“Fine… let’s have it your way.”
Carefully, I moved toward the edge of the cell block. Already I could smell blood in the air. It was thick, and hot; as thick as the darkness around me. I was no stranger to the stench of blood, but like the swirling black in the air, this was different. It was unnatural, exaggerated. I tried searching for the source as I stepped through the doors, but I couldn’t find it. There were no bodies out here, no corpses.
Then I heard movement. A scuttling sound that alerted me to a shadow moving rapidly at the other end of the corridor. I caught the last shuffle of a body as it moved through the red glow and just out of sight. It was there, watching me, baiting me out, waiting for me. It had done this the last time, too.
Careful not to lose what little of my composure I had been able to duct-tape together, I moved deeper into the corridor, into the dream, toward the beast. I could hear it, now; not sniffing anymore, but eating. I could hear its teeth biting into flesh and crunching bone underneath its jaws. It was an awful, sick, wet sound that had stayed with me for days after I’d woken up from the last dream.
I was determined to make sure I would wake up from this one, too, so rather than simply approach as I had the last time, I took a stand.
“Hey, asshole,” I called out.
The beast stopped eating, and through the shadow it cast on the red glow in the corridor, I saw it perk up. It, like the last time I had seen it, was huge, and muscular. It had massive, round shoulders, arms the size of large dogs, and pointed, batlike ears. When it perked up to sniff the air, I saw the impression of its snout against the wall. It twitched and moved, taking rapid whiffs and exhaling in grunting snorts.
Then it did something strange; it went back to eating.
I watched from where I stood, dumbfounded. Why had it pulled me into the dream if it wasn’t going to attack? I stepped a little closer, almost tripping over a corpse I hadn’t noticed until now. It was a guard, one I recognized from around the prison but not one I had interacted with yet.
Keeping my eyes fixed on the creature as much as I could, I knelt next to the dead guard and tried to unclip his baton from his belt. I didn’t think I would find it, much less that I’d be able to use it. But once I gripped it firmly in my hand, and I pulled it off the corpse, I started to feel a little more confident about just how much control I had over this dreamscape.
With the baton in my hand and my heart beating a little more smoothly, I got as close to the creature as I could. It was still a black silhouette breaking a red glow, I’d need to go around the corner to see it fully, but I was close enough now to smell the beast—and it reeked. Like a dog that had been bathed in a tub filled with bog water, it was an earthy, furry, dirty musk that attacked the nostrils.
The sounds coming from just around the corner were also louder, now—more detailed. I could hear the cracking of ribs, the tearing of tissue and internal organs, the tossing aside of bones that were too difficult to eat, or maybe not tasty enough. I had gone up against difficult enemies, but I’d never faced something quite like this before. This beast was in a league of its own, and there was no telling whether I’d even be able to hurt it… but I had to try.
Summoning up as much courage as I could muster, and taking a series of quick breaths to calm my nerves, I quickly rounded the corner with my baton raised. Roaring, I dashed toward the creature with venom in my eyes and anger burning inside of me like a flame.
The beast was ahead of me, the red light of the corridor falling all along its furry back, its huge shoulders, its batlike ears. I noticed its horns, now, too. They were large, pointed, black, and gleaming menacingly under the red light. It truly was a monster, a thing of nightmares, but when it turned to look at me, it didn’t roar and attack.
It pulled a hand up… to defend itself.
This reaction gave me half a reason to hesitate just as I launched the first blow. As I drew my arm back an inch, halting just before the baton made contact with the beast’s arm, I saw its eyes, and they were human eyes. Sharp, clear, and green surrounded by a halo of gold, they shone with light of their own, lending another color to an otherwise completely red and black environment.
Despite its hideous, monstrous face that was part bat, part wolf, and part bull, those eyes made me not only hesitate, but think. I didn’t see a monster in those eyes, despite the blood around the beast’s mouth. I saw a creature in pain, a creature that was just as scared as I had been a moment ago, a creature that maybe… needed help.
Was asking for help.
“Oh… my God…” I said, the words falling out of my mouth.
Then the creature’s eyes changed. In an instant they filled with inky blackness that smothered the light shining from within them. It opened its mouth and roared, and before I could react and swing the baton at it, the beast grabbed the baton, yanked it out of my hands, shoved it in its mouth, and snapped it in half with its powerful jaws.
Scrambling, I retreated back into the darkness sprinting at full pelt, but the beast was after me, now.
The nightmare had only just begun.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The devil lashed out with wickedly sharp, black talons, narrowly missing my face by inches. I wasn’t sure how I’d managed to jerk just out of its reach, but I didn’t have time to ponder it because the beast was coming for me again.
Roaring, it charged, spittle and blood flying from its giant mouth as it barreled toward me. Without giving it a second thought, I spun around on my heel and started running. I had no idea where I was going, the only clear idea I had was not going back to my cell. That was what I’d done the last time, and it had caught up to me.
The devil was fast.
Really fast.
I was sprinting at full pelt, in the dark, in a hallway littered with corpses I had, at most, milliseconds to avoid as they came into view at my feet. I was leaping, shuffling, doing everything I could just to keep myself upright, keep myself moving, keep myself ahead of the thing that was closing in on me.
I could hear its claws as it scraped against the floor, the walls. I could feel its hot breath at my back. I could smell the foul odor it gave off, a stench that attacked not only the nostrils, but the mind, too. It was strong enough to disorient me, to slow me down just a little bit, just enough that a single misstep would give it ample opportunity to come down on me like a ton of bricks.
Then I’d end up like the rest of the corpses in the hallway.
I knew I had to do something. Running alone wasn’t going to get me out of this because every turn I made, every corridor I spilled into, looked almost identical to the last. Corpses, and darkness, and red. That was all there was to see. There were no doors, no nooks, nothing but an infinite space where I could run, run, run until my lungs gave out.
When the next corpse came into view, instead of side-stepping it, I threw myself into a roll, skidded to a halt, and grabbed blindly for a weapon. I was in luck, and I came away with a baton which I snapped to its full extension just as the devil came crashing over me like a wave.
Ducking off to the side, avoiding the creature’s monstrous roll, I took the chance and smashed the baton into the back of one of its huge legs. I was hoping to find a weak spot, something to slow it down, but the thing was almost all meat and the baton bounced off it. Still, I thought I heard a groan, so I went at it again while it stumbled, trying to right itself.