The Nightmare Devourer

Althea Liu

Chapter 1 What Nightmares May Come

"You must be the luckiest girl in New York City!"

"What?" I yelled across the length of the packed 7 train.

"I heard from Jon that you are doing the Million interview!"

"Is that a good thing?"

"Million is only like the hottest singer in recent history."

"I've never heard of him."

Was Kimberly kidding? Was I interviewing the hottest singer in history? I had never even heard of him until three hours ago.

There was no time to finish our chat. The train doors opened at the Times Square stop, and I jumped onto the platform.

I wanted to talk to Kimberly some more, but there wasn't time. I was running late for the interview. Kim and I were on the volleyball team together, and she had never taken an interest in the school journalism staff before. Jonathan Peters, our editor-in-chief, had hastily texted me that afternoon during our Art Appreciation lecture that he had tested positive for COVID and needed someone to cover an article today. He knew I hadn't been pulling my weight in the paper lately because I'd been so busy with my volleyball meets.

Who tests themselves for COVID right before a huge interview?

Or hands it off to a girl who didn't listen to pop music?

I tried to walk and google Million at the same time. I knew he was a singer and I was supposed to meet him in a 3rd-floor conference room in 3 Times Square at precisely 4:00 pm. His real name was Mathew Chu, but he went by the stage name "Million." His music had been described as a mix of Marilyn Manson meets Justin Beiber. His costumes were theatrical, and his dreamy eyes were always outlined with an ungodly amount of blue eyeliner.

I never felt more out of place than inside the sleek glittery Swarovski diamond of a building whose address I needed to double-check three times. I was ushered into the VIP elevators at 3 Times Square and taken up to the conference rooms on the third floor. One of Million's people, a pretty girl wearing a black perfectly fitted suit, was waiting for me when the elevator doors opened.

"Ms.Rimon of the Gotham University Daily?" She asked with a smile sweeter than Oishii strawberries.

"Yes!" I gasped in relief. It was 4:05. I wasn't usually late, but it had been a long day of classes, and I was operating on about three hours of sleep. Ms. Oishii didn't have the patience for small talk. She spun around on her designer heels and bid me to follow her down the spotless hallway. I tugged at the frayed edges of my GAP sweater and wished I had the decency to put on jeans without holes in them that morning.

"He is heading out to the club soon. You don't have much time."

"I-I know," I stammered. "I don't need much. Just a quote or two."

There were a group of boys milling about a room overlooking Times Square. They were all more handsome than the last, but I was directed to a couch beside a boy who was clearly the head honcho of the group. He had the sharpest chin and the best skin out of all of them. I knew he was Million, even though he looked nothing like the photo on Wikipedia.

I sat at the edge of the couch even though I was in no danger of suffocating him or even touching him, for that matter. I did it because I wanted to stress that I was a normal person, not some crazed fangirl who was having palpitations from breathing the same air as His Holiness. I hoped that some degree of normalcy meant he would forgive me for not having heard his music.

"I'm Claire, from the Gotham University paper. I know I'm late. I don't need much. Do you have time for one question?"

"You can have two," Million offered and flashed a beautiful white smile in my direction. His smile didn't quite reach his eyes, but at least he wasn't mad at me for being late.

"Where do you get your ideas? Your music is so different from the pop music we're used to hearing."

I had no idea what pop music usually sounded like. It was a harmless question that I was eager to take down a feel-good, PR-approved answer for. I was here to report for a school newspaper, not to ask hard-hitting Pulitzer-winning questions.

"From dreams," Million replied with a smile hinting slightly at darker tidings. "I guess the more accurate term is — nightmares. Nightmares aren't always a bad thing. Sometimes they reveal the hopes and desires that are hidden even to our own selves. You understand, right? Do you have nightmares, Clara?"

I laughed because I was sure he asked the last part only to be polite. This was an interview. I was supposed to be asking the questions.

