sound comes out.

I am trapped in horror.

Not because she scared me.

But because she’s not alone.

On one side of her is a tall, thin figure, black as sin. He hurts to look at, he seems fathomless, no shape, no details, just a black hole that will eventually suck in your sanity and soul. I can feel the very essence of myself being stripped away and I know the more I stare at him, the more I’ll cease to exist. He reeks of a million siphoned souls inside and grabs onto one of my mother’s arms, her veins turning black where he holds her.