Room 406, early morning
Still disturbed the visit from her grandmother's owl, and worried that she hadn't managed to get in touch with her dad, Dru had stayed up late sketching.
At some point after midnight, she finally fell asleep.
Her father walked down a long corridor, picking his way carefully in booted feet. The concrete was crazed with broken lines and slick with fat rivulets and lakes of something best not to name; he stepped over them like a kid stepping over sidewalk cracks, break your mother's back.
A buzzing started in Dru's head. She wanted to open her mouth, tell him not to go down that hall, that Something Invisible was looking at him. But the hall was so long, and it was so hard to think through the hornets in her head and the buzzing spread through her bones like she'd stepped on a live wire.
Dru didn't have dreams like this often. Just once a month or so, a kind of supernatural PMS. But this wasn't the usual buzzing dream where she flew or rooftops, or the nightmare that ended with her in close darkness, surrounded by stuffed animals. No, this dream was hyper-colored.
She could see every hair on her father's head, the lines of lavender in his blue irises, every line and crease on his polished combat boots. the gun gleamed in his hand, held loosely, professionally.
There were fluorescent lights overhead and their buzz echoed the buzz in Dru's head, like static on the TV. Time slowed down, getting all stretchy and elastic. Each step took a century, and by the time the door came into view - just a plain steel door, with the fluorescents noising over head - the hornets weren't just crawling through Dru's bones and brain, but were touching her skin with fleshy little prickling feet.
There was something behind the door, something that smelled of iron and cold darkness, a freezing shiver up the spine. It was a feeling Dru had had before, one her first job with her dad, right before a poltergeist started throwing little shards of glass hard enough to bury them in rotten drywall. Or the time the in South Carolina, when the local voodoo king had sent zombies after them because her father was cutting into his business by breaking hexes the king had been throwing at people who got in his way-or who wouldn't give him what he wanted. Dru had had to use every scrap of anti-hexing her Gran had taught her and a few things from her father's books to break some of those old, nasty curses, and her father had lost some serious blood fighting off the zombies. That had been bad.
This feeling was worse. Much, much worse.
Don't go in there, she wanted to tell him. There's something in there. Don't do it.
He walked down the hall, and the buzzing got so bad it drowned out everything else as Dru struggled to warn him.
He didn't even look up. He just kept walking towards that door, and the dream closed down like a camera lens, darkness eating through its edges.
Dru was still trying to scream when her father reached out with his free hand slowly, like a sleepwalker, and turned the knob. And the darkness behind it laughed and laughed and laughed.
She came awake with a start, snapping the pencil she still clutched in her hand in two. Her head felt like a bowling ball being cracked by a giant's fingers and her body ached. Ignoring the pain, she got up and started to get dressed.
She needed to find a phone and call her dad. Warn him...if there was still time.
[The dream was taken from canon, the novel Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow]
At some point after midnight, she finally fell asleep.
Her father walked down a long corridor, picking his way carefully in booted feet. The concrete was crazed with broken lines and slick with fat rivulets and lakes of something best not to name; he stepped over them like a kid stepping over sidewalk cracks, break your mother's back.
A buzzing started in Dru's head. She wanted to open her mouth, tell him not to go down that hall, that Something Invisible was looking at him. But the hall was so long, and it was so hard to think through the hornets in her head and the buzzing spread through her bones like she'd stepped on a live wire.
Dru didn't have dreams like this often. Just once a month or so, a kind of supernatural PMS. But this wasn't the usual buzzing dream where she flew or rooftops, or the nightmare that ended with her in close darkness, surrounded by stuffed animals. No, this dream was hyper-colored.
She could see every hair on her father's head, the lines of lavender in his blue irises, every line and crease on his polished combat boots. the gun gleamed in his hand, held loosely, professionally.
There were fluorescent lights overhead and their buzz echoed the buzz in Dru's head, like static on the TV. Time slowed down, getting all stretchy and elastic. Each step took a century, and by the time the door came into view - just a plain steel door, with the fluorescents noising over head - the hornets weren't just crawling through Dru's bones and brain, but were touching her skin with fleshy little prickling feet.
There was something behind the door, something that smelled of iron and cold darkness, a freezing shiver up the spine. It was a feeling Dru had had before, one her first job with her dad, right before a poltergeist started throwing little shards of glass hard enough to bury them in rotten drywall. Or the time the in South Carolina, when the local voodoo king had sent zombies after them because her father was cutting into his business by breaking hexes the king had been throwing at people who got in his way-or who wouldn't give him what he wanted. Dru had had to use every scrap of anti-hexing her Gran had taught her and a few things from her father's books to break some of those old, nasty curses, and her father had lost some serious blood fighting off the zombies. That had been bad.
This feeling was worse. Much, much worse.
Don't go in there, she wanted to tell him. There's something in there. Don't do it.
He walked down the hall, and the buzzing got so bad it drowned out everything else as Dru struggled to warn him.
He didn't even look up. He just kept walking towards that door, and the dream closed down like a camera lens, darkness eating through its edges.
Dru was still trying to scream when her father reached out with his free hand slowly, like a sleepwalker, and turned the knob. And the darkness behind it laughed and laughed and laughed.
She came awake with a start, snapping the pencil she still clutched in her hand in two. Her head felt like a bowling ball being cracked by a giant's fingers and her body ached. Ignoring the pain, she got up and started to get dressed.
She needed to find a phone and call her dad. Warn him...if there was still time.
[The dream was taken from canon, the novel Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow]