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A Broken Nightmare

My back pressed against a cold brick wall. The cold in my heart numbed my body and fear clouded my mind. Odd snippets of mother's warning replayed over, and over as I focused on the droplets of red running down my wrist. The red snaked about, creating patterns I would have found beautiful if I wasn't extremely unnerved by the scratchy voiced monster hunting me. 

Please let me be okay. Please let me live through this. Please return me to the safety of my parent's hugs. 

Two hands clamped down on my shoulders and dragon like claws dug into my tender skin. I let my gaze wander to the claws gripping me. Black jagged nails that were the size of one of my fingers extended up to a green hand. 

A face popped up before I had time to make a noise. The skin around the eyes was torn away, instead replaced with bright red scars surrounded by purple bruising. The injury was self inflicted as bits of skin were caught at the end of the creature's claws. A long tongue split into two as he used them to wet his eyeballs. Bile jumped in my throat at the horrific sight of this... thing.

The eyes were the worst of all. White holes that flicked and fluttered, no pupil was left in the monster's eyes. One eye was hanging by a thread with blood gushing out and onto my worn out cape. A second barely passed before I was shoved to the ground.

My body slammed into the concrete and grazes marred my body where I had come into contact with the harsh ground. Aches scuttled through my twelve year old body. My arms shook as I pushed myself up as far as I could. I was lying down still, but I had managed to raise my top half by a few inches. My silence confused me as I waited for my limbs to respond to my commands. 

Crack. Chink. Crack.

Nothing.

Crack. Chink. Crack.

My heart raced.

Crack. Chink. Crack.

A boot came crashing into my spine as immense agony tore at my mind. Red hot pokers digging into my eyes would have felt better that the torment in my back. The scream that I was sure the masochist wanted ripped itself from my chest, I was out of control of my emotions. Red pooled around me and confusion tugged at my head. Where was it coming from?

The white eyes appeared before mine. One hanging out and one with a rapidly changing gaze. The eye stopped flicking all over the place for a single second and the hatred burning bright in the deranged creature's pupil-less eyes sucked the remaining resilience out of me. "Looking for this?"

A piece of bone landed in front of me with a sickening crack. A piece of spine sat covered in blood. My spine, in my blood. The world swirled and black dots splattered my vision like a splatter painting gone psychopathically wrong. Every shoot of pain gathered in my hand and for one last time, I felt strong.

A burst of magic curled around the monster's body. I squeezed out as much magic energy as I could but my vision and consciousness was failing me. In and out, I fell through awake and asleep.

Crack. Chink. Cra--

Shatter. 

Tick. Tick. Tick.

"Sleep now. It'll be alright."