Sorry about the short chapter today guys
My school starts tomorrow
I'm cooked
It's nightime for me
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Aaron's face twisted against the sheets, his hands clawing at the blanket as sweat poured down him like he had just stepped out of a scorching shower. He rolled from side to side, every muscle tense, his expression shifting from pain to pure terror.
Inside his mind, the nightmare unfolded.
Lying on the ground in front of him was his best friend Mike. His body….... was covered in blood. His eyes weren't in their sockets, as if they had been ripped out, and blood dripped from the empty holes down Mike's face. Those hollow sockets stared straight at Aaron.
Aaron couldn't tear his gaze away from that emptiness. Mike started making strange noises, and blood began pouring from his mouth; it looked like he was choking on his own blood. Aaron couldn't even speak. He was mortified by what he saw. Even though Aaron wished and begged his limbs to move, to help Mike, hell, to do something, nothing happened.
Aaron's limbs stayed frozen in place, refusing to move. He could smell the scent of blood and death in the air. He tried to open his mouth to say something, to say sorry, to say he couldn't move, to say he couldn't help Mike, but even his mouth wouldn't obey him. It wouldn't open at all.
Then Aaron heard the crash of a door swinging open, and a burst of bright light hit his eyes. His first instinct was to raise a hand to shield himself, but his arm still wouldn't respond. A man stepped into the dark room and shut the door behind him, but Aaron couldn't see the man well because of how dark the room was.
The man held a knife in his hand. He grabbed Mike, who was still choking on his own blood, and threw him into a chair, then stabbed him in the stomach.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to kill that bastard… but I couldn't do anything.
Mike's head turned toward me. Bloody tears of pain streamed from his hollow sockets. His empty eyes stared straight into my soul, silently begging me for help, but I didn't help him. I couldn't!
The man began twisting the knife buried deep inside Mike's body, and with each turn, his stomach split open like rotten fruit.
Hot blood gushed in rivers across the floor, soaking everything around him. His intestines spilled out, coiling and writhing like serpents, and organs, liver, kidneys, pieces of lung, tumbled onto the blood, soaked tiles.
Mike tried to scream, but with all the blood filling his throat and lungs, he couldn't. The only sound that came out was a ragged, wet gasp of agony that echoed off the walls. The knife moved again, carving through tissue, pulling and tearing, until the floor became a grotesque mosaic of guts, organs, and blood, each twist painting a new layer of horror.
Then the man placed a hand on Mike's forehead, and Mike's body went still. I couldn't hear his heavy breathing anymore,
no, the only sound now was the man's footsteps as he walked toward me. I couldn't do anything. All I could do was stare at the person I'd called my best friend, now lying there dead, stomach split open.
The man came close enough for me to see him clearly.
And I finally saw his face. He was a young man, about twenty years old, with blond hair matted with the blood of my best friend, blue eyes that stared straight into my soul, and a black shirt and pants, also drenched in blood.
He took a few more steps toward me before he spoke.
"What? Don't recognize me, Aaron Stein?"
The moment he said that, my eyes widened in shock. Only one person came to mind: Althen. But Althen looked like an old man….. He probably had some kind of transformation ability, I told myself.
The man, Althen, continued.
"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?" Then he snapped his fingers, and I felt my mouth unlock. I could speak again, but my limbs were still frozen. And so I spoke, my voice dripping with nothing but hatred and rage.
"YOU BASTARD! YOU'RE A MONSTER! I'LL KILL YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID!"
Althen just smirked.
"Me, a monster? If I'm a monster, then what are you, Aaron? You're exactly like me. We share everything."
I didn't even get the chance to spit out another insult before he reached his hand towards me, but then I heard the sound of shattering glass, and suddenly, I woke up.
I shot up from bed and stumbled to the bathroom, splashing my face with freezing water.
"It was just a dream, Aaron. Mike's fine. You don't have to be afraid."
"…Who am I kidding? Althen could kill him anytime he wants… so again… was it really just a dream?"
"Even if it wasn't a dream, what the hell am I supposed to do about it?! I'M WEAK! I CAN'T KILL ALTHEN!"