I told you it wouldn't be much of a wait. As forewarning, this chapter takes a real genre-turn. I hope you like the change of taste here, because it was the most fun I've had writing a chapter yet. Who doesn't enjoy a break from sex and romance for a little horror, right? Enjoy :)

Nightmarish

Ciel was sitting at the head of a very long room. There were dozens, maybe hundreds of people there, lining the tapestry strewn walls and stone arches that flanked the edges of the room.

The women were all wearing long, flowing dresses woven from satin and velvet, their gold and silver cording shimmering as they stirred beneath the fire-lit chandeliers above. The men were dressed in deeply hued velvets and cream colored shirts. When Ciel looked down at himself, he observed the midnight blue velvet that he wore, and noted vaguely how the thick cloak draped over his shoulders created a pleasant warmth.

He became aware of a weight on his head, and when he reached up he felt metal and velvet, and he realized he was wearing a crown. He felt gem stones encrusted around the edges, and a soft satin feel close to his head. The crown fit him perfectly, and he found he liked how it felt on his head very much.

When he looked up into the crowd again, he saw amid the many faces turned toward him those of his parents. His mother's golden hair fell around her kind face in silken tendrils, framing her quiet smile that shone of pride. His father stood beside her, an arm around her waist. He made familiar eye contact with Ciel before giving him the smallest of approving nods, and Ciel felt that approval wash over him in a wave that felt like the sun.

Ciel then became aware of the feel of cool metal in his hand, and he glanced down to see that he held a long, golden scepter, the sizable sapphire encrusted at the point casting light onto the stone floor that glittered like blue flame.

Ciel looked back up at everyone in the long hall, and was surprised to see that they were all looking at him. Their expressions were a mixture of reverence and expectance, and he found himself wondering what it was exactly that they expected of him. He started to wonder if they expected him to say something, but even as he wracked his brain for the words, nothing came.

Just as he was beginning to feel anxiety and confusion bubble up inside him he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and reassurance flushed through him, cooling the sparks of anxiety within his chest. He glanced to his shoulder and saw a slender, pale hand resting there, and followed the wrist and arm up to its owner.

He then found himself looking up into the soft, smiling face of Sebastian. His dark hair fell gently into his face, not hiding the warm, reassuring glow of his gentle gaze. He leaned down, whispering into Ciel's ear with the softest of tones.

"Don't worry, your Grace. All is well. Don't worry yourself."

Ciel nodded, finding how easy it was to believe the comforting words. Feeling content with his new sense of calm, he looked back out into the crowd before him. Almost instinctively, his eyes were drawn to the center front of the crowd, where his parents stood. But the moment his eyes found them, his blood ran cold in his veins, and he felt its ice pierce his heart. Something was wrong.

At first he wasn't sure why he froze so suddenly. And then he took in the expressions on his parents faces. His father's face was twisted into a grimace of pain, though part of it was hidden by the hand he held over one eye. His mother's expression was contorted in the most agonizing fear, and it was that look that chilled Ciel's blood in his veins. After he'd gotten over the initial shock of their expressions, he noticed the other things. He saw now that his mother's neck was ringed in dark, purplish bruises and angry red marks that looked almost like burns. His eyes fell down her torso to the hand she held softly over her stomach, and Ciel felt new panic spark in his gut when he noticed the thin trails of blood seeping out from between her fingers.

The blood spot beneath her hand spread, and when she pulled her hand away from her belly and revealed the wound there, Ciel thought he would scream, but it caught in his throat like caramel sticks to the roof of your mouth. Ciel looked back to his father just as he pulled his hand away from his face. Ciel staggered to a stand and dropped his scepter to the ground with what must have been a mighty clang, had he heard it.

Where Ciel had expected to see his father's soft and gentle gaze, one that so often looked into his own in love and affection in his childhood, the one that had shone with approval only moments before, was now nothing. Staring back at Ciel where has father's eye had been was nothing but a gaping hole, full to spilling with dark, thick blood.

Shaking with shock and horror, Ciel tried to back up, but his heels only hit up against of the throne behind him. He looked back at his mother, and saw that the blood-dripping hand that had been over the wound on her stomach was now raised, her arm outstretched in front of her and pointing at Ciel. No, not at Ciel, next to Ciel. The look of fear on her face had intensified, and she was mouthing frantic words, though no sound came. Ciel strained to hear what she was trying to say, but when her hand started shaking and jerking in the direction she was pointing, Ciel was suddenly overcome by a new feeling.

