Blood.
Thick, wet, puddled tendrils of it.
The floor, the bed and wall behind all seeping with it. A morbid spatter in an arc across white linens, its contrast noted.
In a place that felt familiar but was not sat an explosion of crimson in an intoxicating, primal perfume. The scent was in strong competition for the heavy summer night but could not be mistaken. Flickering firelight drowned out the glow of the moon, its heat growing stronger, illuminating peaks of sharp white amongst the dark wreckage. Small shards like scattered pottery strewn across the floor. Exposed ribs in a curved arc were the only things recognizable as once human.
Hands with black sickles of fingernail, carnage buried underneath crusting red smears. A slick satisfaction was spreading. A long-held hunger, abated.
Awareness broke away from satisfaction, a bubble of doubt rising into a mute scream of anguish, of nightmare. Like a cresting wave, a tsunami, the floodgates of horror breached and spilled into voice. An immortal scream that knew no end...
Gasping, Alex Millar came to the surface, fighting to escape the sound still echoing out of her nightmare. With a jolt she felt Hal's close-pressed muscles tense, his lips brush her shoulder. A sleepy query of her name. She reached for his hand draped over her waist, clasped his fingers and whispered automatic platitudes. It was okay. Go back to sleep...
Not fully awakened, he drifted back into sleep easily. Still ragged with shock, her non-existent heart in her throat, Alex could not.
She would have gotten up had she not been frozen with panic. A deer caught in deadly headlights. There was no mistaking the nightmare.
In an attempt to calm herself, she remained nestled close against his body and took in the quiet of the darkened room around them.
It had happened again.