Nightfall

Chapter One// Falling

For what can haunt

In the grips of sleep?

For what can touch

In the dark of dreams?

Other than fear

With the face of a

Nightmare.

~

TO NO ONE’S SURPRISE, Evelynn Greyson wakes up with a scream.

She gasps for breath as shes struggles to tear the twisted sheets away from her body. Sweat matts her long dark brown hair to her forehead and neck and causes her cotton PJs to cling to her body. Heart racing in her chest and adrenaline pumping through her veins like liquid fire, Eve buries her face into her shaking hands, trying to get herself to calm down.

“It’s just a dream,” her hoarse voice whispers as it does every morning. She takes a deep breath, as if air is the solution to peace of mind. “Just a dream.”

Pulling away her trembling fingers, Eve slowly opens her eyes to the darkness of her room. Her sheets lay in a mangled heap to the side of her empty bed, pillows strewn across the small width of the room. The door to the rest of the house is cracked, letting in a small, but bright fragment of light across the carpeted floor. To her right, the alarm clock’s digital numbers flash a blinking red– 4:17 am. Eve absentmindedly flicks off the seven o'clock alarm; she’d never slept that late before in her life anyways.

Through the window, the moon shines high and bright in the sky; a silver orb against the starless black of night. Eve gazes in wonder as small snowflakes stick to the glass, melting into teardrops that glide down the window until they drip off the edge. The trees that line the street are bare in the wintertime, their thin branches weighed down by the glistening snow. It seems as if only a week ago, to Eve, that the leaves were turning red, and yesterday, that they were falling dead and brown to the ground. I guess time flies, Eve thinks, when one is insane.

With composer regained, Eve climbs off her bed and digs her toes into the carpet. Peeling off her damp clothes and tossing them on the floor, she grabs sweats and her winter coat from her thin closet. After changing quickly, she walks quietly through the hallway, pausing by her parents bedroom where she could hear their sleepy, shallow breathing from under the door. As she ties her tennis shoes, Eve wonders what it would feel like to run in the snowfall.

Less than ten minutes later, and her feet are pounding the empty street, not a car in sight in the town of Stonesage, Oregon; after all, who would be venturing the small town in the middle of the night? Snowflakes bite her chilled skin, and her steady breathing fogs the cold air.

Eve welcomes the icy numbness as she runs. For once, the images of her nightmares aren’t clouding her mind. In fact, she can barely remember her dream from the night before.

A quick movement to her right catches Eve’s eye. A raven, black as night, settles to a stop on the wiry branch of a tree lining the road. Opening its sharp, silver beak, the raven lets out a bone-chilling screech that sends shivers down Eve’s spine.

Slowing to a stop, Eve walks nearer to the bird, narrowing her eyes. A sudden feeling of uneasiness grips her heart like a fist. Something is not right. Not normal. The raven’s feathers have an oily sheen to them yet are soft in plumage; nothing unusual for a bird of prey, and certainly not what makes Eve’s blood chill.  In fact, the creature looks perfectly ordinary. Yet as its feathers shift and its neck swivels to face Eve, she can barely hold in her gasp of horror.

For where the raven’s eyes are supposed to be are open, bleeding sockets.

Eve stumbles backward with a cry, the heel of her shoe catching on the sidewalk and sending her sprawling back into the street. Pavement scuffs her bare hands, and she can only stare with a withheld scream as the raven flies down from its branch, landing gracefully in her lap. Its beak that Eve now realizes is razor sharp parts, letting out a shriek that sounds like an eerily human laugh.

”Don’t you get it, girl?” The raven screeches, beak clicking mechanically as it speaks. Blood runs like gory teardrops down its face, clumping its feathers together. ”You will never be able to run from your fears.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Eve gasps, voice cracking.

The raven cackles, throwing its head back. ”You will be.”

Before Eve can part her lips to scream, another raven lands on her shoulder, tangling in her loose hair. With a start, she tries to slap the new bird off her, but its knife-like claws dig into the flesh of her neck, sending sharp pain spiraling through her veins. Swallowing the choking lump in her throat, she finally lets out cry.

As if her voice was a signal, the clouds covering the moon part, and a torrent of black wings and beaks come spiraling down upon Eve. Black feathers seem to be everywhere; pulling her hair, tickling her injured neck, slipping down her throat– gagging her. The ravens peck at her eyes, digging in no matter how hard she squeezes them shut. She throws up her arms in defense, but they do nothing as the bird’s claws attack her clothes, tearing apart her coat and slicing her pants. In painful delirium, Eve hardly notices when the fabric is shreds, and the claws are now ripping apart her skin.

In the frenzy of birds and wings, Eve feels her body go limp, now warm and covered with her own blood. The only thought running through her scattered mind is that she is drowning, sinking through the pavement and into blackness. Drowning and falling.

Falling, falling, falling...

~

“EVELYNN!”

Eve’s eyes open with a start, her body thrashing on the carpet of her bedroom floor. As if she were choking, immediately she doubles over and starts gasping for air, coughing terribly when her throat burns. Her arms and legs shake uncontrollably, and tears she didn’t know she was shedding stream down her cheeks like rivers. Her heart is pounding so hard it hurts, and images of birds tearing her skin open blurs her mind with an abstract terror.

“Eve!” Suddenly, her world is being shaken, and it takes her a startled moment to recognize her mother’s wide-eyed, stricken face above her; thin eyebrows narrowed with worry. Her hands grip Eve’s shoulders, and the touch is soothing in the way one might hold tight to a skittish animal to calm it down. “It was a dream, sweetie,” she whispers gently, bundling her daughter’s long dark hair in her fingers. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

Eve rests her head against her mom’s shoulder, letting herself cry. Her mother holds her as she sobs until finally, her tears run dry and her body stops shaking. And when it is so quiet that only a fragment of her haunted voice is heard, Eve whispers, “But it wasn’t. It wasn’t a dream.”