Art by James Fenner (@JMFenner91 on Twitter)

After Timmy and his friends were gone, the effects of whatever it was that had taken over me in that alley wore off and I staggered back home without thinking much of what had happened. I collapsed in my bed and was out the second my head hit the pillow.

On that same night, I had a dream unlike any other I had before...

I was in my bedroom in the dream, and it was dark outside, the moon barely giving any light to the room. When I blinked awake, I saw that Erebus was there, sitting by the end of the bed, watching me. I touched the bracelet that was still on my wrist. I hadn't taken it off when I went to sleep and now he had come to visit me again.

I sat up slowly and leaned against the headboard, trying to adjust my eyes to the dark. It was weird seeing him like that, so vividly real in my bedroom and not in the forest, where he usually appeared to me.

He wasn't wearing his long regal mantle, he only had a black cotton shirt and black pants on. His feet were also black as if dipped in charcoal, as were the tips of his toes and fingers. He watched me in silence for a moment before speaking.

"You've been gone for a long time." He broke the silence, eyes glinting eerily in the dark of the room. "You need to come back."

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I didn't know what to say to him. I didn't know how to tell him that I may never go back to that forest. Every time I thought about returning, my whole body recoiled in response, the horrors of the carnage I endured the last time I was there still burning freshly in my head.

"I am always there, Erebus. Every night, in my dreams... I can't seem to get out of that forest. My mind is stuck there, it seems. I can't get out." I told him, sounding defeated and so damn exhausted.

He just stared at me, in silence.

"You're not talking about dreams... You mean I have to physically go there." I concluded. "I'm not going back, sorry."

Still staring he remained, still in silence, still watching.

There was a pregnant pause as we locked eyes, too many unsaid things hovering above, thickening the air between us.

"But I can't stay here either," I confessed with a sigh. "My presence makes people uncomfortable now. They are all scared of me. I know I am not welcome in this village anymore, but... I don't know where to go." I huffed out, passing a distressed hand over my head. "Maybe I'll just turn into one of these wanderers types, always traveling from place to place, never staying for too long... Maybe that's what I should do."

"No. You cannot wander away," he said abruptly. "Not after what I had done."

I felt a pang of guilt after hearing him. I knew I'd never thanked him for saving my life. I should have gone to Redwood to do this in person after I was healed, but I've never felt healed. Not completely. Still... I should have gone and thanked him for what he'd done. I should have, but I never did.

"Sounds like you're here to collect a favor," I said in a cautious tone, trying not to sound harsh. "I am grateful for what you did, Erebus. But I didn't ask for you to do it."

"You did not." He replied, dark eyes boring into mine. "But a deal was still made. And every deal has a cost."

"And you think I have to pay now. I have to go back because I owe you."

"You do not owe me, but there's still a price to pay." He replied in a mournful tone. "There is nowhere for you to go, but back to me. Can't you see? You need to come back and see." He said, leaning closer to me.

He looked the most beautiful I've ever seen, dark, ethereal, and full of sorrow.

"Here we go again with this..." I huffed out, forcing myself to be irritated instead of enthralled by his beauty. "You and your riddles. What am I going to see, Erebus? Why do you want me back so badly? Can't you just tell me? Can't you be honest with me for once?"

He shifted on the mattress and averted his eyes, seeming hesitant. "It is not something that can be spoken about. It needs to be seen. And felt."

I shook my head. "That's not it. There's something else you're not telling me. Something you don't want me to know. I know you long enough to see when you are plotting. And when you are lying. Right now, you are doing both."

He remained silent, not agreeing but not denying either.

"You are hiding something from me." I pressed on. "I can feel it. I can feel what is not being said. It's like a hole... in your words. In your meaning. Something is missing. Something crucial. What is it? What are you not telling me?"

He watched me for a moment as I jutted my jaw out and glared at him, letting him know I wasn't going to let this go. We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, and then he finally let out a defeated sigh as he hunched down his shoulders in resignation. "It might be hard for you to understand." He warned.

"Try me," I said, resolute.

"You have some of me in you," he confessed at last.

"I w-what?" I asked, confused.

"That night in the forest... you were wounded badly," he tried to explain. "The damage was too severe. You were going to die."

"Yes. I recall that." I said, placing a hand protectively over my chest.

"I had to act. Or leave you to die," he continued. "I didn't want you to die. So I put some of me in you."

"W-what? H-how?"

