Page 1 of Cruel Riches

Prologue

Alexis

October 18th, 2019

“Come find me, Lexie.”

My neighbor Claire’s voice drifted through the freezing air, calling to me from somewhere on the far end of the Blackthorne campus quad. I squinted to see where she was, but the air was thick with soupy white fog. I could barely see beyond the tip of my own nose.

“Lexie! Help me! He’s here!” Claire’s voice sounded closer now, and her terror was evident.

I started calling out to her, running toward her voice, but when I got to the other side of the quad, the sound was coming from somewhere else. My gait turned sluggish, feet barely able to drag themselves in front of each other. When I looked up again, I realized nothing about this place was real.

I was in a dream.

The world was blurry on the edges, and I couldn’t tell up from down. Earlier, I thought I was on the ground, but the gray sky seemed to be at my feet now.

“Wake up,” I told myself, trying to pinch my arm. “It’s not happening.”

The scene shifted, and I found myself inside Claire’s dorm, staring down at a trail of dirty snowflakes on the floorboards. I had to find her, because I knew something awful had happened to her, but I didn’t know what it was, and I didn’t know how I knew.

I turned to see her broken door hanging open, halfway off its hinges. When I headed outside to the residence hall stairs, I stepped in something cold and wet. Every step was covered in slicks of ice and blood.

I started running, panic spreading through me like blasts of freezing air. I was back in the quad now, and someone was ahead of me, a black shadow in the pale mist.

“Claire!”

I shouted her name over and over, but she didn’t seem to hear me.

I finally caught up to her and grabbed her arm. “Are you okay? Where have you been?” I asked.

She didn’t reply. I frantically waved my hand in her face to get her attention, but she still wouldn’t answer or look at me. She was looking behind me.

I shook her arm. “Claire! What’s wrong?”

“It wasn’t him. It was never him,” she whispered, yanking herself out of my grip. “It’s you.”

I stared at her, aghast. “No, it’s not me. I swear.”

She nodded, eyes bulging with terror. “It’s you, but it isn’t.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, fear and confusion roiling in my stomach. But even as I spoke the words, I knew what she meant. I wasn’t myself. I was taller, stronger, and my hands weren’t my own. They were bigger, with different skin and different nails, but they were somehow still attached to my body.

Claire turned to run away, and I pulled her back. There was a knife in my hand now. A big one. I smiled as the gleaming steel met flesh, sinking deep enough to elicit an agonized howl.

“Why?” Claire managed to croak through lips coated in bubbles of blood.

Her lavender sweater was stained with red and torn in several places now. How many times had I stabbed her already? I couldn’t remember.

I twisted the knife inside her this time, jerking it all the way in until it met hard bone. Her last cry was an anguished shriek mixed with a guttural choking sound.

Crimson cascades splashed up all over me, and as the metallic tang tingled in my mouth and nostrils, I turned around to look at the trees.

There they were. All the other bodies. They hung from the thick branches, dripping blood all over the blanket of snow beneath them.

“Who did this?” I screamed, whirling back around. “It wasn’t me, I swear! It wasn’t me!”

My eyes snapped open.

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