The panic and horror inside him had been a fiery, burning sensation at the sight of his parents wounds. A dry heat that throbbed and pulsed from his chest, spreading out his body to his fingertips like an uncontrollable steam. But now, looking at the expression of fear on his mother's face, and the frantic way in which she was pointing to the space beside him, that panic turned to cold fear. It wasn't the instantly freezing sensation of shock. No, this was different. It was a slow cold. A creeping cold that crawled up through him on slowly clutching icy fingers that scratched his insides slow and deep.

This new paralyzing cold filling him, he slowly turned his head to his side toward which his mother was frantically pointing. His eyes fell on the hand on his shoulder, that had moments before been so comforting. Now, looking at the hand he felt nothing but fear. The fingers were thin, and too long, the skin leathery and brittle looking, though they shined slightly in the light in a way that made them look almost wet. They ended in long, cracked nails, breaking and torn off in places. They were sick and yellow looking, darkening toward their nail beds to a deathly black. He expected the hand's grip to feel cold, but it wasn't. It wasn't hot, either. It was temperatureless, the grip tightening even as he stared at it.

Before he could look up into the face of the person holding his shoulder, the man leaned down and whispered again in Ciel's ear. However, the voice had lost all its softness and warmth. Now it was a harsh, wet rasp, and it sent shivers down Ciel's spine. The man's breath was hot in Ciel's ear, but the tight grip on his shoulder prevented him from pulling away.

"Don't worry, your Grace. All is well. Don't worry yourself about such things." He felt the hand tighten on his shoulder, the grotesque nails digging into his flesh painfully, and he already felt the bruise forming. "Don't worry about things that don't concern you."

Ciel glanced again at his mother, and this time her look of fear gave him the strength he needed to pull out of the man's grasp. He darted down the few steps in front of him and off of the raised platform, taking off running into the crowd.

Even though he headed straight down the center of the crowd, he didn't see his parents. He expected to bump into the people as he ran headlong into them, but they parted for him with an eerie quickness. He then realized that even though they moved, whenever his body should have made contact with theirs his simply went through, as if they had no more substance than a cloud of steam.

When he looked up into their faces he stumbled in shock and nearly fell, only barely able to find his balance again. The faces looking back at him didn't really look at all. Because these people had none. They had no faces. There was simply an empty expanse of skin where the face should have been, arching up over a nose and dipping down into valleys for eyes that weren't there. Their clothes were no longer luxuriant and beautiful, but old, ripped, shredded, and moth eaten. The women's dresses were now stretched and too long, the hems dragging on the floor. The bottoms of the dresses were wet with some dark looking liquid, which soaked up to their knees in places, smearing the floor with dark, sick looking streaks. The stone began to become slippery with them, and Ciel had to be careful not to fall, because part of him knew that if he fell here he wouldn't be able to regain his feet.

He was starting to become aware, now, of the smell. It was a sour, acrid stench that filled his sinuses with a burning that made him dizzy. It was like nothing he'd ever smelled before. The only thing that came close was something from his childhood. It had been a hot summer, and his family had run the air conditioning most of the time. One day he was sitting by the vent in their kitchen, letting the artificially cold air wash over his face when he'd been suddenly hit by a terrible, awful smell. He had told his parents, and they called in someone to look at the air conditioning. It had turned out a cat had crawled into the vents and died there. This was a lot like that, but much, much worse. It seemed to be coming off of the people around him, wafting right off their gray and mottled skin and into his eyes and mouth, the tears welling up in his eyes effectively blinding him. It was then that he got the chilling thought that these people… these things… were dead. What he was smelling was death, and decay. The thought sent a new rush of horror and disgust through him, and he pushed himself to run faster.

He was starting to feel like the crowd went on forever, and that he'd never get through, when he started to see breaks in the shifting bodies several yards ahead of him. But just as he felt hope rise up in his chest, he heard a sound behind him that threatened to send him tumbling to the floor in panic.

The sound wasn't human. It was something between a screech and a howl that gurgled with a wetness that churned Ciel's stomach. It tapered off into an eerie almost-whisper, and even though it didn't form any real words, Ciel heard threats and lies in it that scraped at the corners of his mind, threatening to engulf him.

