The blood.
The voices.
The accusations;
They stayed.
And deep inside;
Something in her was starting to believe them.
The darkness did not return.
It thickened.
The red deepened until it felt like the world itself was bleeding. Then the sky; if there was a sky; began to open, not with light, but with falling drops.
Blood.
Slow at first.
Then heavier.
Warm droplets struck Leah's skin, her face, her hands, each impact soft but unbearable. It soaked into her clothes, ran down her arms, gathered at her fingertips before dripping into nothing.
The voices came back with it.
Not from one place.
From everywhere.
Layered.
Overlapping.
Whispering;
Speaking;
Accusing;
"You knew what would happen…"
"…you wanted this…"
"…you let it happen…"
"…you watched…"
"…you chose yourself…"
Leah spun around, her breath breaking into short, panicked gasps as she tried to locate them.
"Stop....please....stop!"
But the voices didn't stop.
They multiplied.
Echoing over one another, faster now, louder, slipping over each other like something alive and crawling.
" You could have saved him."
"You didn't try hard enough."
"You wanted to be strong."
"You needed to prove it."
"and we died..."
"we all died..."
Leah covered her ears, squeezing her eyes shut, but the sound didn't fade. It burrowed deeper, vibrating inside her skull, inside her chest.
"No… no no no!"
She turned again;
And saw them.
Shapes forming in the blood-soaked air.
Silhouettes.
Dozens.
Maybe more.
They flickered into existence like broken lights; appearing, vanishing, reappearing somewhere else. Tall. Thin. Watching.
Everywhere she looked;
More.
They surrounded her without ever fully staying.
Blinking.
Shifting.
Closing in.
Leah staggered backward, her foot slipping slightly on the slick ground as she struggled to keep her balance.
"Stay away… stay away from me…!"
The silhouettes didn't listen.
They began to change.
Forms thickening.
Details returning;
Not whole.
Never whole.
Her breath caught.
"…no…"
Mauris.
Half his face torn away, skin hanging in jagged strips, one eye missing; yet the other fixed on her.
Henry.
Chest ripped open, the wounds still fresh, still pouring, his body moving in jerks as if something inside him was pulling the strings.
Frauner;
His form broken, hollow, blood still leaking from his eyes, staining everything beneath him.
They moved.
Not walking.
Dragging.
Closing in slowly.
Their voices overlapped now, no longer separate; blending into a single, suffocating chorus.
"We died because of you"
"you failed!"
"you watched us fall"
"you chose this"
"you are the reason"
Leah shook her head violently, tears mixing with the blood running down her face.
"No...NO...! That's not true...I didn't!"
She stumbled backward again, her heel catching, nearly falling, her hands reaching out blindly as if she could push them away.
But they kept coming.
Closer.
Their movements jerky, unnatural, bodies half-broken yet still advancing.
Henry's head tilted at an impossible angle.
Mauris's arm dragged behind him, bone exposed.
Frauner's mouth moved, but no single voice came out; only that layered, distorted sound.
0
"You are death."
The words slammed into her.
Leah screamed.
A raw, desperate sound tearing from her chest as she spun wildly, trying to escape, trying to find a direction that wasn't filled with them.
But everywhere she turned;
They were there.
Reaching.
Closing.
Voices rising.
Blood falling harder now, soaking everything, turning the ground beneath her into something slick and drowning.
"I didn't kill you.....I didn't !" she cried, her voice breaking apart completely.
Her hands clawed at her own head, nails digging into her scalp as if she could tear the voices out.
"PLEASE...STOP !"
The figures lunged.
All at once.
A mass of broken bodies and reaching hands;
And Leah collapsed to her knees, her scream cutting through the red as everything closed in around her.
Just as the figures closed in;
Just as the voices reached a deafening, suffocating peak;
Something grabbed her.
A hand.
Firm.
Real.
Not cold like the mist.
Not hollow like the illusions.
Solid.
Leah's body jerked violently at the sudden contact, a broken gasp tearing from her throat as her entire form tensed. Her fingers clawed instinctively at the ground, her breathing erratic, uncontrollable, her mind still drowning in the voices.
The grip tightened slightly.
Grounding.
Anchoring.
"Leah!"
The voice cut through everything.
Clear.
Sharp.
Real.
"It's not real. Snap out of it!"
The words hit her harder than anything else.
The blood.
The voices.
The figures;
They didn't stop.
But something cracked.
Leah's eyes snapped open wider, her pupils trembling as her head jerked toward the voice. Her chest heaved violently, each breath ragged, uneven, like she had been drowning and was only now breaking the surface.
"No… no...this is real...I saw them....I saw!"
Her voice fractured, desperation spilling through every word as she tried to pull away, her body still caught between the nightmare and something else.
The hand didn't let go.
It pulled her.
Harder this time.
"Leah!"
The name struck deep.
Not an echo.
Not layered.
Just one voice.
The world flickered.
The silhouettes glitched; breaking apart into fragments, their forms distorting like reflections in shattered glass. The blood-rain faltered, droplets freezing mid-air before dissolving into nothing.
The voices stuttered;
"…youuu..."
"…are..."
"…death!"
Then warped.
Then broke.
Leah squeezed her eyes shut, her face twisting as she shook her head violently, trying to force it all away.
"STOP!"
The grip on her arm steadied her.
Didn't let her fall.
"Leah, look at me!"
Her breathing hitched.
Slowly;
Reluctantly;
She opened her eyes.
The red was fading.
Cracking.
Peeling away like something false being torn apart.
The figures were gone.
The voices; gone.
Only fragments remained, dissolving into the empty dark.
Her body trembled uncontrollably, her chest rising and falling in uneven, painful breaths as reality began to force its way back in.
The hand was still there.
Holding her.
Real.
And for the first time since it began;
Leah felt it.
The difference.
This wasn't the nightmare.
This was something else.