The others all seemed so blissfully unaware of their fate, but oh, I knew.
It began a few weeks before Project Millennium really got moving. These dreams, more colorful than a painted sunset. The places changed – one night, it was my childhood bedroom, the next, some unnamed German front – but what happened was always the same.
In my sleep, he would come for me. Zamiel. A monster with eyes like gunshot wounds, and arms that grasped and grabbed with immeasurable strength. What he did to me was always blurry in my sleeping mind's eye, but I remember the fear. Such unfiltered, unbridled fear. I felt the terror of a child when I saw him, and I knew I could do nothing – I was doomed.
The strangest part of all, though, was waking from these nightmares. For when I woke, my heart was pounding, and my lungs gasping for breath; these were all to be expected. But even as the last droplets of fear evaporated from me, I felt a sort of gruesome exhilaration. I was never too sure if Zamiel had ravished me or killed me, and my own reaction to that idea was what truly scared me most.
When we watched Alahambra's demise, and I saw that creature again, I knew. But the others didn't seem to understand. I almost pitied them in their ignorance – no, I envied them.
Such a horrible death awaited me, and I saw him coming, but all I could do was practice in my dreams.