Just A Taste | BOOK 1 The Night Lords Series

31. Another Nightmare

Author's Note: Play music while you read. And if you dare, I hope you read this in the dark. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

A piano. I could hear it. But there was no one around. Why would there be? I was inside a glass box. Outside the box, the room was white, plain, windowless, doorless. What was the point of being in this glass box if I was already in a larger white one? I was sitting cross-legged on the floor but my legs looked different. Were they shorter? I hold up my hands.

I was a kid again.

"Bells."

I look up and almost immediately scramble to get to my feet. It was Oliver but... not. Where there'd been no one before, my brother now stood on the other side of the glass in front of me, one slender hand settling on the barrier between us as he gazed down at me. As soon as he does this, that distant piano music cuts off. He was older, taller, his cheeks more hollow instead of that childlike roundness. His eyes were still the same color as mine but something in them was making me uncomfortable. Ignoring that feeling, I stepped closer to reach up and place my hand over the spot where his met the glass. My eyes watered.

"Oliver," I whisper, my light voice causing me to falter before I shake it off. I must be nine or ten again while Oliver seems to be around eighteen. Sadness washes over me as I think about how this must not be real. I was dreaming. My brother died when he was fourteen. Still, even in a dream, I felt happy to see him. Attempting a smile, I lift my other hand to touch the glass where I might've been able to caress his cheek.

"I'm happy to see you." I murmur, not exactly sure as to what else I should say. What are you supposed to say to your dead brother in a dream? Ask him how he's doing?

His lips quirked as if he's fighting back a smile. "I'm sorry," he drops his hand from the glass. "I shouldn't have left that night." His voice cracks.

I shake my head, missing his hand, his closeness. Oliver takes a step back as if I could reach him. "Don't." I plead. "The past is the past, Oliver, it's not your fault."

Don't leave, I quietly plead with my eyes.

"You don't know, Bells." He whispers, lending me a sad smile. But then the smile is gone, replaced by a grim look as he whips his head to the right as if he heard something. His jaw tightens. "There's never enough time," he mutters as if he were talking to himself. I follow his gaze but there's nothing to see but a blank, white wall. Focusing on me, he suddenly braces both hands on the glass over mine.

"Oliver?"

"Listen to me closely, Bells. I can't say much but you need to look for the flower."

My brow furrows, and I tilt my head. "Wait, flower? What flower?"

"The flower." His tone hints at frustration and he pushes off the glass, his hands moving to grip his dark hair. "It's the answer. A clue. Flower, Bells! The flower!" Oliver's voice lowers to a near hiss and I drop my arms to hug myself, taking my own step back.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say. "You're scaring me." My lip trembles and Oliver's eyes widen as if realizing this. He opens his mouth, stepping forward while releasing his hair but then an audible click sounds from inside the wall to our right, catching both of our attention. Strange how I could hear it even though I was in this glass box but I suppose it must be loud enough given I could hear my brother.

What I thought to be a room with no doors at all proved to be my own misunderstanding as a secret door was pushed open, the open crack a gaping black scar within the pristine white room. Long, ebony fingers ending in claws came to wrap themselves around the door's edge and my heart started gunning hard.

A monster in the dark.

Drenched in fear, I stumble back until I hit the side of my glass box as I watch the door open a bit more to reveal a creature with spindly limbs and a skeletal head. The mouth was open to reveal rows of sharp teeth glistening with saliva that dripped from the tips to trickle over black gums where lips should've been before falling from the pointed chin to the floor. Eyes without pupils or irises rolled about, somehow focused despite this, and they were locked on the only other person standing out in the open white room with it.

Panicked, I look back at Oliver only to feel a new wave of horror. Oliver was fourteen again and cowering against the glass as if hoping it would give to let him in with me. I launch myself at him and immediately start feeling the glass for some sort of ridge or crack. Perhaps there was a hidden door here too. Tears tracked both our faces and I soon began pounding the glass, hoping to break it.

"Oliver, get up! Move away from it!"

The monster was inching its way across the room, its gaping mouth slowly turning up at the corners to form a grotesque smile. But Oliver wasn't moving. He watched, and though I'd thought him to be afraid, as soon as I glance at his face, I realize he wasn't cowering like I'd thought. No, Oliver was simply leaning against the glass as if he were tired. His tears were sorrowful but his eyes shown with resignation. He'd given up like he knew getting caught by the monster was inevitable. I hit the glass again, by now my fists were throbbing.

"Oliver!" I scream.

He turns his head. Placing his hand on the glass, he gives me his serious look- it was the look he reserved for when we'd get in trouble and he was listening to dad, or whenever he focused on his work or the time I fell and banged my knees up and he helped carry me back into the house. It's the look that let everyone know he wasn't messing around.

"Look for the flower."

The monster was beside him. It looks at me before letting out a blood-curdling screech as it tore through my brother's neck with one clean swipe of its claws. And somewhere off in a distant place, a piano began to play again.