My eyes snap open. Rain slaps against my face and drenches my clothing. I squint to avoid getting water into my eyes, the background fuzzy, dark clouds roiling overhead. I blink away the haze and see dark trees standing tall in the distance.
“Run!”
There she is, crouching next to me, brown eyes wide, blond hair streaked with blood. She’s so beautiful, but something tells me she won’t last. There is a fragility in her beauty, and I can feel in my bones that, while I am strong, she will fly apart into a thousand pieces with the tiniest push.
“Diana!” she shrieks, and then she goes rigid as three dark claws, shining with blood, pierce her chest. She goes limp, falling to the ground like a puppet whose strings have been cut.
Behind her stands the monster that stabbed her. Its skin is a dark, mottled reddish-black. It’s thin and tall, flesh stretched tight around muscles, veins, bone, sinew, all twisted together compactly. I look up at its face and see the same lipless mouth stretched into a smile that’s just a slit across its featureless face. Its eyes are dark, empty sockets with a sickening, dim red glowing dangerously somewhere inside. It takes a step towards me and extends its leathery hand. Its message is clear: You next.
Terror makes me freeze. I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. Instead, I suck in a sharp breath…