"Of course. All the time. That's why I have these circles under my eyes." I meant it to be a joke, but he didn't laugh. Million nodded gravely as though he was pitying me for not having perfect, movie star skin like silk woven by the angels from the rays of the morning sun. "Any particular nightmare that you want to tell us about?"

"Stairs without end, that lead nowhere. A window that I can't move away from," Millioned laughed awkwardly as though he had just blurted out something which he immediately regretted. "And you?"

"Sometimes I dream about running through a maze, trying to escape a beast. Sometimes it's a white tiger. Sometimes it's a red bear. Sometimes, it is a monster with parts of both animals."

"Does it ever catch you?"

"No, not yet."

"Maybe there's a person you're trying to avoid. Perhaps, it's me." Million chuckled and flicked his wrist to look at his watch. "We have to go now. Let's talk about this at the bar. You'll join us at the Cloud Lounge?"

"Y-yes."

"Good. See you there."

Ms. Oishii tapped me on the shoulder to signal that the interview was over. I smiled and bowed my head at the boys in the room. Then it occurred to me that the gesture was Japanese, and none of the boys knew what I was doing. I jumped up and ran out of the room, only to realize that even though the interview was low-effort on my part, Million had babbled on about gibberish. I needed a better quote from him to make Jonathan happy. If I showed up with some line about stairs that led nowhere, he'd think I spent the afternoon smoking weed in my dorm room.

"Will I be able to join you at the party this evening?" I asked Ms. Oishii as she led me back to the elevators.

"Yes, just give them your name at the door, and they'll give you a press pass." Her tone was much more exasperated than when she welcomed me here just ten minutes ago. Perhaps, she could see by now that our little amateur college newspaper hadn't even had the decency to send their best reporter.

As the metallic doors closed behind me, I sighed in relief to be out of there.

Luckiest girl in the world, indeed, Kimberly. More like the most incompetent and confused.

I barely got enough material during that interview to fill a paragraph. I had to find Million at the bar and finish up. Didn't he promise me at least two questions? I felt as though I barely got half of one in.

Chapter 2 - A Stranger

The party at the Cloud Lounge was in full swing by the time I arrived about an hour later. I had been here before with friends from school, but the bar was packed to the limit tonight. It was impossible to move anywhere without brushing against a sweaty body or taking in a lungful of beer-laden breath. I could barely hear myself think above the blaring music. That was if it could be called music. It was just scratchy static and thumping bass.

Even with my press pass, there was no way I was getting anywhere close to Million. He had long since been snatched away to the VIP zone on the second floor. I wondered if I had the gall to talk my way past the security guards stationed by the stairwell.

No, I decided to hang out by the bar and see if they let anyone else up first. Maybe I could hang onto a more prestigious publication and pretend as though I were part of the New York Times or something more respectable than a college paper.

I sat and stared at the stairs. No one was being let upstairs. Dammit. The bartender made eye contact with me several times and seemed on the verge of shooing me away from the bar's edge.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

"What?"

I spun around to see a boy leaning against the bar behind me. He had somehow emerged from the waves of fleshy bodies behind me while I wasn't looking. Ordinarily, I would immediately run for the nearest women's restroom when some frat boy or wall street bro tried to offer me a drink. I wasn't twenty-one yet, although I've had my share of secret dorm room beer parties in my day. I was almost twenty-one, and like all kids in New York City who could pass as twenty-one, I had a Canal Street fake ID that said I was at least twenty-three. I had used that to get into the bar today.

"Do you want a drink?" He yelled, even though I heard him the first time. I took a good look at him. Now, this was a boy who defiantly didn't sneak in here with a fake ID. He was taller than the boys I knew from school. He filled out that grey T-shirt in a way that only a man in his mid-twenties could. I estimated his age to be mid-twenties because even though he was built like a guy who fought in backwater boxing rings for a living, his eyes shone with a youthful uncertainty. His question wasn't snide or haughty like the crazy, drugged-out bankers who usually populated these bars.

