Terror. A dimension mirroring the living one--but morphed to reflect the imagination of its Overseer. And the current Overseer... has refused to relinquish her power for centuries, tormenting her souls--"terrors"--into becoming... zombies.
Arielle f...
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Oscar's warm, appeasing touch, coupled with the anxiety of the zombies, the realm, Penelope—it all flipped a switch in Arielle's brain, initiating a wave of pain to crash over her.
She ripped her hand from Oscar's and huddled in a ball, rocking back and forth, screams echoing in her head.
"Arielle?" She heard Oscar's voice but it was distant, distorted. As if she were between two worlds, flashing in and out, or her ears were clogged with water.
Was this it? The moment Penelope had been waiting for? For her to lose herself, crippled with pain, her brain turning to mush? Was this how it felt when one lost all their mental faculties, their physical capabilities? Images dashed to and fro in her mind, making no sense. Fire—shooting up from the ground, blazing up walls, devouring cars, flickering atop heads. Blood caked on shoes, smeared across lips, drizzling from drooping mouths, flowing through rivers. A bone-chilling cackle echoed, echoed, echoed, never-ending.
"Fuck... this..." She clutched her head between her hands, but her scalp seared with agony, with fire. She snaked her fingers through her hair, frantic, expecting to find flames engulfing her beautiful curls, or to locate patches of nothing, where everything had burned off. Tremors trickled down her spine and she couldn't fight them, couldn't bar them from taking over her body.
"Arielle, please," Oscar tried, his voice plaintive, but still far-away. He seized her wrists, pulling her arms away from where she'd wrapped them around her head. She felt him lulling her back into Terror, back into reality; but the visions kept going, faster and faster, and she couldn't move.
Their moans were distinct and dreary, accompanying the pitter-patter of their heavy footsteps as they marched forward, forward, arms outstretched, tongues dangling from their mouths. Bits of flesh fell from their faces, chunks of their own skin melted off near their foreheads, from the heat of their fiery hair. They were robotic, moving together as one, and only three goals keeping them going—to eat, to turn, to appease their master.
"No, I don't want to," said Arielle, watching these zombies in her mind as if she were one of them. She sensed their hunger, smelled their rotting flesh, tasted the blood from their most recent victims. "I don't want to, I don't want to!"
"Arielle!" This time Oscar's voice was loud, piercing through the cloud of Arielle's hallucination. His strength overpowered her visions and he yanked her free, shaking her as he pressed a damp cloth to her forehead.
When had he gotten up to fetch that? Where had he fetched that? She didn't recall seeing a sink or anything other than the blanket beneath them. Were they still in the room under the bridge?
She came to, her eyes opening at last. Her eyelids were painful, sore as if she'd been squeezing them shut for days, preventing herself from witnessing the craziness around her.
But it hadn't been days, had it? She had to have been out of it for maybe a few minutes, if not a few seconds. She couldn't have zoned out for long, and yet when she focused on Oscar's face, she worried she'd gotten worse than she remembered.
