SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 39

Chapter Thirty Nine

Running.

I was running. My arms swung and my legs pumped, the world blurring blindingly as I ran through the dark, hair blasted off my face, my breathing high and fearful. Sweat coated my limbs and my pulse thundered in my throat as I fled through the dark.

"Aeriiiin!"

I skipped to a halt and froze, hair flying forward, then slowly turned around.

Tiffany was standing there, surrounded by nothing, but illuminated as if it were the brightest time of day. She smiled, manically, laughing like a madwoman as her bones cracked, arms and neck jerking, breaking, her petite body changing into a hideous beast.

"Aerin," she called, blood spilling from her mouth. "Aerin."

I whimpered and turned to bolt in the opposite direction, but was halted by the sight of Richard, cracking and jerking, already partially transformed into a monster. His fur was the color of old spider webs and the scars that marred his face had grown even longer and more grotesque.

I spun on my heel and bolted away, hair flying, running through the dark, faster, I would not be caught by those... things. My elongated legs burned and I started to feel as though I were slowing. I made a turn too sharp and suddenly there was light, and I was tumbling down a snowy slope. Bone chilling howls filled the air and the darkness grew thick around me.

There were sounds of snapping twigs and growling and I tried to get up, but I was frozen, unable to move, every limb and joint locked up in terror. Sebastian appeared, with his stormy yellow eyes, but something was amiss, he was stuck in between a wolf and a man, coarse hair covering his body, his limbs bent at awkward angles.

His face was a horrifying sight, where lips should have been there was a long muzzle with jagged bloody teeth, and no cheek or skin covered his mouth. Hellish eyes blazed at me from sunken sockets.

"I saved your life!" he growled, voice distorted and heavy, more like an animal snarling than a man speaking, and it no longer had the tone that I had become familiar with. I tried to back away, but a tree blocked my path, and I was no longer clothed. My nakedness scared me even more.

"Something the matter, pretty boy? I thought you said I was handsome?" he mocked; laughter barked from his throat as he grabbed for my shoulder, but it wasn't Sebastian's face anymore, it was a face I didn't recognize, one I couldn't see, distorted, but smiling, smiling in a way that had terror shooting through my soul, my core, my heart, flooding me and making everything ripple.

Shadowy hands reached out to my neck, and my heart lurched.

I was trapped, cornered, buried under a wall of fear unlike anything I'd ever before experienced, and those hands.... those vile hands! They were on me again, I could feel them, they were...

No.

No!

"NO!" I screamed, eyes flying open at the sensation of two strong palms clutching my shoulders; I flailed in blind terror, fighting through the pain that rocketed through my head and letting out a strangled set of cursing screeches. "GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME!"

I beat, I kicked, I screamed, I bit, I did everything I could to get those vile hands off me, I had to get them off, or... or... what?

What was happening?

My entire body went still in an instant and delirious confusion swept through me, muddling my thoughts, making me feel gummy and only half awake. I stopped attacking the hands holding me down, breathing hard and fast, wondering in stupid confusion why I was so afraid and what it was that I was even afraid of.