Black curly hair, a chiseled jawline, soft brown eyes. He had the face of a boy who seemed to have been born with a natural spotlight that radiated from within. Being here in Manhattan, I was surprised he hadn't been discovered by a modeling agency yet. God knows I couldn't take my eyes off him. Forget the drink. He could have sold me the dirty sneakers on his feet and told me they were Gucci.

"Just name it," he repeated and waved the bartender over.

"A seltzer water."

"A gin and tonic?" He asked with a mischievous grin on his face. Oh, he heard me correctly the first time, but he wasn't going to let me off easy. I couldn't explain why I could hear him above the noise in the bar and why I was certain he could hear me too. Ordinarily, I was horrible at enunciating, even without having to scream over a hurricane of noise. Behind him was a sea of excited and drunk twenty-something-year-olds singing along to the music. I assumed the music was one of Million's hits.

"Two gin and tonics, please," the boy told the bartender, who nodded and disappeared before I could protest. The man returned in only a few seconds with an opaque glass in each hand. Did he have that drink premade?

I politely sipped from my cup. The boy in the gray t-shirt moved closer. Now that I had drunk his offering, he was making himself comfortable around me. He blocked me off from the rest of the crowd. I wondered if it was like the myth of Persephone and Hades, where I belonged to him after drinking his gift of a gin and tonic. The rest of the club seemed to disappear, and all I could see was this angelic boy towering over me.

It's funny how I didn't feel the need to run away. Any other night, any other boy, I would have come to my senses and fled.

That night, I didn't.

I couldn't explain it. I had a dream the night before that seemed to fill me with a different kind of energy. Dreams were funny things, weren't they? They could make you miss people you've never met, fear events that would never happen, and even feel safe in the presence of a familiar stranger you just met by a dark, sticky bar counter.

It was as though my naturally anxious self had been forced to stay by a memory that my waking self couldn't, for the life of me, remember.

"What's your name?" He asked.

"Claire."

"I'm Leiron. You can call me Lee if you want."

I wanted to scuff. Did Leiron think we were on nickname terms just because I sipped his drink?

"Do you often pick up girls here?"

"No. I'm actually horrible with women."

I rolled my eyes, but I doubted he saw me. The strobe lights were on, and I could barely see past the edge of my nose.

"That's a beautiful name. I can't help but think we've met before. Do you come here a lot?" Leiron chewed on his bottom lip as though he was struggling to remember. "Last Tuesday! You were dancing on that table upstairs and wearing a red dress."

I shook my head and nearly spat out a mouthful of gin. That was insane. Did I look like the type of girl who would do such a thing? Here I was in my oversized sweater that was the color of moss green. No, not moss green. It was the color of the blobs of poop the Central Park horses left behind. It was as far from red as any color in the world could possibly be. I don't think I owned a single piece of clothing that wouldn't camouflage with the books at Gotham University library. That was where I spent most of my time when I wasn't in class. Surely, I wouldn't be caught dead at a bar on a Tuesday night.

"No, that must have been someone else. I would never do something like that."

"Oh?" Leiron asked and seemed to grin mischievously. "Are you sure? You ran off when I tried to speak to you."

Oh, pretty boy, you're barking up the wrong tree.

"No, I'm sure I wouldn't have run," I joked. I wondered if the alcohol was clouding my thoughts. My hand found Leiron's shoulder, and I punched him playfully. I just wanted to touch that gorgeous shoulder of his, just once. "You mean you couldn't outrun a girl in a skimpy red dress and high heels to get her number? How embarrassing."

Leiron laughed, and then his eyes turned serious. He leaned in so close that I could smell the scent of his body wash. I wasn't sure what it was, but it smelled clean and warm, like sunshine mixed with cut grass. Maybe I was drunk, but I wanted to bury my face in his shirt and fill my lungs with it.

How could a boy who was so deliciously beautiful have to chase a girl down to get her number? A girl who looked like plain old me?

"She wasn't wearing heels," Leiron whispered, his lips brushing against the rim of my ear. "She was barefoot. She always runs into those hedges but never escapes from the maze."

