Page 42 of Whisper of Nightmares

She shields her nose.

From over the crook of her elbow, her gaze snags on the nightmare’s face. Its flesh is so thoroughly rotted in places that she can see clear down to the bone. How had she missed such grotesque features before? The first time she encountered the nightmare, she had been within an arm’s reach of it. She should’ve noticed this. Unless something grim happened to the beast since she last saw it?

A brief flicker of empathy comes over Euphemia.

She crushes its down before it has time to breathe.

This creature—this monster—does not deserve her sympathy.

Besides, if it felt any pain from the injuries it’s sustained, it makes no show of it. It simply drinks from the babbling waters, blissfully unaware of the decay eating away at it, let alone Euphemia’s presence.

Most infuriatingly of all, she finds nothing that explains the creature’s presence, nor why it keeps buzzing around her life like an incessant botfly that won’t die.

Euphemia knows she should not venture closer.

Knows how its flames can burn.

She’s about to start her slow and steady retreat when⁠—

The horse’s ear twitches.

Every muscle in Euphemia’s body tenses, a wave of icy cold washing over her.

She doesn’t breathe.

Doesn’t blink.

The beast resumes guzzling the strange waters, and Euphemia is consumed by rage. How intolerably vexing—how unbearably infuriating—for this creature who has burned her father to ashes, stripped their family of their patriarch, and created such immense hardship for all of them, to now be as docile as a field mouse.

She wants to slam her fists against its side. To scream and scream until it becomes its true self again and attacks her, claims her in its flames and condemns her to an early death.

Tears sting her eyes.

Euphemia can’t bring herself to do it.

To provoke the creature would feel too much like giving up. Like throwing away her father’s final sacrifice.

Instead, she glances at the peculiar place around them, noting again the deep shades of purple and vibrant pink she’s only ever seen in the foxglove and helleborine that bloom at the edge of town. Never has she seen such colors permeate her entire surroundings. It’s unnatural. It’s⁠—

Realization hits her like a brick.

This is a dream.

Of course it is. The last thing Euphemia remembers is laying her head down and tumbling swiftly into peace after the dreadful day she’d had.

No wonder the nightmare is behaving abnormally—no wonder everything about this place is eerily wrong. None of it is real. But that also means…

If this is only a dream, then she’ll find no real answers about the nightmare here either. That thought makes her stomach plummet. But she recovers quickly. At least it means the creature poses no real threat either.

The nightmare gives a low sniff of contentedness, as if in reassurance.

Dream or not, she’d rather not chance it.

Euphemia takes one slow step back when the air turns colder. Arctic, even. Her breath not only clouds before her, but it becomes fractals of ice, the small snowflakes drifting up into the sky like snow falling backward. As she watches them float, she also watches the hue bleed from the sky. Gone are the rich shades of purple. In their place, blackness descends.

The flaming horse rears, demanding her attention, and she turns just as its hooves strike the rocky earth.

Panic clutches her chest. “Not again…”