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Chapter 46 - Ill-Fated Nightmare (Part I)

Chapter 46 – Ill-Fated Nightmare (Part I)

Weaver

I knew Acteon would come for me the moment I stepped in the dream realm. I knew he'd hand me a nightmare. It was pitiful how I barely put up a fight.

I'd tried to grab him, but he just laughed. He swooped in from the darkness and pummeled me to my knees. He struck my face countless times that I imagined my brain rattling inside my skull. He repeatedly kicked me until he heard my ribs crack. Then he used the talons of my—his wings to slice me to ribbons.

Acteon stared at my broken figure. I coughed out blood and wheezed to breathe. When he was undoubtedly gratified that I looked like a Halloween present, he left. I wondered if he left me here to die after beating the life out of me.

I had never felt this sort of physical agony before. Everything hurt. Tiny rocks bit into my open gashes. How did mortals endure this?

Hope. Mortals endured because they were driven by hope. And love.

Selene. I need to find Selene.

I had heard her earlier before Acteon appeared. She was on the other side of these walls.

With no little effort, I pushed myself off the ground and rose to my feet. I leaned against the wall as a wave of nausea and a torrent of pain attacked me. When the excruciating spasm subsided, I turned my head in the direction where Acteon had gone.

There was a light at the end of this tunnel.

I gnashed my teeth and dragged myself toward it. And entirely forgot my visceral discomfort at the sight that greeted me.

Markus was surrounded by hundreds of vicious vixens. Some looked disturbingly familiar despite their altered forms. They pounced at him and pulled at his wings and limbs, anxious to shred him to pieces. And Markus just stood there. I'd never known my brother to hit a woman before—even now when he needed to.

"Fight back. They're not real," I rasped. I was too far away and I could only watch in horror as Persephone looped her tail around Markus' neck and wrenched his head off his body. His head rolled toward another woman—Yvonne—as his detached body slumped to the floor.

"No!"

The misshapen impersonator looked up when she heard me. She smirked at me as she placed her foot on Markus' head. Then she brought back her leg and kicked my brother's head, letting it fly into the air.

I jumped out of the cave and slid down a gravelly slope.

Had I been planning to catch my brother's decapitated head? Perhaps. But the Chimera beat me to it. The multi-headed monster vaulted over the prone bodies of several Centaurs and snatched Markus' head. The lion opened its massive maw and gobbled my brother's cranium in one bite.

I didn't have time to feel sick. I looked around me and saw the Hydra, the Empusa and, my particular preference, the Charybdis and Scylla demolishing and devouring dragons, griffins and the Erinyes. The harpies assaulted the Cyclopes, clawing and gouging their eyes out.

And once again too late, I saw the gorgons close in around Francis as his wings then the rest of his body turned into stone.

"Francis..."

I scrambled toward him, not caring that I'd probably be an inert fixture before I reached him, but then the ground shook and split in the middle. From the gorge ascended Apate and her brothers and sisters, bringing with them doom and disease. Their eyes promised strife and carnage. They were glaring at a spot behind me. I turned around and saw my former home. They were going after Father and Nyx.

I should warn them.

I was about to run toward the dark castle when I heard her. I turned back, dread creeping down my spine. One of the serpents of the Hydra was coiled around Selene. She was struggling to escape, but the monstrosity twisted tighter around her. Acteon was hovering right beside the occupied beast.

"I grant you one wish, Icelus. You can die together," Acteon spoke, sneering derisively.

I hurried to Selene, fear, rage and remorse battling inside me. I grabbed a spear a fallen Centaur had used.

Just as I heard Selene's bones break under the pressure, one of the Hydra's giant heads with its gaping mouth and long, pointed fangs, lunged at me.

I never stood a chance.

**

A/N: Kidding :) I love you all too much to end it this way.