Chapter 3 - Once Upon A Night Terror

I barely had time to comprehend what Leiron was saying when a stray elbow knocked the drink out of my hand. The crowd was rushing for the stairs to the second floor. A fight had broken out among the VIP guests who had been allowed access to Million. Two men were grappling with each other on the second floor. Thousand-dollar bottles of champagne were being smashed. A shower of ice from a flying bucket came tumbling over the railings.

"Get under the bar," Leiron whispered. I caught his arm as he shielded me from a shower of a spiraling beer pitcher that soon followed the ice bucket.

"Wait!" I screamed as my grip around his sleeve loosened. The crowd was pulling him away from me. "How do you know about my dreams?"

"I'm sorry, Claire," he apologized and shoved me back toward the bar. "We'll chat another night."

"No, wait!" I stammered, and then Leiron spun around and kissed me. That shocked me enough to release my grip on the collar of his t-shirt. I'd never been kissed before, and the act was shocking. I should have slapped him or dug my elbows into his chest to push him away. I did none of those things.

The total weight of his body pressed up against me, and my back was flattered against the bar ledge. My arms were smushed against my chest like two little t-rex hands. His arms were around me, and I was utterly helpless in his fierce embrace.

I couldn't push him away even if I wanted to.

At first, I couldn't believe what was happening. Lieron's lips were warm, disarming, and sweet against mine. His upper lip was raspy with what might have been a hint of stubble. I liked how it felt against my lips as the roughness gave way to the slightest flicker of his tongue. I didn't know why I opened my mouth and invited him in. He was a stranger whose breath smelled like vanilla with a hint of smoke like expensive whisky. I didn't even like alcohol, but this felt right. It felt like we were completely alone instead of being pushed to and fro by the noisy panicked crowd.

It was as though, in my lizard brain, I was thinking that nothing else could hurt me as long as he kept holding me.

Then, the moment was broken. The sound of shattered glass as a wine bottle came hurling over the rails sent people screaming for the exit. Lieron shoved me under the bar, and the crowd engulfed him.

Half the crowd was scrambling to get out of the bar, and the other half was holding cell phones to record what was happening.

There were more gasps, and then people were posting at the stairs. I emerged from under the bar and struggled to find my cell phone. It was no use, someone shoved me from behind, and my cell phone fell out of my hand. There was nothing left to do but to forget about the damned thing.

I looked up at the second floor and saw an entourage of bodyguards dressed in black uniforms rushing in to break up the fight. Too bad they were unarmed.

"He's got a knife!" A voice shouted. I saw Million appear at the railing beside the stairs. He was holding his arm where blood was seeping through his white dress shirt. He backed up to the stairs, and everyone on the first floor started to scream.

Million jumped back to avoid being cut again. This time, he lost his balance at the top of the stairs and fell backward. He unsuccessfully tried to grab a figure at the top of the stairs. There was a sickening crack as his head hit the third step down. His body rolled down the rest of the way and lay in a heap at the bottom. I expected him to get up, but he didn't.

He lay there like a lifeless mannequin. This wasn't right. He had to get up. There was no way a healthy young man could die from falling down the stairs.

Could he?

I recalled the sound as he slammed his head into the rail.

No.

For a second, there was absolute silence as we all stood in disbelief. No one could believe what was happening. Was this all a trick? A publicity stunt? How could one of the most popular singers of our time have fallen to his death before our very eyes?

I saw Leiron at the foot of the stairs. He knelt by Million's side and checked his pulse. Then, the crowd woke up even as my lips parted to yell out Leiron's name. My view of Million's body was immediately blocked by a wall of at least ten people thick of gawkers and panicking shriekers.

Before I could attempt to move closer, I was shoved to the floor by a flood of people trying to make it to the exit. I struggled to retrieve my cell phone before it was trampled underfoot by the panicked crowd. The bartender grabbed my arm before I was thrown face-first onto the tiled floor.

The bartender shoved me toward the back door. There was a fire exit that had suddenly been opened.

"Get out and go home!" He yelled at me and threw me outside.

