Anna dreamed of a pale, white figure. It ripped apart people running away, trying to escape it. It moved with unnatural swiftness and with uncanny elegance. She was seeing this scene from the ground. Someone's heavy, lifeless body was crushing her, making her unable to stand up. She was barely able to move at all. She was aware of the fact that she was dreaming. The art of interpreting dreams was something they always taught the novice forest keepers in her hometown. According to Mother-Huntress, dreaming is an ability left to humans by the old gods that allows them to perceive what their minds could not normally comprehend.
She used all her strength to push away the corpse lying on her and free herself. She did not sense pain in her side, although when she inspected herself, she saw a considerable amount of blood. She looked around. The room she was in was very dark. She, however, had no problem seeing her surroundings. On the floor, there laid... multiple mangled corpses. Most of them extremely mutilated. Torn limbs, spilt guts, viscera. She forced herself to look away from the horrific sight and shifted her gaze towards the ceiling. If she wanted to extract as much information from this dream as was possible, she had to stay calm; panic would cloud her vision and steer dream-reality deeper toward the nightmare.
While looking at the ceiling, she spotted something odd. All lamps in the room had their lightbulbs completely shattered. She quickly glanced through the floor. It was hard to spot them in the blood, but there were shards of glass everywhere around; it looked as if all the bulbs had exploded. She also noticed that most of the bodies lay near the walls and exits. That could indicate the panic of those people; they tried to hide or run away.
Anna's investigation was cut short by a scream coming from below. It was a type of sound a human could make only when in an ungodly amount of pain. Shiver came down her spine. She silently moved her lips, reciting in her head all the protective prayers she knew, and, to avoid making noise while moving, she took off her shoes.
Cautiously, she moved toward the exit. Luckily, the socks given to workers by the company were made of a rigid, rough material, so small glass shards did not harm her. She had to stop for a moment to calm herself down after a few minutes. Her socks were completely drenched in fresh, warm blood. If not for two months of working at the factory, she would have puked.
"Fear is like fire; it can consume you or become your weapon," she whispered to herself and continued moving forward. Although those words were used to gather composure in the deep woods at night, memories of home brought her strength.
She exited the room and went down a hallway until she reached the stairs. The voices seemed to be getting louder.
She went down a few stairs and peeked inside a big room from where the sounds came from.
The same creature she saw before was gnawing on someone's torn-off arm. Luckily, it was facing away from her.
She could use the fact that it was occupied with something and run away, but it seemed impossible to do so silently. The door was blocked by a few bodies and windows... Well, it could be possible to leave through the window, but the windows didn't look like they had an opening mechanism and breaking the glass would make quite a commotion. Even if she managed to leave the building, the thing would catch up to her in no time.
"Not this one, too." The monstrous silhouette cried. Its voice was unnatural; its tone, which no human could produce, but it sounded... weirdly sad, or rather, frustrated. Then it threw away the arm it held and bit into the stomach of its victim.
Anna ignored the terrific sounds of torn flesh and slowly came down the stairs.
She sneaked behind the thing's back. With each step, she prayed for the floor not to creak. She stopped around three meters behind the creature's back. She clenched a long silver nail in her hand and dashed toward the creature.
Even if it was taller than her, the opportunity laid before her. Anna had one objective, and with whole her strength she stabbed the creature in the back of its neck.
The creature shrieked and started twitching. It started running around the room trying to pull out the nail stuck in its neck.
Something smelled like burning. Anna smirked. Although in a dream, she has finally found one.
While the monster was pulling the nail out of their body, Anna grabbed an empty bottle lying on a nearby table and smashed it against the wall, making herself a makeshift weapon and focusing the creature's attention on herself. The creature, clearly in pain, erratically dashed towards her. Anna reacted instantly. She ducked under the long, dark claws, trying to slash her and pushed the broken bottle into the creature's body. After she felt like the spiky part of the bottle pierced through the creature's skin, she squeezed the bottle neck with her hand and twisted the whole bottle around, which burrowed it deeper inside the creature's flesh.
The monster shrieked once again, the glass shards cut it deeply, and it was bleeding heavily with dark, blueish blood.
Anna used the fact that the creature was backing off in pain to inspect it up close.
The silver nail was still stuck in the back of its neck. If she could find something hard and long, she could hit the nail in the head and potentially hammer it into the creature's spine.
The problem was that, now, she did not possess the element of surprise. Although she managed to catch the monster off guard twice, first by striking it from behind and second by being able to dodge its attack, now the creature would surely be more careful. It was faster and stronger than her, so she had to use her brain.
The moment she saw a big tiled fireplace, she sprinted toward it. The creature rushed after her, but Anna managed to grab a long, heavy ash poker. With the second hand, she picked up a block of firewood and threw it at the creature. As soon as the creature raised its arms to block the projectile, she ran around the monster and raised the poker with two hands. Then she delivered a blow as heavy as she could.
But the moment the poker should have struck the head of a nail, she heard a crackling sound and the creature disappeared.
She looked around and noticed that shining sparks of electricity started jumping around the room. Suddenly, she heard a buzzing sound, and one of those sparks hit the poker she was holding, making her instantly drop it on the ground, and the moment it hit the ground, all flashes and noises stopped.
Sudden silence was so unexpected that it paralysed her for a second or two. There was no sign of the creature. It vanished. She looked around but saw no movement around her. She was able to see much less than before; the bright sparks around her made her dizzy, and her eyes needed to adapt to the darkness around her once more.
She made a few steps back towards the windows. She could use the creature's disappearance and make a run for it. She grabbed one of the wooden chairs standing around and threw it toward a closed window. It shattered completely, and a cold breeze of air entered the room.
She ran toward the window, but the moment she wanted to jump through it, she felt a cold, slimy hand grab her by her neck. She was effortlessly picked up from the ground, and suddenly she flew across the room, hitting the wall on the opposite side of it.
She was once again on the floor. She was unable to move her right hand. It was probably broken. She used the left one to move to a sitting position and leaned against the wall.
The creature slowly approached her.
"H-here you a-are", it whispered ", Finally"
It crouched before her. It's fase monstrous. Dark eyes. Pale skin. Long dishevelled hair. It had human features, but it was much less human than Ann would imagine a vampire. Its clothes, although torn and heavily stained, seemed to be made in quite an elegant style.
It opened its mouth and revealed its thin and spiky teeth. It got closer and closer. She closed her eyes and tried to move away, but was not able to.
And then, the creature's teeth had burrowed in her neck.