An Experience

10

The shriek of Autumn's alarm almost made them literally jump out of their bed. They quickly slapped the snooze button several times until the annoying beeping ceased and they pressed the OFF button.

Their night had been filled with nightmare after nightmare of the strange pitch black, long-haired man they had met the other night. Autumn had been running through the woods where they had met Frank, the snow and darkness of the night making it impossible to tell where they were or how to escape. The moon above didn't cast a light on the woods, but shone a horrid crimson red. The trees that surrounded them appeared far bigger than that first night and the snow was slowing Autumn down as they ran frantically through the low-hanging branches and bushes that whipped their arms and legs. They had thought that the Kinkiller was chasing after them, wanting revenge for having lost its kill the first time.

They soon had tripped into the cold of the snow and scrambled up to press their back up against a tree. They watched as the man dressed in the pitch black fur jacket approached them from the darkness. His piercing blue eyes striking straight through into Autumn's soul, his hands balled into fists at his sides ready to rip it right out of their chest.

Autumn then watched on in horror as the man lifted his hands to his neck, his fingernails as sharp as daggers. He dug his nails deep down into his jugular, breaking the skin and blood welling up at the wounds. Autumn suppressed a scream, slapping their hands over their mouth as the man began ripping the skin at his neck, revealing the flesh beneath. He released a gutteral grunt with each yank of his skin from his flesh, moving his hands to his face when his entire neck was ripped completely off, blood soaking his body from the wound. Tears waterfalled from Autumn's eyes as the man continued ripping the skin off of his body, his grunts from the process and the ripping of skin from flesh filling their ears. The snow all around them turning the same crimson red of the moon, the blood from the man vanishing into the red as his skin hit the ground.

Once he was completely skinned, his clothes scattered about him when he had reached his torso, he reached for the fur he wore and wrapped it around him. He slipped his skinned arms into the sleeves and flipped the wolf-head-shaped hoodie over his head. He then fell to all fours and Autumn finally began to scream as the man became one with the jacket, his arms turning to paws, his legs making sickening cracking sounds until they took the form of hind legs and were covered in fur, his feet turning to back paws, the jacket tail and ears lifting up. He then turned his head up, revealing the hood had become his actual face and his muzzle opened wide in a snarl, giant, white sharp teeth clistening in the red around them.

Before Autumn could make a run for it, the wolf that had once been a man lunged at them with a loud, haunting bark covering Autumn in a terrible darkness. That's when they had bolted up-right in their bed, letting out a scream as they did so. Their body had been covered in sweat and their heart was racing a million times per second. Their arms and legs had ached from where they had been struck by the trees and bushes. Their throat was sore and they shook violently.

When they could finally settle down, Autumn laid back down in their bed and fell back asleep, only to find themselves in another dream. This time they were at the Brighten Estate, the entire house silent and dark. They walked down the halls, the paintings on the walls looking creepier in the blackness that surrounded them.

They had soon found themselves going down a set of stairs that they knew didn't lead to the cellar where Mr. Brighten kept his alcohol. They had been down there several times with Chet and Heinrich and would clean down there when Mrs. Hartfield didn't bother getting drunk down there. This staircase led to a room that didn't look familiar to Autumn at all. It looked like a basement filled with obscured objects that were left to be unused and a chair that was placed directly in the middle of the room, a flickering light bulb handing right above it. In the chair that was facing away from sat someone with long, pure white hair that was perfectly straight has it fell down past the chair the person sat in.