Still shaking in shock, I walked toward the Port Authority. The wails of an ambulance blew past me as I turned on 33rd street.

I dream of a stairwell without end.

Million's words from our interview earlier that day echoed inside my mind. He found that stairwell all right, the one that led nowhere. He found it, and he fell to his death.

Oh, Jonathan was going to have his story, alright. I might have just witnessed the murder of a major celebrity. I doubted that the police would want to speak to me. There were at least a couple of hundred witnesses in that bar. I didn't even have a very good view, nor was I able to record with my now-cracked cellphone.

My lips were still tingling with the force of Leiron's kiss. As I swapped myself into the subway to head home, I thought back to that strange boy's words. Leiron knew about my dream of running barefoot through that maze.

Did Lieron know Million's dream as well?

Was he responsible for what happened to the singer?

And most of all, was he coming for me next?

Chapter 4 - One Cursed Night Only

I woke up the following day with a pounding headache. What was in that drink? Although I had gone to bed with the vague fear that perhaps the dream about the maze would come back, I had slept in blissful oblivion all night.

It all went by so quickly that it seemed as though no sooner had my head hit the pillow that my cell phone alarm was blaring. I usually got up to jog at seven am before my morning classes. Somehow, on that particular Friday morning, I wanted nothing more than to pour myself a cup of orange juice and nurse my hangover.

Although gin wasn't usually my drink of choice, I barely had two gulps of it. I felt completely sober as I walked to the subway station last night. Perhaps, it wasn't the alcohol. Maybe I had hit my head against the bar, or someone had knocked me over while trying to flee a crime scene. Either way, I gulped down two Advils and hoped for the best.

I vaguely recalled shooting Jonathan an email last night before heading to bed. I told him that Million had an accident at the bar and that we should hold printing the interview until we found out what had happened to him. As expected, Jonathan didn't agree to that plan.

Although I had slept the night away in bliss, Jonathan had been salivating over every morsel of news that was being released through Reddit and Twitter about Million's condition.

Good call. Glad you're ok. We should hold off. - Jonathan. 11 pm.

He's alive! Jonathan 1:35 am.

Do you have footage of the accident? Jonathan 3:45 am.

Call me when you wake up. Jonathan 6.45 am.

Dammit, Jonathan. Were you up all night?

I started typing a response and then deleted it. If I started this now, I would spend the next two hours arguing with Jonathan about whether it was tasteful or not for us to post that interview. I needed time for the medicine to kick in before I could deal with Jonathan. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples with my fingertips.

My lips still felt raw from kissing Leiron last night. Who was he? How did he know the things he knew? Also, what did he mean when he said we'll talk again? He didn't ask me for my number. Did he expect me to return to the bar?

No way.

I had seen enough horror inside the Cloud Lounge for one lifetime. After Million had that accident, I doubted that the bar would be open again for the rest of the year.

Yet, all the same, I wanted to know more about Lieron.

All I knew was that I slept better last night than I had in a long time.

My phone rang. Dammit. I thought about hanging up, but that would tip Jonathan off that I was awake and avoiding him. I sighed and picked up.

"Hello?"

"Claire! You're awake!"

"I am now."

"Listen, you need to put that interview together. You spoke to him at the Times Square location before going to the Cloud Lounge, right? You were probably the last person he spoke to before leading to the second location."

"He was talking to a lot of people at the Cloud Lounge. Don't try to make my interview sound much more important than it was. He barely spoke to me. We . . .we ran out of time." I gulped. There it was. It was time to confess to Jonathan that I got to the interview late because I was too dumb to find my way around Times Square.

"What did you talk about? We can pad it a bit and make it a full-length article. How did he look? Did he look nervous? Scared?"

"If you're asking whether he knew he would fall down a flight of stairs later that night, no. He did not." I bit my lip. Okay, Million did talk about his dreams and the stairs. I didn't think anyone else in the room could have overheard. From what I remembered, none of them paid attention to me. They were all either snapping pictures of the mob scene outside Times Square or helping themselves to the mini bar.

