Page 46 of Sweet Nightmare

The static buzz gets worse, more discordant, as an ancillary sound tries to break through it. I listen closely, hoping something will help me figure out what’s going on. But then the extra sound disappears just as quickly as it came, and it’s plain static again.

My jog turns into a full-blown sprint through the piney undergrowth, my breath coming in choppy pants and pure adrenaline rushing through my veins. But I’m still not fast enough, because moments later there’s a quick flicker by my left ear.

It disappears as quickly as it comes, trailing that strange sparkly substance I saw in the dungeon. I give the glimmer a wide berth, but another flicker flashes right in front of me.

I have one second to register a large guy in a suit before I’m running through him.

I brace for the icicles, but they don’t come. Instead, that weird feeling happens again, where everything inside of me feels like it’s speeding up and slamming against the inside of my skin.

I jerk my arms close to my body, wrapping them around me as I force myself to keep moving, keep running as another sound breaks through the static.

This time it’s loud enough for me to realize it’s a scream before the static swallows it again.

My stomach is jumping now, and cold sweat mingles with the rain on my skin as I push forward. I’m almost there.

This time it’s a laugh that breaks through, a full-blown cackle that feels like it’s directed straight at me—and mocking my hopes of safely getting out of this hellscape.

When an entity moves past me now, it does more than just slide across my arm or face. It wraps itself around me, spinning me around—once, twice—before undulating away, trailing more of the stardust.

I swallow a scream, but that doesn’t matter because the whole forest suddenly fills with screams breaking through the static all around me, until the sticky air turns into a cacophony of pain and terror that I pull deeper inside my lungs with every inhalation.

The moans turn to laughs—fast and high-pitched and terrifying in a way that has my already upset stomach pitching and rolling inside me.

It’s just the ghosts, Clementine. No big deal. They won’t hurt you, not really.

Another eerie wail, another screeching laugh, break through the discordant buzz that fills the air. Another slither of something—this time against my bare knee.

Cold, followed by more agony. Bigger needles this time, jabbing into me over and over again.

This cut and run is something new and absolutely terrifying.

The pain is worse, yes, but it’s so much more than that.

It’s the constant static creeping inside my head.

The tortured screams that come from nowhere and disappear the same way.

The targeted attacks I can’t run away from no matter how hard I try.

All I can do is push through and try not to falter. But it’s easier said than done.

This time, when the cackles break through the noise, they’re a chorus instead of a single vocalization. They echo around me, filling the air—and my head—as they reach inside me and grab on with razor-sharp claws.

Agony explodes inside me at the first scrape, and that’s it. That’s. It.

Ghosts, flickers, whatever the hell these things are, I’m getting the fuck out of here. Now.

I race through the forest, my feet flying over the uneven terrain as terror turns into a wild beast within me. Only the faster I run, the louder the static—and the shrieks—get. Soon they’re all I can hear as my feet hit the ground over and over again. But then the cold comes back, and so does the strange feeling that I’m ruthlessly being turned inside out. Pain blossoming wherever they touch as the edge of the forest beckons.

I push forward, determined to make it through the sensory assault, determined to make it to—

I scream as pain—bitter and cold—slams into my back like a fist. I have one second of shocked disbelief as the subsequent agony ripples from the back of my head to my heels. And then it’s punching right through me, swallowing every ounce of me for one second, two—turning me into something that doesn’t even feel human anymore—before exploding out the front of me.

I stumble, my breath bellowing in and out like a train whistle. I bend over to brace my hands on my knees as I try to catch my breath and figure out what just happened to me.

But what’s left of my fight-or-flight instinct takes over, and my body propels itself toward the last line of trees in front of me. The moans turn to high-pitched screams all around me, but I don’t stop. I can’t.

I run as hard and as fast as I can, throwing myself out of the trees like a running back throws himself at the goal line, desperate for a win. As I do, one last flicker appears in front of me. I arch backward, determined to avoid it, but it’s too late. I fall straight through a tall, scary woman dressed in black lace. As soon as I touch her, she wraps herself around me, holding me tight as she somehow turns my insides into a vibrating mass of knife-edged molecules.

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