Page 14 of The Nightmare's Kiss

My face dissolves, and the Nightmare twitches. A few spiky tendrils grow out of its shoulders and hips, imitating the way it looked when it threw itself at the glass earlier.

“Yes, like that,” I say. A sense of wonder comes over me. “You really can understand what I’m saying, can’t you?”

The Nightmare lifts one mostly human hand—much larger than mine, ending with curved claws—and presses against the other side of the glass. Its head slowly nods, the motion smoother this time. Like it’s learning alarmingly quickly how to imitate me…or remembering how to be humanoid.

We stay there for a moment. It says nothing, does nothing else, but I feel in my bones that my growing suspicion is right. The things Dr. Wright told me about this subject are not true. It is no mindless monster, or sentience akin to “an average mammal.” It is intelligent, and capable of communication, and just as able to think and feel as I am.

So what does that mean for me?

At home, I can’t stop thinking about subject X-13. The Nightmare. I stay up late, curled in bed and scrolling through endless Wikipedia pages on my phone, trying to learn more about the nature of the monster that I’m studying. Dr. Wright did mention that many of the creatures in the Facility have inspired folklore and urban legends, so surely there must be something out there.

What I find is not encouraging. I end up falling into an endless abyss of new tabs, reading about night terrors and sleep paralysis, demons and shadow people and aliens and djinn. I stare with bloodshot eyes at a painting calledThe Nightmare, momentarily paralyzed by the sight of a horrifying creature crouched on a helpless woman’s chest.

Finally, I tear my eyes away, shut my phone off, and force myself to lie down.

It takes a long, long time to fall asleep. And when I do, I dream again about the Nightmare.

I’m lying in my bed as its lanky humanoid silhouette looms over me. I try to sit up, to speak, to doanything, but I can’t do more than twitch my fingers and my eyes. The Nightmare leans over me, looking down into my face with its blank one, and terror claws at the inside of my chest. I try to writhe or scream, but I can’t. My heart pounds in my ears, and my eyes frantically move back and forth, while the rest of me is paralyzed. A bead of sweat rolls down my forehead and stings my eye, and all I can do is blink it away, breath shuddering.

The figure leans closer, closer, until its shadowy void of a face is only inches from mine. I catch a whiff of something smoky and spicy. A huge hand lifts over my cheek, the tips of curved claws trailing just over my skin. Then the darkness splits into a jagged mouth, and it whispers in a deep, gravelly voice that reverberates in my bones:“Samara.”The sound of my name in its mouth, its faceless attention focused on me, makes me want to run. But I can’t move. It leans in even closer, claws drawing close to my skin and its mouth nearing my ear as it whispers,“Let me out.”

A claw pricks my face, and I scream.

I sit up, heart pumping, body slick with sweat under my tangled sheets. The Nightmare is gone, but my eyes rove the room as my chest heaves, sure I’m about to find it hiding in a corner, or my closet. I even look up at the ceiling just to make sure.

It takes me a good thirty seconds to realize I’m awake now, and another minute to calm down my panicking body.

It seemed soreal. I can still feel the lingering pain where its claw cut into my skin. But what really unnerves me is that there was no clear moment where I went from asleep to awake. Even now that the haze of sleep is clearing from my mind, I feel uncertain. Confused.

It must have been sleep paralysis. That’s why I couldn’t move; my body was still locked in a dream even though I was half awake. I learned all about such episodes in my studies in the sleep lab at university, though I’ve never experienced one myself. But still, even as I rationalize it, there’s a rock of unease sitting heavily in my stomach.

It’s nearly time to wake for work, anyway, so I drag myself out of bed and into the shower. The water washes off my nightmare sweat, and the warmth eases the cold out of my bones. I feel better when I climb out, but then I look into the mirror and frown, swiping a hand across it to clear the fog and take a better look.

There, right on my cheekbone where the Nightmare touched me in my dream, is a small red mark.

9

Chapter Nine

It’s hard to act normal at my observation desk after the terrifying dream I had last night. The mark on my face burns—though I know it must just be a bug bite that sparked the dream, or a place I absently scratched in the shower, it still has me rattled.

There is a war of sensations within me as I watch the Nightmare through the observation window. Suspecting that it’s a great deal more intelligent than I was told, I feel bad that it’s trapped within such a tiny room with so little stimulation, forced to run through boring tests like some kind of lab rat. But I’m also shaken up after that nightmare, and afraid of coming face-to-face with it again, even through the safety panel.

But I’m being ridiculous. It was just a dream. This—even though it feels equally as surreal—is real life. And real life has its own problems to deal with.

Namely, X-13. I’m already starting to question my last interaction with it. Is it possible the subject was just imitating me, and I was tricked? Or, even if it can understand speech to some degree, how smartisit? Dogs and dolphins and apes can understand some words, too, but that doesn’t place them anywhere near a human’s level of intelligence.

But if itisintelligent, like my gut suggests it is… Then what? Did Dr. Wright lie to me, or does she have no clue about the subject’s true nature?

There are too many questions. If the subject does prove to be intelligent, I’ll need to do something about it—whether that’s quitting my job, advocating for better treatment, or what, I’m not sure yet. But first, I need to be damn sure I’m right. Even more than that, I need to have evidence that Dr. Wright and the other higher-ups will respect. And in order to collect evidence, I need to run some tests of my own, without slacking on my normal day-to-day work and getting myself fired before I can find out the truth.

It’s a bit daunting to think about, but it’s also thrilling.Thisis the kind of thing I’d hoped to be doing within the Facility, the kind of thing I’ve always dreamed of doing in some way: making discoveries, uncovering secrets of the mind and the universe. Changing the world.

I never thought it might involve a secret monster research facility and a sentient shadow, but honestly? I can’t complain.

So, after racing through the day’s instructions as quickly as possible and jotting down the requisite notes, I decide to use the hour or so I have left to run some of my own tests. I take down the privacy screen and just like yesterday, the Nightmare comes up to the glass the moment I do. It imitates my face again and then presses a clawed, shadowy hand against the glass, just like before.

I smile, pressing my hand against the pane between us. Maybe I should be terrified by the size of the Nightmare’s hand in comparison to mine, and the curved claws—and I do feel a tingle of fear, remembering the nightmare I had about it last night—but mostly I feel excited at yet another display of intelligence. “That’s right. You remember.”

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