And suddenly, it wasn't just the sound that was trying to stop him. The people around him were no longer without substance, just slipping aside for him to pass harmlessly. They had started grabbing and clawing at him with their dead hands. He felt them clutching and snagging onto his clothing, and he lost his cloak somewhere in the struggle. When he felt it slip from his shoulders he looked behind him, his eyes widening in horror as a group of them dove onto it, tearing pieces off of it with their rotting teeth from mouths that had opened in their faces.

Ciel felt a new force of adrenaline surge through him, and he took the last few feet through the crowd at a sprint. When he finally broke free of the crowd the fresh air hit him like a most welcome wall of cleanliness. However, he didn't stop to celebrate. He kept running, out of the great hall and into a side way.

He found himself in a long, narrow stone hallway, lit every several feet with mounted torches. There were several other halls branching out from it, and he took a number of these in a random path, seeking only to put as much distance between him and the great hall as possible.

After a while he became aware of just how quiet everything was. The throne room had been alive with a whole array of sounds that Ciel didn't like thinking back too; the wet, sloshing sounds of the women's dresses, the angry guttural noises that the creatures managed to make without even the presence of mouths, and of course the horrible sound of the inhuman thing that had stood beside him at his throne. But here all he heard as he ran down this labyrinth of halls was the sound of his own footfalls on the stone beneath him, and the ragged pulls of his breath. He slowed to a walk, his stamina catching up with him.

As he walked, now, along the halls, he became very aware of just how dark the places between the torches were. They created soft circles of light beneath them that stood like islands in a sea of darkness. He wasn't sure when the shadows became as dark and absolute as they were now, but he knew for certain they hadn't always been this way. He soon found that his pace picked up in the dark spaces, yearning more for each patch of light even as he stepped from the last one.

He felt his heart skip beats when he heard it. The same howling, screeching, whispering noise from before came echoing down the halls behind him. He started, and took off running again, but he didn't have far to go. The hallway abruptly ended ahead of him, so suddenly that he nearly ran into it. He quickly realized he didn't really have any options. He could turn around and find another branching hallway, though he couldn't remember the last time he had passed one. As he was realizing the utter futility of the situation, the sound behind him growing louder and closer, he suddenly noticed a door to his right that he'd swear hadn't been there before.

Ciel stared at it a moment before carefully putting his hand on the handle. It was a cold, iron thing, the door wooden and nondescript. It took only another wet, vicious snarl from the halls behind him to push down on the handle. He had a moment of fear that it would be locked, but it wasn't. After only a second of hesitation, he pushed the door in, quickly crossing the threshold and pushing the door shut behind him.

Ciel took a moment to steady himself before looking around the room he'd just walked into. He discovered quickly that it was a lavishly decorated bedroom. The four poster bed was made with what appeared to be satin sheets, the canopy above dropping down in opulent midnight blue velvet. All of the wood pieces in the room were dark and elegantly carved, from the stately dresser in the corner to the ornate bedposts. On the opposite wall was a stone balcony set into the wall, though it could only be seen partially from the mostly-pulled velvet curtain that hung this side of it.

It only took a few steps into the room for Ciel to realize he wasn't alone. He froze the moment he saw a figure sitting on the opposite side of the bed from him, facing away. He glanced back at the door he'd just entered and considering running for it, monstrous creature and all, when the figure spoke.

Sebastian's calming voice melted away Ciel's tenseness in an instant. He felt his muscles relax, and he gladly approached the bed, getting onto it to sit behind the man.

"I'm glad you came."

Suddenly, it was as if every frightening and horrific thing that had existed in the hall and beyond had never been. He was there with Sebastian in that moment, and nothing more. The man turned to face him, taking Ciel easily into his arms. Sebastian's warmth was intoxicating, and he rested his head on his shoulder, feeling at once sedated by the comfort and familiarity of his arms.

"Of course I came. The couch was wet."

Ciel wasn't sure what couch he was talking about, but it seemed like the natural thing to say.

Sebastian nodded, stroking his hair and gently rubbing his back. Ciel felt like he could fall asleep at any moment, when suddenly the image of his mother's look of fear crossed his mind's eye, and he was startled into alertness. Perhaps it was his imagination, but when Sebastian stroked his hair next he could have sworn he felt a fingernail scratch his scalp. A nail that was longer and sharper than it should have been.