"You have a piece of me in you. It is what's keeping you alive." He told me, watching me with worry. "I am sure you can sense it, the dark inside you? It is why you feel different now."

"Oh," I murmured, slightly in shock. "You gave me a piece of you so I wouldn't die," I repeated, incredulous. "A-and now you want it back?"

"No. I do not want it back." He corrected me. "What I gave to you is yours to keep, if you wish to do so. But you need to come back, Aydan. It is for your own good."

"Why? Is this about the nightmares? Is it why I'm having them all the time now?" I asked, my mind racing with too many questions jumping all at once.

"It might be changing the contents of your dreams, yes." He answered, sounding unsure. "It might give you glimpses and visions of what it was, what will come, and what it could be. It will expand your sensitivities to the unnatural world, you might be able to see what lies hidden within the shadows..."

It took me a while to unpack everything he was telling me, it was a lot to process in such little time. When I spoke again, it was with a mix of denial and defiance that my words came wrapped in.

"So what if it gives me visions? I don't care about seeing things in the shadows." I lied because some of the things I'd been seeing were truly horrifying.

"The problem is not that you can see them. It is that they can see you back," he explained, still sounding very worried. "These are all suppositions though, I cannot predict all the effects it will have on you. This hasn't been done before. Not by me, at least. You might feel changes, but I do not know what they will be."

"Well, that's okay," I mumbled, still in denial. "Sometimes change is for the better. Maybe change is exactly what I need in my life right now. I'll be fine."

He sighed and lowered his head, making his dark hair fall softly over his eyes. "You don't understand, Aydan. If you don't return... It won't end well for you." He brushed his hair back and off his eyes. "This part of me that you have was not meant to exist outside the Red Forest. It was not meant for you to carry for so long or so far away from sacred grounds. It will cause more harm than do you good now."

The air in the room felt stifled and dense with tension, the heaviness of his warnings pressing down on me like an anvil.

"What kind of harm?" I asked in a scared whisper.

It took him a minute to answer, and when he did, his voice was filled with much concern and regret. "One thing I know for sure... it will corrupt and break you, from the inside out. It will scorch your mind, slowly and relentlessly, until it is burned to the ground. With enough time... it will make you go insane." he told me, glancing up to meet my eyes. "And that is only the beginning of your suffering. It will also change the fabric of your soul. In the end... it will change you entirely. It will change who you are. That is why you need to come back. Outside the forest's grounds, the dark has nothing to restrain it. It will roam freely in you. And take you over, completely."

"It's that bad, huh?" I asked quietly.

He averted his eyes before replying. "It will be a great torment, yes."

"Yeah, I know..." I confessed with a tired sigh. It had been a great torment already. "If I go back... will you be able to take it off me?"

"I can try, but... if I do, there's a chance you might not make it," he said as straightforwardly as he could. "You might not survive without it. It's what's holding you together. If I take it away, it could all fall apart. You could fall apart."

"Oh," I said in a shaky exhale.

"It is a risk. You must be aware of it," he said in earnest.

"It's not a risk, it's what will happen. I can feel it. In my soul." I told him, lowering my head in defeat.

"It might not." He tried to console me. "There's still a chance, if but small."

"No, just stop. Stop pretending. Stop giving me hope." I shook my head and tried to swallow the bitterness of my mouth. "It's just that... I can't go back, okay? If I go back, I..." I trailed off, choking on the last words. "I-I can't..." I gripped my bed, fingers digging into the mattress, trying to find some support to ground me. I felt his gentle hand resting lightly on my shoulder.

"I don't know if I'm ready to die again," I confessed in a frail whisper to the dark in the room. You could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed.

"Not coming back is worse, Aydan. Believe me," he said, placing his hand now on top of mine on the mattress. "You shouldn't have left. You need to come back. Please."

I yanked my hand from his and stood abruptly. "Why did you even toss me out of the forest then? If you were just gonna force me to come back later? I don't get it. None of this makes sense!" I snapped at him, pacing back and forth in the room like a caged animal, still resisting the idea of having to go back to just... die all over again.

"I didn't toss you out," he said curtly. "You got out on your own. Sleepwalked out of there when I wasn't looking. And then you were out of limits and I couldn't follow." He was trying to maintain a calm tone, even though there was a sharp edge underneath his words now. "And I am not forcing you to come back. You are free to do as you wish."

