He Who Weaves Nightmares | PUBLISHED (Available in Print and eBook Format)

Chapter 44 - Not the Usual Trade

Chapter 44 – Not the Usual Trade

A young woman stood alone on a stage. All was quiet. There was a microphone before her. She took a step closer to the mic stand and the soft notes of her favorite song played. Tentatively, she hummed along. After the first verse, she grabbed the mic and sang. The lights turned on and she found herself in a huge stadium with thousands of people applauding her. It was her dream come true.

Then her fans turned into ravenous reanimated corpses that climbed the stage, mauled her and devoured her.

Her mother found her the following morning, lifeless in bed, a mortified look fixed on her face.

A middle aged man found himself in paradise. After twenty-odd years of corporate slavery, he was finally on vacation in a luxury cruise ship. He was geared to go scuba diving. He jumped into the water and was enthralled by the beauty of the ocean. For decades, his life revolved around black and white contracts and grey buildings. Today, he was surrounded by colorful marine life. A great white shark passed him by but ignored him and he sighed with relief.

But then a tentacle shot out of the murky depths, wrapped around his ankle and dragged him to the bottom of the ocean.

His wife woke up and found him thrashing beside her. She cried his name and shook him hard, but despite her efforts, he would not wake.

Countless people in different continents died in their sleep within the first hours. The medical authorities called it sudden arrhythmic death syndrome. Sudden adult death syndrome. Sudden unexpected or unexplained death syndrome. Sudden unexpected nocturnal death syndrome.

Except that there was nothing sudden about this. Acteon had planned this genocide of mortals for centuries.

Somewhere in Nicosia, an exhausted mother exhaled in relief when she finally got her colicky child to sleep. It had been a trying first month and she was grateful for every minute that her first born wasn't crying bloody murder.

The child slept peacefully in his cradle, a hint of a smile on his face. Till the shadows slithered down the walls and crept toward the cot.

"Stay away from the infant," Morpheus barked at the shadows.

The babe in the bassinet vanished from the dream realm. The gloom retreated then coalesced to form Acteon. Morpheus glowered when he saw his brother's sinewy wings on the deceiver.

"Eager to end your dreams, Morpheus?"

Morpheus didn't bother answering. Instead, he lunged at Acteon, intent to rip the wings off his back.

"Get off me, you psycho!" Acteon seized Morpheus' left arm, flipped him high into the air before dropping him roughly on the ground, the dream god's black wings crushed beneath him. Acteon drew one of the giant tusks on his shoulders and thrust it through Morpheus' right shoulder, also piercing through the wing.

Morpheus screamed in agony.

Before the dream god could recover, Acteon stood and waved his hand, calling forth a stampede of all the women Morpheus had craved, crossed or corrupted the past millennia. Most of the women were scantily clad. That was not new. All of the women had bloodshed eyes, razor-sharp incisors, claws, hooves, horns and forked tongues and tails.

"Damn it. I sometimes find goth appealing, but this is absurd," Morpheus grumbled as he unsteadily got to his feet, reached for Acteon, planning to use him as a shield while he thought of a way out of the nightmare.

Acteon twisted around and flew away from Morpheus' grasp. He beat his wings and realized that someone else had stepped into the dream world. "As much as I'd like to watch these beautiful women slaughter you, I promised your brother I'll play with his pixies. Ooh... I have something fun planned."