Casting Bones

Prologue / Sneak Peek

It's not like I haven't had night terrors before. It felt different this time, though.

Something managed to creep out from my dreams and into a place slightly more tangible, that plane between unconsciousness and wake. It sat on my chest, and the weight was crushing, so heavy that I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. I fought, trying to break free, wiggle away, all the while keeping my eyes tightly shut because I knew I didn't want to see.

I was too weak though. My lungs ached with strain, suffocating. With hopeless, terrified tears rolling down my face and sobs wracking through my gasping, desperate struggle for air, I finally broke, and looked.

I screamed with what I saw, but there was no noise. Instead, the moment I opened my mouth, so did the creature, vomiting dark, viscous sludge down my throat, stifling my terrified yells into chokes and coughs, filling my mouth, my nose, my throat, getting in my eyes, blinding me.

My first clear breath was only after waking, panting heavily and wiping in reflex to rid myself of the vomit from my face, still feeling too real. It was just a cold sweat that had me drenched though, the only remains of the sludge being a hot, sharp taste left behind in my desperately dry mouth.

I tried to remember what my mind had created that had been so terrifying, what the face of my worst nightmare looked like, but all the episode had left me with was a bone-deep chill, and a shadowy recollection of bare, spindly branches.

Whatever I saw, I felt like it left something behind in me. Something hungry.

That was stupid though. It was only a dream.