I couldn't tell Jonathan what Million told me. He would think I was crazy. Also, I had no proof of any of it. If I were a professional reporter, I would have taped the whole thing. But I wasn't. And that meant I could weasel my way out of writing this article with minimal repercussions. Heck, The Gotham Daily wasn't even paying me for my time. It was a paper staffed by volunteers looking to buff up their law school applications.

"Hey Jon, I have an early class to prepare for. I got to go."

"Wait, wait! Claire, please. Come on. This could be a really important article!"

"And I have a really important class!" I had only one class on Friday, and it was wine tasting. Yeah, it was a dumb one, but I needed it because I had volleyball training all weekend. Those started at 5 am, and I needed Friday to catch my breath.

"Million is still in the hospital. They're saying he may be in a coma. There's no footage recorded from inside the bar."

"No footage? Just about everyone there was holding up a cellphone camera."

"Nothing," Jonathan repeated. "That's the spooky part. There was some interference with the lighting. All anyone recorded was a blur of neon lights during the incident. They said the stairs were located in an area where all the light was being bent in a weird way."

"That's crazy."

"It gets weirder. When Million was lying at the bottom of the stairs, there was a strange glowing light around him. It was captured in the pictures, but no one saw it in person. They're saying the people who were in that bar are cursed."

Okay, now I burst out laughing in disbelief. "Cursed? Seriously? If that's true, why are you calling me? You already have COVID. You want to have a spooky supernatural disease too?"

"I'll have you know I don't have any symptoms. Also, listen to this. A group of girls who ran out of the bar when the fighting started with a stolen bottle of champagne was hit by a car along 33rd street."

I gulped. There was an ambulance headed around that corner when I left the bar. Was that what they were heading toward? It appeared too quickly for it to have been arriving to take care of Million. It showed up right as I was leaving.

"Wait, you think I'm cursed, and you're calling to make sure I type out an article before something horrible happens to me? Well, screw you, Jon!"

I hung up. When Jonathan tried to call me back, I blocked his number and threw my cell phone in a pile of cushions.

"What's with all the screaming?" Dahlia, my roommate, yelled from inside her bedroom. "Can't you wait until the sun is up to break up with your boyfriend?"

"You know I don't have a boyfriend," I hollered back.

Dahlia stuck her head out of her door. Her curly chestnut hair was in a huge tangled mess on top of her head. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt saying Main Squeeze Smoothies. She wasn't wearing any pants underneath it. I suspected the t-shirt belonged to that guy she was seeing, the one who worked at the smoothie shop down the street. I liked him but couldn't remember his name for the life of me. He always gave me extra honey on my yogurt. I wished my roommate weren't sleeping with him because when she inevitably broke up with him in a horrible fashion, I suspected I would be banned from the smoothie store.

"You came back smelling of cheap beer and cologne. You're seeing someone, don't deny it."

"I was at a bar, working on an article," I rolled my eyes. "If I were going on a date, would I do it on a Thursday night?"

Dahlia went into the fridge and found herself an overripe avocado and some stale bread. She plopped down on the couch beside me and began peeling the avocado.

"You going to tell me what the fight was about?"

"I think I just quit the school newspaper," I shrugged. "No big deal. I was doing a story about a singer who tripped and had a fall. It's no one you would have heard of."

"So why are you so angry?"

"I met a guy at the bar," I crossed my arms over my chest. Cursed? Really? Who in this day and age believes in curses? "He was cute. We made out a little bit."

"Made out? You?" Dahlia's green eyes were as big as saucers now. She whistled in appreciation.

"I was a little drunk. He bought me a drink."

"So, when are you seeing him again?"

"I didn't leave him my number. I was distracted. Remember? That singer guy had an accident, and everyone was going nuts over it."

"Oh," Dahlia's face fell. "So, the cute guy was just a one-night thing?"

"I guess."

"Can you go back to the bar? See if he's there?"

I frowned. Go back to a cursed bar? Was I insane?

"Maybe he'll find me," I suggested. "He seemed like the type who wouldn't give up just like that."