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Possible disturbing content in upcoming pages. Just a heads up.
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INTERLUDE: A DIFFERENT DREAM THAT THE FIXER HAD ABOUT THE AFTERDARK
The Fixer doesn't often have nightmares. Sometimes she wakes up with a sense of dread and can't remember what she dreamed. Sometimes she does remember her dream--but she never remembers it for long and it slips out of her mind like sand between her fingers until there is only a single haunting grain.
This nightmare comes to her not long after the incident in the woods, where Nell Conrad was threatened in more ways than one. The mercenaries never appear in her dreams--good or bad--at any time for the rest of her life. In her dream she is in the woods where they took her to wait for Seer, except The Afterdark is there.
As is often the case with dreams, there is nothing leading up to the main scene. She is suddenly in the middle of nowhere, far from civilization and the hum of the city. The great, dark, blur of The Afterdark, almost eight feet tall to dwarf the girl, is her only companion aside from the trees.
But in his dream he is hardly a companion.
She has tunnel vision, and most things are blurry and without detail. There are no real trees, there are the ideas of trees in places that Nell thinks a tree would belong. There is no ground, only the idea that there is something to stand on. The Afterdark, though, is a perfect, detailed copy of what Nell remembers about him. When his shadows fall away, he is the same tall man--young and of indeterminate heritage, with teeth that seem too sharp and eyes that seem too pale. His short hair sticks in every direction.
And he looks at her. She looks at his eyes without making eye contact, and sees him only as a threat. The girl is intimately aware that he unmoving, like a cat waiting for its prey to come just an inch closer. With that in mind, she cannot bring herself to move... until a tremble begins in her fingertips.
Possible disturbing content in upcoming pages. Just a heads up.
==========
INTERLUDE: A DIFFERENT DREAM THAT THE FIXER HAD ABOUT THE AFTERDARK
The Fixer doesn't often have nightmares. Sometimes she wakes up with a sense of dread and can't remember what she dreamed. Sometimes she does remember her dream--but she never remembers it for long and it slips out of her mind like sand between her fingers until there is only a single haunting grain.
This nightmare comes to her not long after the incident in the woods, where Nell Conrad was threatened in more ways than one. The mercenaries never appear in her dreams--good or bad--at any time for the rest of her life. In her dream she is in the woods where they took her to wait for Seer, except The Afterdark is there.
As is often the case with dreams, there is nothing leading up to the main scene. She is suddenly in the middle of nowhere, far from civilization and the hum of the city. The great, dark, blur of The Afterdark, almost eight feet tall to dwarf the girl, is her only companion aside from the trees.
But in his dream he is hardly a companion.
She has tunnel vision, and most things are blurry and without detail. There are no real trees, there are the ideas of trees in places that Nell thinks a tree would belong. There is no ground, only the idea that there is something to stand on. The Afterdark, though, is a perfect, detailed copy of what Nell remembers about him. When his shadows fall away, he is the same tall man--young and of indeterminate heritage, with teeth that seem too sharp and eyes that seem too pale. His short hair sticks in every direction.
And he looks at her. She looks at his eyes without making eye contact, and sees him only as a threat. The girl is intimately aware that he unmoving, like a cat waiting for its prey to come just an inch closer. With that in mind, she cannot bring herself to move... until a tremble begins in her fingertips.
