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The dull thud of a ticking clock pounded through Raven's head, begging her to follow it.
Tik,
Tok.
Tik,
Tok.
Aching, searing pain roared behind her eyes, everywhere she looked was blinding light, hundreds of bugs, countless faces contorting and twisting, sneering at her-
Then there was nothing. Suddenly, she was ripped from the bony grip of her subconscious into a much lesser state.
There she sat, in the nothingness, berated by the deafening silence that surrounded her. That is, until someone spoke.
"I know what you are."
She tried to reply, but found herself without a form, without a mouth, without a voice.
"You cannot run from me forever, little Raven. You must understand that I am only trying to help. All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."
The space around her turned sour, the ticking of the same clock berating her.
"You must hardly work to see me, my heart is bleak. Predict the coming of the middle days week. Tread not where you think, but where you know, and never forget to reap only what you sow."
Raven shot up in her bed, the sheets clinging to her bare skin. She was drenched in sweat and breathing heavily, throat dry as chalk.
What the everliving fuck was that?
She stared at her clock. Seven twenty-seven.
She leapt out of her tangled bed, letting her bare feet drag across the hardwood floor as she threw on the closest available articles of clothing.
Clutching her heirloom mirror in one hand, she shook it with all the strength she could muster at the moment.
"Mom? Dad? Pick up, please please pick up!?"
The glass began to crack under her gaze.
"Please pick up, please,"
She pleaded to no avail, and her hands burned with an unfamiliar twinge. Every candle in the room lit up and flared, flames dangerously licking the atmosphere in her room, toying with the fabric of her bed and her posters.
"Dear, I'm afraid I am not your parents." A cracked voice croaked from the opposite side of the room. Raven whipped her head around to face a man who looked a lot like-
"Edgar Allan Poe?"
"That's great great great great great grandpa Edgar to you, wretched thing. Oh, you look just like your mother."
She pinched herself. Nope, this was real.
"How did you get around to summoning me? I thought your mother said she would tell you how to do so when you turn eighteen," he pondered. "And you certainly don't look eighteen."
