Chapter Nine
The dream came for him like a tide, black and hungry, pulling him into depths where light had no meaning.
The symbol bloomed first, suspended in the void, painted in blood that never dried, lines coiling and curving with geometries that hurt to perceive.
Wrong angles. Impossible spirals. A language carved into the foundation of the world before speech existed.
It pulsed, each throb sending ripples through the dark, and with every pulse came the word.
Almost audible now. Almost there, on the tip of his tongue.
A syllable pushed at the edges of his mind, thick as oil, ancient as stone, a prayer offered to something vast and indifferent.
His lips moved in sleep, trying to shape it, but the sound resisted him.
Teased him. Whispered from some place older than bone, older than breath, a place where things waited in patient hunger for the seals to crack.
Then the dream shifted.
The void tore open, and he was elsewhere.
An underground chamber, walls sweating with moisture, the air thick and rancid with the stench of mildew and fear.
Candles ringed the space, their flames guttering in the breathless gloom, casting shadows that writhed like living things.
The light was amber, sick, trembling. It licked across stone that looked more ancient than the city above.
And in the center—
Jimmy.
Strapped to a wooden X-shaped cross, arms spread, legs splayed. Naked. Shivering. His eyes were wide, glassy with terror, tears carving tracks through the grime on his cheeks. His mouth moved, forming words, pleas, prayers to gods that had long ago stopped listening.
“Please,” Jimmy sobbed. “Please, I didn’t do anything… Please don’t—”
Ash wanted to scream, to run, to tear the restraints away and pull Jimmy free. But he couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. He was trapped inside the dream, a passenger in his own mind, watching through eyes that weren’t his.
No. Not just watching.
His hands lifted into view. Gloved. Steady. One held a blade, thin and curved, the steel catching the golden candlelight. The other reached forward, fingers brushing Jimmy’s cheek with something almost tender, almost reverent.
Jimmy flinched. “No… No!”
The blade touched skin. Ash felt it. Felt the pressure of the knife, the give of flesh, the warmth of blood welling against the edge. Felt the exquisite precision required to cut just deep enough, to follow the line from hairline to jaw, peeling back the layers with surgical care.
The blade moved again, and Jimmy’s screams turned liquid, choking, drowning in his own terror and the blood filling his throat.
The sound filled the chamber, bounced off stone, shattered into echoes that never quite died.
His eyes rolled back, whites gleaming in the candlelight.
His body convulsed once, twice, then went slack.
But the hands never stopped. They worked with the patience of ritual, the devotion of a craftsman perfecting his art.
And beneath it all, humming in the blood and marrow, the word pulsed again. Closer now. So close. Ash could almost hear it. Almost speak it. The syllables pressed at his teeth, hot and writhing, begging to be born.
You know it, something whispered from the deep. You’ve always known.
The word swelled, a tide about to break, a star about to collapse—
Ash woke.
His eyes snapped open, breath tearing out of him in ragged gasps.
His heart slammed against his ribs, a frantic thing trying to claw its way free.
Sweat slicked his body, cold and clammy, soaking through the thin jumpsuit.
The cell swam into focus: concrete walls, a metal cot, the yellow bulb burning overhead with its sickly glow.
He sat up, his limbs weak and unsteady, adrenaline flooding his veins. It was only a dream. Post-traumatic stress. He’d found Jimmy’s body, seen the ruin of him, the horror carved into flesh. Of course his mind would replay it, would twist it into nightmares. That was normal. That was human.
But it hadn’t felt like a dream.
It felt like a memory.
He could still smell the chamber—the corrosion, the candles, the copper-sweet reek of fresh blood. Could still feel the weight of the blade in his palm, the resistance of skin against steel. Could still hear Jimmy’s screams echoing in the hollow of his skull.
And the worst part—the part that made his stomach clench and his breath catch—was the perspective. He hadn’t watched the killer. Hadn’t stood beside him, a ghost bearing witness.
He’d been him.
Seen through his eyes. Moved with his hands. Felt his cold, meticulous focus as he worked, as he carved, as he worshipped with every cut.
Ash wrapped his arms around himself, fingers digging into his ribs, trying to anchor himself in the here and now.
It wasn’t real. Couldn’t be. Dreams didn’t work like that.
Dreams were fragments, distortions, the mind’s way of processing trauma.
They didn’t have texture, weight, clarity.
They didn’t leave you tasting blood on your tongue.
He swallowed hard, throat tight, and forced himself to breathe. In. Out. Slow. Steady. The cell was real. The cot beneath him was real. The ache in his muscles, the chill of sweat drying on his skin—all real.
The dream was just a dream.
He repeated it to himself like a mantra, a prayer, a lie he needed to believe.
But deep in the pit of him, in that sunken place where hunger lived and something older than darkness stirred, he felt a memory waiting. Patient. Inevitable.
And it terrified him more than anything he’d ever known.