Chapter 91

Ruby

I have some trouble falling asleep due to the anxiety from everything, but when I finally do eventually drift off, I find myself in a peaceful dream.

In my dream, the castle is quiet and bright. I’m walking through the corridors wearing a white dress that flows behind me; is this my wedding dress?

Ahead of me, there is a familiar figure. It’s Atwood, dressed in a tuxedo with his hair down, turned away from me. As I approach, he turns around.

“You look beautiful,” he says with a gentle smile, and holds his hand out. When I take his hand, he pulls me close. Suddenly we’re dancing again, just like we did at my birthday party, spinning around the corridor as he leads me like I’m a feather in his hands. At the end, he dips me and leans in for a kiss.

I close my eyes to kiss him, parting my lips slightly as I await his kiss, but it never comes. When I open my eyes, the castle is dark and empty. Atwood is gone.

“Atwood?” I call out.

There is no answer. I start to panic as I realize that I’m all alone in this big, dark, empty castle. When I look down, my dress is no longer white, but black instead. I touch the fabric with my fingers. It’s cold, almost damp, and when I pull my fingers away, they smell like soil.

Something forces me to the ground, try as I might to kick and scream and get away. I feel confined in a box, although I cannot see it. Soil suddenly starts to fall from above, covering me completely, filling my nostrils and my mouth and clouding my vision. I can feel the worms wriggling against my skin, between my fingers and my toes.

I can’t scream. My mouth is full of dirt. All I can do is listen, but soon my ears are clouded with soil, too.

The last thing I hear before I wake up is the sound of the funeral bell tolling.

When I wake up, there is a cool hand on my forehead.

“Shhh,” a voice says. I can’t see who it is, but I know it’s not Atwood -- I would know his scent.

I try to open my mouth to speak, but the hand slides down from my forehead to clamp firmly over my lips. Although I try to struggle against it, there is too much strength behind it. I feel helpless.

Something sharp jabs my neck, causing me to squirm and groan against the strange person. My heart starts to race. I don’t know what that was, but it felt like something was injected into my neck. Soon, my body begins to sweat profusely. My limbs begin to shake violently as foaming saliva leaks out of my mouth, causing the strange figure to pull their hand away in disgust.

“W-Who…” I manage to get out through the bubbling saliva and violent tremors in my body.

There is a soft chuckle. It’s quiet, but suddenly everything makes sense when I hear her voice.

“A-Alice…”

“Shhh,” she says softly, wiping my wet mouth with a cloth. “It’s okay. It’ll all be over soon… Luna.”

Just before everything goes black, Alice leans closer to me so that I can see the monstrous outline of her face in the darkness. There is a menacing smile stretched across her lips, so wide it’s almost inhuman.

Then, everything goes dark.

“Hello?”

I’m back in the dark castle. I’m still laying on the corridor floor, but this time, there is no dirt covering my body, no worms, no invisible box or bells tolling. I stand and look around.

“Hello? Anyone?”

Something ice cold runs through my body, sending a shiver down my spine.

“Poor thing…” a ghostly, breathy voice says. “So young… Just like the last one…”

I spin around frantically, looking for the source of the voice, but there is no one.

Am I dreaming?

I remember once my mother told me that if you’re ever unsure whether you’re dreaming or not, look at your hands. If there is an unnatural amount of fingers -- more or less than what I would normally have -- then I’m dreaming.

When I look down at my hands, however, there are still ten fingers.

Am I dead? Did Alice finally get what she wants?

As I stand here in the dark corridor, staring down at my hands, cold fingers suddenly wrap around my throat.

“So delicious,” a menacing voice whispers into my ear. It sounds neither male nor female, but rather the amalgamation of thousands of voices all at once. It sends a shiver down my spine like nails on a chalkboard.

“W-Who are you?” I say, trying to pry the hand away as it constricts my throat.

“I am whoever you imagine me to be,” the creature replies, running a cold, wet tongue along my neck. “You saw me once, not long ago. I took the form of your dead friend. His body was fun to inhabit. So handsome…”

My mind flashes back to the night of the party, when I saw Cayden staring at me from the crowd. A tear squeezes its way out and rolls down my cheek as I struggle harder against the creature.

“I can be other things, too,” the creature says, suddenly releasing its grip on my throat and circling around to stand in front of me.

It’s Atwood.

But it’s not Atwood. It’s… close, but not quite right.

“I can be your beloved,” the creature says with a sickly grin. “Or…” It shifts suddenly into something else.

My mother.

“Mom?”

“Oh, Ruby,” my mother says, holding her hand out and placing it on my cheek. She looks just as beautiful as I remember, her white hair cascading down her back like an avalanche. Her eyes are a vibrant blue, more blue than I recall them ever being.

But then, her face contorts into a hellish visage. She claws at her face, screaming, causing me to stumble backwards and trip over my long skirt, falling to the floor. She crouches down, too, contorting her body in inhuman ways as she crawls toward me, still screaming.

I can feel her spit hitting my face as she comes closer. Her breath is cold and ragged, and smells like death. A long, forked tongue squirms its way out from between her lips and runs along my face. I close my eyes, ready to accept whatever fate this strange creature has in store for me.

“Get away from her!”

The creature screeches in pain. Through my closed eyes, I can hear the sound of the creature skittering away on all fours like a scared dog.

I open my eyes to see a familiar figure. Not one that I’ve seen in the flesh, but one that I’ve seen in oil paint, enclosed within a gilded frame.

It’s Vivian.

She crouches down in front of me and takes my hands in hers. She’s stunningly beautiful, although her eyes are black pits of nothingness.

“You have to leave,” she says frantically, pulling me to my feet. “Now. Before the door closes.”

Without another word, she pulls me behind her down the corridor at a speed at which I didn’t know I could possibly run.

“Here,” she says, rounding the corner to the library. The door is wide open, and through it, there is a small sliver of light. “Go.” She shoves me through the door just as it begins to close.

“You’ll see me again!” she shouts through the closing door. She’s very far away now, although I haven’t moved an inch, as though she’s at the dark end of a long tunnel.

When I wake up, I’m back in my bed. The sky outside is overcast as a heavy snow falls. My window is coated in a thin layer of frost.

My bed sheets are soaked with sweat. My body still trembles, but… I’m alive. Somehow.

There’s something off, though.

I can’t sense my wolf.