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

Chapter 45 - I See You

Chapter 45 – I See You

Dreamer

I spent the first half hour in denial. I tried to convince myself that I wasn't really awake and alone in Ice's cave—I was asleep in my bedroom and I needed to wake up from this nightmare. I pinched myself. When that didn't work, I slapped my face hard. That did not just hurt. It also felt extremely stupid.

I read somewhere that if I closed my eyes in a dream, I could open them in real life. I closed my eyes and opened them. I was still in the middle of the cave. I blinked my eyes several times till my eyes felt dry and my vision turned blurry. I wasn't going anywhere.

I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed to wake up in my room, in the park, in the Diamond Lounge even eating a strawberry spinach salad. Anywhere but here. It was cold in the cavern, but I was sweating. My hands were clammy and I felt like hurling my last meal.

"Ice, where are you?" I cried. I yelled his name a number of times till my voice was hoarse. The echo of his name was my only response.

Then I heard him.

It was near inaudible, but I could hear him calling my name from behind the walls. I walked to one side of the room where I thought I heard him and shouted back. I looked around the room and noticed there were indentations in the walls where there used to be tunnels.

Selene!

Ice's voice sounded fainter and farther but more urgent. I needed to get to him.

I ran my hand along one of the ridges and pricked my finger on a bristle that wasn't there earlier. I looked around again and noticed the depressions in the walls altering. The tunnels were still sealed off, but I could now see the ingresses. The one next to me was obstructed by a barbed thorn bush. Another passage was kept impassable by a muddle of rusty nails. I contemplated getting through that way, but I couldn't remember the last time I had a tetanus shot. Not that it mattered.

Trying to keep my rising panic to a minimum, I checked my other options. One tunnel offered a flaming entryway. I doubted I was impervious to fire. Another had green goo oozing from the sides. Yet another was covered in liquid cement that was yet to coagulate.

I heard Ice again. He was no longer calling my name, but he was screaming. And I knew it. Noah... Acteon had him and was torturing him. Ice was now mortal. Acteon could... would kill him.

I had no plan. I was helpless myself, but I needed to get to Ice.

And we could die together. Just like Romeo and Juliet. Talk about a tragedy between two star-crossed lovers. Our circumstance was such a literal adaptation. If it weren't for the impending doom, I'd find all this funny.

Thorns. Fire. Slime. Cement. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. I was about to jump in the green goo, crossing my fingers that it wasn't corrosive, when someone grabbed my arm and forcefully pulled me back.

I quickly turned around and saw her. I wrenched my arm from her grasp and took several steps away.

Twice I thought I'd seen her, but I'd been mistaken. There had been Ice's sketch at the park a decade ago—I refused to agree that I resembled his mother. Then earlier when Acteon pretended to be her.

And here she was now. Her true self. Nyx, the primordial goddess of the night.

She looked at me and I stared back at her, trying not to flinch under her gaze. She regarded me silently, her eyes completely black, the rest of her face devoid of emotion. I had to stop the writer in me from chronicling every nuance. The deity before me was quite a character to behold. But I stifled everything I knew about Nyx. Otherwise, I'd buckle in reverence or fear.