Half-Blood Curse

3- Strange Dreams

It was closer to three in the morning when Lucas finally got home from the airport. His rideshare drove off as he unlocked his front door and staggered gratefully inside.

He hadn't done much that day at the hotel besides laze around and worry, and it wasn't as if sitting on a plane was physically taxing, but he felt like he had just had a very long day.

He opened the back door for Maestro, who ran inside with an indignant meow for being left outside for a whole night and day.

"Oh don't be a sour-puss," Lucas yawned at the black-and-white cat. "You came from the outdoors anyway. You're practically still feral. I bet you didn't even miss me."

Maestro answered that with another angry meow before he went right to the little bowls set out in the kitchen for those nights when he stayed indoors. He sniffed them, and looked back up at Lucas.

"Yeah, yeah, coming right up. I know Sonia put food in your outdoor bowl so don't act like you're starving now."

He pulled a can of wet food out of the cupboard and peeled it open. Maestro pretended to be a nice and loving cat while he waited, twining between Lucas's feet with loud purrs and sparkling yellow eyes full of joy. Lucas snorted a laugh. As soon as he got fed, that fucker was going to go back to being a little shit with a mean vendetta.

He tossed the food in the bowl, filled up the water bowl, and left the kitchen. Just across from the kitchen was the front door and the dining/living room, which was crammed with a small table for eating (covered mostly in books borrowed from Sonia) and a ratty, torn-up couch (thanks to Maestro). To the right was a short hallway leading to the single bedroom and the bathroom. It was a little house, but it was all his, and Lucas liked it. He didn't need much, anyway.

If it was a bigger house, he might realize how alone he was.

Lucas didn't want to delay going to bed. He could already feel sleep pulling heavily on his eyelids. But he always felt a little unsanitary after going through airports and riding on planes, so he went to the bathroom first, instead.

One hot shower later, it was almost four in the morning, and Lucas was finally going to bed. Luckily, his day job was fairly flexible.

He crawled gratefully under the covers and closed his eyes. He felt Maestro jump up and curl onto the bed next to him, and he barely had the energy to mutter a "you'd better not scratch me while I'm sleeping, little fucker," before he was out like a light.

Lucas wasn't the kind of person who had lucid dreams. So when he fell asleep and realized he was in some random forest and he knew that he was sleeping, he was more than a little surprised.

"Will I still be tired if I wake up from a lucid dream?" he wondered out loud. He looked around the woods, enjoying the idyllic view of verdant trees, golden sunshine streaming through leaves, and wildflowers. "It's nice, at least."

It reminded him of the campground his mother had taken him to when she tried to get him to shift. The woods where he had first tried to touch his inner shifter.

He heard twigs breaking behind him and turned to see what his dreaming self had thought up, but what he saw scared him. He let out an unmanly scream and scrambled back, falling onto his ass. A shadowy monster lurked in the forest, so at odds with the cheerful surroundings it looked as if it had been superimposed there from a hellish shadow-world. It was misty around the edges, and pitch black. It was crouched over, but it wasn't quite on all fours and Lucas could tell it was massive. He thought it might have been furry, but the misty quality to its body made it hard to tell. Was it based on a wolf? A bear? Could have been either one.

"What a shit dream," Lucas whispered, trying to remind himself that it was, in fact, a dream, and he wasn't in any danger.

Its head snapped up, and eerily white eyes locked onto Lucas, the tiny black pupil making the gaze look deranged and ghostly. It began to growl, and Lucas could almost hear a muttering voice in those growls. It made goosebumps break out along his skin, and he couldn't stop his instinctual response to run. He scrambled to his feet and took off, choosing a random direction and hoping for the best.