He quickly pulled back slightly from the embrace, looking up into Sebastian's face with a scrutiny guarded with a newfound lucidity. At first the face that looked back at him was kind and gentle. It was Sebastian's face, but it was also his mother's face and his father's face, and everything he knew he should trust. But the bruise that had formed on his shoulder from earlier began to ache, and something twisted inside his gut that he couldn't ignore. He moved to pull away but Sebastian held him fast. His grip was tightening to one all too familiar, and he felt panic well up inside him again.

When Sebastian spoke his voice was still his own at first, but it darkened and deepened with every syllable, becoming something that was at first unrecognizable.

"Don't worry, Ciel. Everything is fine. Don't think about it."

And then, before his very eyes, Sebastian's face transformed. It softened at first, losing shape and form, collapsing into something that looked the consistency of bread dough. And then, just as quickly it reformed, reshaping itself into a face that made every cell of his body cry out in fear and panic. His long, dark hair fell out at its roots, growing in pale and colorless. As his face took on its final shape he leaned forward, putting a crooked finger to Ciel's lips. His voice was higher now, and rang with a tone and timber that stirred something inside Ciel that had been hidden a very long time.

"Sh, Ciel. It's fine. Everything… is fine."

But even as he said these words his hand slipped around Ciel's neck, slowly tightening on his throat.

Ciel clawed and scratched at the hand, trying to pry back the fingers that gripped his throat like a vise. The panic bubbling up inside him hit the roof of his mouth, and unable to form into a scream escaped his throat in the most guttural and straining gasps. He felt his lips beginning to go numb, and his vision was becoming spotted with fuzzy dark splotches.

He strained through the effects of the strangulation to look up into his attacher's face. And then, suddenly, the familiarity hit him with a force like a brick wall.

In his last moments of waning clarity the name wrote itself behind his eyes, searing into his skull like the death sentence it'd always been. His eyes bulged, his hands clawing without any strength besides reflex now. The shock of his realization filled every cavity of his body, and suddenly he felt everything at once. He reached up into his attacker's face, reaching frantically for the face that had haunted a part of him that he'd locked away deep inside himself. The man only smiled tauntingly, and he saw rather than heard his words as he spoke again.

"Don't worry, Ciel. You won't be alone for long. Don't worry. Don't... worry."

Ciel sat up in bed with a cry, one hand around his own throat, the other reaching out into space, grasping at a face that wasn't there.

He was breathing heavily, each breath filling and emptying his lungs fully and making him shudder. He was drenched in cold sweat, the sheet sticking to his bare skin. He was shivering and shaking violently, though he felt only the heat of a furnace inside him.

Sebastian sat up beside him, shaking sleep from his head and quickly wrapping his arms around him. "Sh, Ciel. It's okay. You were only dreaming."

Ciel reacted at first in panic, pushing Sebastian away from him and nearly falling off the edge of the bed. But the older took his waist before he could, gently pulling him back. "Ciel, it'sme. It's okay. You're okay. It wasn't real, whatever it was. You're safe."

Ciel took a few more breaths, steadying himself enough to get his bearings. He looked around him. He was in Sebastian's room at his apartment. The walls were drywall. The bed was a simple queen. He was naked but for the sheet around his hips. He knew where he was.

Ciel collapsed into Sebastian's arms, crying uncontrollably for a reason he didn't understand. Even now the nightmare was slipping away from him. It was like trying to keep water in his cupped hands. After a few moments, it was gone.

Eventually he laid back down, burrowed in Sebastian's arms. After a while, his breath returned to normal, and his crying slowed and then calmed. By the time he was drifting back off to sleep he'd all but completely forgotten his nightmare.

And yet, even as he slipped into a calm, dreamless sleep, he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that he'd forgotten something important. But by the time he was fast asleep again in Sebastian's arms, he's forgotten that, too.

So as I was writing this I was just texting my friend like "this is so fucking dark I can't even handle myself." And it is dark. But I hope it's in the same vein as the series. In any case, I literally wrote this whole thing in one sitting because it was such an intense experience for me. Of course we'll be back to the cute and love and fluff of before soon enough, but there's enough in here to hopefully get you thinking. Thanks again for reading!