Page 2 of Snatched By the Sandman

But when he slowly turns his head, revealing the skull where his face should be, woven with black veins and etched with eldritch symbols like forgotten nightmares, my heart screams in my mind. A crown of bones, fused with gold and obsidian, rests upon his hood. Dark and glimmering orbs hang in his eye sockets like two suspended black moons going on for eternity.

Time freezes, the edges of the world unraveling at the very seams as I gaze up at this dark king, awe and terror consuming me. He eclipses me, embodying dread and seduction. Both disturbing and exquisite, full of raw power, he transcends the confines of all worlds.

My spine locks up, and I brace myself for some malignant action. My life snuffed out in a moment. The memory of the scent of death makes my skin crawl.

“You are not meant to be hunted here, strange girl.” Oh! His voice echoes like distant thunder. I can’t say I’ve ever been attracted to a corpse-like reaper, but there’s a first time for everything. Rule 34 is so not playing in my mind right now.

A cacophony of haunting whispers fills the air, signaling the approach of the faceless chasers. His focus snaps to them.

In the blink of an eye, he passes through me like a beautiful ghost, raising all the hairs on my skin. Is he going to suck my soul from my body? Perhaps it won’t be too horrible from such a violent and beautiful god.

Heat overthrows me, flaring between my thighs, smoldering my blood, and awakening my adrenaline. His energy allures me with the highs I’ve chased all my life and the dark force of theabyss that burrowed into my soul while I was still in the womb. I’ve never felt such a torrent of fire and ice.

A sudden wind flows through him, surging his robe with the fabric like black, writhing serpents. He absorbs all the shadows, rising taller, consuming all light until he is the definition of celestial darkness. The faceless ones shudder as if devoured by a dark storm.

He raises his bone skull, those black moons igniting with blood. Not like flames but actual streams of swirling blood branching out like a network of scarlet roots. Bone dust fuses with the blood roots. Then, a fearsome roar erupts from his being.

I slam my hands over my poor, bleeding ears, feeling the scream shaking the ground and sending seismic activity through every bone in my body. Rattling me. It’s a thunderous proclamation of his dominion.

The faceless ones recoil, their shapeless bodies quivering in terror. The King advances, his presence a force of nature, each step radiating an intensity that burns with primal fury. Fury on my behalf.

With a final, commanding growl, he unleashes those bone-dusted, bloody roots. They surge forward, a tidal force that smites the faceless ones with irresistible power.

Unable to withstand his might, the faceless ones retreat, disintegrating into wisps of shadow—banished by the King’s supremacy. The air grows still again.

I can breathe again—even if my breath is a windstorm in my ears.

When he turns to me again, those black orbs gaze at me with an intensity that sends shivers down my spine.

The left side of my body, covered in deathly symbols, seems to pulsate. Nightmarish thoughts creep into my mind. A corpseso lovely drifting along a black sea. Dark lullabies. Dolls with broken faces. Breath-smothering spiderwebs.

He steps closer, gifting me with that same intoxicating pull. Kaleidoscopic prisms of light burst in my belly. Falling stars shatter to heat the space between my thighs. Feather-like tingles tickle my skin and senses.

The dark Wonderland I’ve entered is his domain, and somehow, I’m irrevocably bound to him, drawn to the haunting power that both terrifies and enthralls me.

He’s the ultimate anti-depressant with a sinister edge. It calls to some deep, morbid place inside me, awakening desires I’ve never known.

An irresistible drug. And well, I have a needle fetish.

So, when he starts to turn away, I scramble to my feet.

“Wait! What’s your name?” I ask, breathlessly.

The jawbone of his skull seems to harden. “Nyxion,” he says, his voice like dark velvet, lyrical but malevolent that pulls up goosebumps on my skin. “And you, Zenya Alice Myre, should run away. Run far far away…before you meet your death,little killer.”

Feminine fury seethes through me. But I don’t correct him. Because…there’s nothing to correct.

The mouth of his skull lifts, seeming to smile. I tilt my head. He tilts his, much more of a predator while I might as well be a blinking little firefly. No, he’s the fire. A great pillar of flame. And I’m a hapless, little moth!

A sense of effervescence takes over. A tingling on the left side of my body. And the smoldering molten heat returns to my center.

I laugh and laugh and laugh. Like a sweet, mad Alice. Because I stared death in the face every day of my life. And survived.

So, when he walks away from me, I make the sign of a finger gun, stab myself with an imaginary needle, and follow the ultimate addiction and walking carnival of horrors right inside the doors of his castle.

Chapter 2

“Through me, you will dream. Through you, I will awaken.”

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