𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 ✔

Chapter Twenty

It felt like my body was burning from head to toe. That night the dream returned, but it was much, much worse than it had ever been before.

It was cold and the sun had started to set leaving not much time until I was completely out of light. I had been walking down a snow-covered dirt road, carrying groceries I had bought from the market to make dinner with.

My body was burning.

There was a moment when I thought that I might have heard someone other than myself crunching in the snow, but when I looked around there was no one and no other footprints than my own.

An animal in the tree line perhaps?

I continued on, trying my best to make it home before I was left in complete darkness by the setting sun, but one can only move so fast in thick snow. The moment I had let my guard down, I heard the snow behind me crunch causing me to go still, and before I could turn around to see what made the noise a hand appeared over my mouth. I was so startled that I dropped everything which I had been carrying.

Nails. Metal, razor like nails had flashed before my eyes. I knew I had heard a voice, perhaps a chuckle, but I couldn't remember it or what it sounded like.

The terror I was feeling was far too real, as if it were not a dream at all. I begged for my life, I begged for whom ever it was to let me go home to my family, but the person only laughed at me as they tightly squeezed my jaw.

The next thing I knew their metal nails dug into my neck, ripping as they went, and in a quick motion I felt them rake across my throat soaking the snow in my blood as it began to pour. The snowflakes felt cold against my face as my breathing slowed. Then they released me.

Falling. I had been falling in the darkness.

I woke up in my bed covered in sweat screaming at the top of my lungs. It felt like I had been trapped in the dreamworld with no way out, as if I had truly died there myself.

My throat, it burned as I reached up to touch it. Quickly, I ripped the covers off of me and nearly fell out of bed as I desperately tried to get to the mirror in the corner of the room. Terrified that I had actually been attacked in my sleep.

I stood there looking at the soft red marks that reached across my neck, as if I had scratched it in in the night. I opened the French doors to the right of me and walked out onto the balcony to breathe in the cool night air. Never had the dreams felt so physical, nor had I ever awoken with wounds like those I had accrued in my dreams. It terrified me to think my dreams had been unusual from the start, and that perhaps someone or something had been causing them to happen. But if that was true, then why?

Why had I been targeted with these nightmares that make no sense?

The next day I was surprised to find out that Alveary had not heard me scream in the night. I was sure I had screamed loud enough to have woken everyone on the hall, let alone her. But none of them brought it up at breakfast. Which made me wonder if me waking had been nothing but a dream as well.

"Like I had stated previously, Justine, he practically begged me not to leave." Lottie boasted.

"Frankly, I do not believe you. I am far prettier and obviously more important than you are, no offense. Your father is only a Baron, whereas my father is a Count. Do you see where that places you in regards to me? Even if he supposedly wanted you to stay and talk longer, I am sure he will command me to stay Tuesday. Because unlike you, he will actually want me to stay and instead of suggesting I do so he will demand it. He probably only said that to make you feel better." Justine was more aggressive than usual.

"How dare you place yourself above me in looks. I am far better looking than you and I don't make people want to retch at the sound of my voice." She mimicked the forced high tone voice that Justine would use around Adam, or when she would attempt to be kind. "Also, he could not stop looking at my beautiful red locks, and even complimented them, several times."