I stopped pacing and turned to him. "Why did you do it then? Why did you have to go and save me if you knew you'd have to take it back and kill me all over again?" I lashed out, throwing the accusation at his face. "Why did you do this to me? What kind of sick, cruel torture is this? Is this just another one of your games? Are you still playing me?" I shouted, angry.

I was scared. I didn't want to go back. I didn't want to die. I didn't want to go insane either. I was cornered and afraid, my head spinning and chest aching. I just wanted to snarl and bite back like a wounded animal, lashing out at anyone who got too close.

He lowered his head and took a deep breath. "You could come back... And we leave the part of me in you. We leave it as it is. It will stop hurting then." He offered one last option, one that I wouldn't even dare to consider out loud. "But the power in me, it will live in you too. It might still affect you in some small way, maybe even change you somehow a little, but... you will live."

"Affect me in some way?" I scoffed at him, bristling indignantly. "You mean, I can still turn into a murdering sadistic freak of a monster, just like you? Is that the 'small change' you're talking about?"

The temperature in the room dropped abruptly, freezing cold, just like the expression on his face. "This has not been pleasant to me either, Aydan," he said, his tone razor sharp, slashing out at me and cutting deep. "Part of me is missing, you know. It's gone. The piece of me that you have... I can feel it, aching in you. It hurts me too. It hurts me not to have it anymore. It hurts me, all of the time." He slowly rose from the bed and walked towards the door. "You are right about one thing though..." He stopped by the door with his back to me, so I couldn't see his face, but I could hear him well, and when he spoke again, his voice was unyielding and unforgiving. "I shouldn't have saved your life."

He pulled the door of my room open, preparing to leave and I lost the little shred of control I had left in me. "You know what?! Fuck you, Erebus!!" I spat out in rage. "You are a vile monster! I curse the moment I talked to you on that trail! How stupid I am to think you care about me!" I shouted, furious. "I see how it is, I can see through your tricks, remember? You've made your perfect trap here. I can't escape you this time. No matter what I do, you fucking win, and I fucking lose. I fucking hate you!!"

He whipped around so fast I could barely see him moving, and then he was already on me, grabbing me by the throat and dragging me back until my back slammed violently against the wall. He tightened his grip around my neck, fingers burying into me slowly, constricting like a hangman's rope, making me gasp for air.

"And I hate you too." He growled, his nose pressing against mine, face an inch away from me.

My eyes widened in shock and surprise at seeing him pinning me against the wall with such force. I thought that this was just another one of his dream-like visions, fabricated by the bracelet I was wearing when I fell asleep. But this was nothing like any of his past visits when his presence always felt short of a whisper, frail to the touch, and almost intangible. His hands on me were strong now, and very real. Painfully so.

He locked eyes with me and guessed what I was thinking. "You have a piece of me in you, remember? I can do a lot more now. I can become a lot more." He pressed his whole body against mine, making no room for escape. "I can be more than a frail whisper in your head. I can do whatever your heart desires now."

He stared me down with eyes ablaze, seething fury burning inside, and when my eyes flickered to his mouth, even though it was fast like lightning, he saw it. He saw what I was thinking. He felt what I was feeling too.

He gave a wicked smile before crushing his lips on mine, taking the air out of my lungs and the ache out of my heart with vindictive hunger. He kissed me again and again, sharp teeth biting and hot tongue invading, his hard body pressing mine without mercy, sharp nails digging into my back, locking me in, leaving me bruised, pulsing, and bleeding in its wake.

And I kissed him back with the same need and craving that he was kissing me, rough and raw and blistering scorching before I ripped off his clothes and he ripped off mine, like two desperate animals clawing madly at each other.

It all happened so fast. Or unbearably slow, I couldn't tell the difference anymore. Time was a mere concept, passing us by in fragmented distorted moments, like flashes in a broken mirror, or memories of a drunken maddening haze...

It was a violent delight, a nightmare within a dream, and hope born out of despair as he held onto me with ink-dipped talons and unmerciful starved lips. And then there was the dark in him, embracing me while it tore me apart, blackthorns digging in and claws shredding through my flesh as he took me, his need and longing spilling into me, filling me whole until I was drowning in immeasurable pleasure and pain.

He was all around me, underneath and on top of me, inside and out... and I was lost in him, sinking deep, disappearing in the dark. He was everywhere, taking over every part of me until there was nothing left of me to see.

There was only the dark remaining.

...

https://youtu.be/ASu8C78KhKM

Song: Killing me to Love You by Vancouver Sleep Clinic