1. Verena #2
I'm fully expecting dream-world logic to kick in any second, allowing me to fly away or manifest a completely different scene.
So imagine my surprise when I've only taken a few silent steps toward the road before one of the men yells something.
Just as I turn back to see if I've been spotted, the air is crushed from my lungs as I'm tackled to the cold, hard ground.
Ouch.
Wait. Why did that hurt so much in a dream?
This asshole is trying to pin me down, shouting at the others as they race over. He twists away from my knee before it can connect with his groin, so I bridge my hips and roll as hard as I can.
That throws the man off-balance just enough that I can wrench one arm free. I slam my elbow into his face, feeling a sickening crunch.
"Fuck!" he shouts.
I squirm free, but before I can fully get to my feet, another murderer is toppling me. This time, I try to catch myself on one of the glass headstones on the way down—but the glass is broken and slices across my palm, deep and stinging.
I cry out because that also hurts in a far too real way.
What the hell is happening to me?
"Goddess-damned she-demon!" the broken-nosed one shouts. "Must've sold her soul to Death himself to come back and torture us even more!"
"Fuck off! Let me go!" I shout, tears from the pain and adrenaline heating my eyes.
"Hold still," Lip Smacker, the one crushing me now, spits in my face.
He's grappling with my hands to try and pin me again. Suddenly, I'm hyper-aware of how cold and solid the ground beneath me feels. How labored my breathing has become.
This isn't my first time fighting for my life to fend off an attacker, and this moment feels exactly like the real thing did.
But this doesn't feel like just another post-traumatic nightmare. It feels so…
"Get off," I choke, freeing one hand to push this attacker's handsome, sneering face away.
I must be going into shock, because I feel weak. Shoving at him like this shouldn't do much.
Only, it does.
A spine-chilling scream breaks from the man. He releases me, rolling away to shriek and claw at his face, which is now smeared with the blood I didn't realize was dripping from my cut hand.
Everywhere the redness is smeared, his skin begins to steam and bubble, like I just poured acid on it. It spreads quickly until his entire head is—
Oh, god. It's melting.
Graphically.
So, so much more graphically than my squeamish self could ever dream up.
Her blood, you oaf. You've seen what nightmarish sorts of things just one drop of it does to people.
I rip my gaze away from him, rattled to my bones by the stomach-turning gore. The third man is nearing me now, holding a sword. He moves like he's approaching a venomous snake.
"Your Majesty," he grits.
He glances briefly down at Lip Smacker when his screams die off completely, the melting apparently complete.
The other murderer—Otto—has risen to his feet. He's circling behind me, spitting out…
Blood.
My breathing turns ragged, my throat dry as a bone. Even though my stomach is churning, I can't look away from the red liquid dripping from the broken nose of my first attacker. Dizziness sweeps through me so fast that this entire kaleidoscope-colored cemetery starts to sway.
How the hell can I be this thirsty inside of a dream?
Unless…
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
This can't be happening.
"This isn't real," I blurt, hysteria setting in. I literally pinch myself. Ow. "Nope. No. Neither of you exists."
"What's she on about?" Otto asks from right behind me.
"What I'm on about is that this is not actually happening," I insist.
I cut a look between them, trying hard not to look at the half-melted goo that was once a man on the ground nearby. This has to all be in my head, so I slap my face lightly with my non-injured hand. Then a lot less lightly.
Ow again, but it's no use.
"Just wake up," I order myself. "Wake. The fuck. Up!"
"She's returned a madwoman," Otto spits.
The man in front of me takes another step closer, lifting his sword and eyeing me.
"It's just another one of her cunning tricks. Doesn't matter. We're ending her bloody reign here and now!"
He charges forward, swinging the blade toward me.
Through the growing shock, whatever survival instincts I have kick in hard enough that I drop like a ragdoll.
The sword slices through the stomach of the too-slow, broken-nosed man instead, sending his hot blood and other…things…gushing out over me. He's nearly cut in half before he collapses beside me, taking the embedded sword with him.
That's when the scent collides with my lungs.
Dreams don't have smells. At least, mine never have. But abruptly, a strong scent like fresh juice is permeating the air around me, making my mouth water even as bile fights its way up my throat.
It's all so visceral, it burns.
Just make it stop already. Wake up, wake up, wake up—
The final man standing swears vehemently. Ignoring the awful sounds his dying comrade is making, he reaches down for me.
I slap frantically at him, but he avoids my bloodied hand and catches my wrists. He places a knee on my chest to pin me against the cold ground.
Robbed of oxygen, I flail my legs wildly until one of my knees slams into his side. When that loosens his grip, I slam my forehead into his crotch, rip my injured hand free when he buckles, and slap more dripping red against his neck.
The man shouts, trying to wipe it off even as his neck starts to cave in where the blood has stained him.
But instead of melting like that other guy, his movements become jerky and strange. He freezes into something like a statue—but his neck keeps buckling in until his head drops off. It rolls away to clink against another glass headstone before his body falls with a hard thud to the dead grass.
And just like that, all that's left in this beautiful cemetery is the sound of me hyperventilating in a blood-soaked dress.
"You're fine. This is fine. It's not real blood, because you're dreaming. It's all just a dream," I repeat, trying to breathe through the panic taking hold.
Warmth drips from one of my long sleeves onto my hand. But it's not my blood—it's from Mr. Nearly-Cut-In-Half.
With disgust and something else I can't name, I lift my fingers. The rainbow glow refracting off the stained-glass headstones catches in the bright red liquid.
It's impossible to look away from, and it smells exactly like…fruit punch.
One second, it's like I'm having an out-of-body experience, watching as my glistening fingers move closer to my lips.
The next?
I abruptly come to with liquid dripping from my chin.
My red-stained hands clasp one of the dead guys' arms, lifting it to my face. His arm and neck are covered in deep, oozing puncture marks, my teeth feel strange, he's staring sightlessly up at the once-again-cloudy sky, and—
"Oh my god," I gag, releasing the dead man and turning to heave.
Because it's real.
I don't know how or why I'm in some bizarre fairytale world, but it's painfully real, and Otto was right. This "wicked creature" I just woke up as literally drains the life from men—because apparently, the evil queen drinks blood.