A Breeding Darkness (Complete)

(9)

It wasn't until she'd been following the Denizen for fifteen minutes that Lucy realized something was wrong. The dark, always heavy and suffocating, seemed to become even more still, until Lucy felt as if everything had ceased to exist. She paused, holding her lantern up higher and squinting into the distance to try and pick out the Denizen. It was nowhere to be seen, though she had seen its white eyes watching her just a few seconds earlier.

"Hello?" she called out, turning slowly in case it had somehow gotten behind her. "Where did you go?"

No answer came, and suddenly she felt the hairs on her arm stand up. The darkness around her pulsed, as if a charge was running through it. Without moving at all, she felt as if she was hurtling through the air. She swallowed hard and her hand shook so much her lantern clattered.

"I'm going to head back to the village now," she choked out, starting to take a few steps back. She realized only after she spoke that she had no idea where the village was. Her only option would be to wake herself up, but that would defeat the whole purpose. She'd come here looking for the source of the darkness, and she couldn't just abandon the mission a few minutes in. Who knew when she'd have another chance to come to Zerkalo without Koshmar throwing her into prison?

Teeth clenched, she walked in an arbitrary direction. Eventually she would reach a landmark that would help her orient herself. No matter the direction she picked, she'd run into something she knew. The forest, the stream, the village, or a fence. Those were what bordered her field.

Steadying her hand, she hoped the Denizen had simply gotten lost and gone back to the village. The alternative was too chilling to entertain. That the Denizens might be affected like the Findings? Lucy bit down hard on her tongue, not wanting to pursue the rest of that train of thought.

The darkness raced around her, breathing and moving. It made her skin crawl and she wanted to leave. But she kept her legs moving, her boots swishing through the grass.

And then she heard the Denizen right behind her. A gentle grunting, like a small child that couldn't talk yet. Only this was not the innocent sound she was used to. Now it sounded mixed with a growl, like a wounded animal. The sound raked down her spine like skeletal fingers, and she froze as it drew near to her neck.

Spinning slowly, she held out the lantern to see the Denizen floating just a few feet behind her. The portion of its body that might have been a head hung crookedly to one side, and the smudges of its eyes brightened as its outline vibrated and shivered in the light. The sound rumbled out of it, and its formless arms split from its body to dangle in front of it.

"What's wrong?" Lucy asked, carefully digging her free hand into her pocket and gripping the penknife. She wasn't sure what good it would do against a dream creature, but she could at least go home if it got too dangerous.

But before she could draw the blade, her body locked up as she saw something that she had never seen before. The Denizen's face split, revealing a gaping mouth that steamed and stank of blood. A long, winding tongue slid out, writhing in the air between an impossible amount of needle-like teeth. Its mouth was too wide to be natural, and it curled into a smile as its teeth glinted in the light and its tongue slashed the air.

"What's the matter with you?" Lucy asked. The unnatural smile spread wide across the Denizen's face, and its grunting turned to a small cackle of laughter. This, more than anything, made Lucy's blood turn cold. The laughter was manic and chilling, and somehow it sounded as if it was more than one voice. And that was when Lucy glanced around her and saw glowing pinprick eyes in every direction, staring at her as the manic laughter echoed in the air.

Her mind jumped once again to Koshmar's words about the Findings. That they were corrupted now. What once had been a source of awe and magic was now something dangerous and filled with horror. She had been right when she worried about the Denizen's benign the same way.

Gripping her penknife with a sweaty palm, Lucy tried to decide whether to go home. She might never be able to come back to Zerkalo if she left now, but she also had no idea what would happen if something with razor teeth yanked out her throat while she was in the dream world. Up until the darkness slowly spread across the land, there had been nothing to threaten Dreamwalkers in Zerkalo. What dream animals had been present had always been docile and skittish, and the Denizens had been nothing but kind and gentle. Yet, here she now stared at a cackling mouth of blood-dripping red.

Whipping out the knife, she flicked the blade out and brandished it in the lantern light. "Don't come any closer or else I'll be forced to defend myself," she said, feeling already like a failure. What girl who could save herself said something as stupid as that? Alisdair hadn't wasted his breath on silly warnings and had just attacked the bird monster earlier. Lucy should have launched into action like him. Only, she was scared. She was terrified of the Denizens surrounding her and filling the darkness with their soft and echoing laughter.

Before Lucy had much time to even think, the Denizen that had brought her out into the field slithered forward. Its once gentle floating now turned into a serpentine slide, and its pinprick eyes flared up into white flames as its tongue slashed at her and its laughter grew into a screeching cackle. Lucy's face numbed as she stumbled backward, but she couldn't even find her balance before the other Denizen's revealed long teeth of their own and pressed in on her.