💀🎃 Happy Halloween 🎃💀
What are your guy's costumes this year?
My costume's unfortunately last minute but I'm turning my eyes black, putting a couple "stitches" across my skin and throwing on a black pair of horns I've got lying around. Can't go wrong with a good ole fashioned nightmare.
Are you going trick or treating or just buying your weight in candy and watching horror movies like me?
Have you scared anyone? Do you plan to?
Share your spooky stories and here I'll share Eve's spooky experience this Halloween.
"How do we get into the ER? It was overrun last we saw."
I looked around for a sec before going to the closet and digging through it for what I'm after.
Taking the two pale teal uniforms off the rack, I tossed one set of scrubs at Daryl.
I pulled the bloody hospital scrubs over my head, catching a glimpse of myself in the full length mirror on the back of the door.
It almost looks like a last minute Halloween costume with the knife, my messy hair, pale dirt-coated skin.
I couldn't resist a serial killer pose over Daryl while he wasn't looking and almost dropped my knife when he turned around.
I avoided his gaze at all costs but I know he's looking at me weirdly.
Seriously he shouldn't be surprised though. He knows what kind of person I am. Maybe he's looking at me because he knows.
"Ready?"
I nodded.
"Er's on the bottom floor." Daryl muttered low as he slipped out behind me into the long hall.
The fluorescent lighting gone. The smell of antiseptic replaced by dust and what you'd expect of a recently closed down slaughter house.
I crept down the hall past the children's ward, hoping to god there aren't any kids in here.
I haven't had to… you know, but if I see a tiny walker, I won't be able to leave them like that.
No matter how many there are, I can't leave a kid in that state. I just can't.
Even if it's a virus or parasite or whatever controlling an empty shell.
My shoes made subtle squeaks on the floor scattered with papers. Some official documents others crayon drawings. All of them smeared with blood or dirt of kind. Except one.
The pristine white caught my eye and I found myself crouching without even thinking. The edge of the crisp paper lifted with my fingers as I raised up the picture of a little blue plane flying through stormy skies.
For a second I thought the happy yellow sun was drawn underneath the other crayon but it's on the back as I turned the page over in my hand.
'Answer me this. If you die in a dream, will you really wake up?'
I blinked at the unfitting happy drawing of a sun with the dark inquisition written in bright yellow crayon.
What savage salt child asked that question?
I'd sure like to meet them. And explain that if you die in a dream, how do you know you're waking up, and not just entering another dream?
Maybe that's what happens when we die. We go from one dream to the next.
That makes me wonder though. If this world is a dream, what in the Hell did I do that warranted ending up here? And what was I thinking when I did it?
Did I sit in Satan's chair? Did I drink the water someone was gonna turn into a nice 1996 Bordeaux?
Did I commit genocide or something? If that's the case, did I at least have a good reason?
Oh no. Don't tell me.
I went to Hell for laughing at something I shouldn't have, didn't I?
"Wake up!"
What the—!?
My shoes screeched like brakes locking up car tires as I slid to a stop in the hallway.
"What do I do? I don't know what to do." the voice came over the loudspeaker again.
What the— ow my head!
My knees hit the ground as I clutched my head. The urge to scream was overpowering but my mouth wouldn't open. Something familiar in the back of my mind whispering, 'don't scream'.
"Can you show me the card trick again?"
I know that voice.
My blood ran cold the moment I looked up.
My eyes stung, settling on a small figure at the end of the hallway. A dirty blue t-shirt with a rainbow on the front and torn at the neck over her shoulder. A tattered doll clutched in her hand. Blood covering every inch of her clothing but not a speck on her skin.
"Sophia"
The little girl turned to the side and waved at someone. Not like a greeting, but asking them to come closer.
I watched a little girl in an orange shirt and a little boy in a dark blue one come around the corner.
Morales's kids? What are they doing here? It's not safe.
"Daryl, she doesn't look so good."
Wait but Daryl's right next to—
My head whipped around the hallway but there's no sign of him. Almost like he was never here.
I managed to get to my feet again, my head pounding like a marching band but shiny blonde hair and a light pink shirt covered in blood stopped me in my tracks.
"Amy"
A polite warm smile stretched the young woman's lips.
"Time to head back?"
What?
"It's time to head back, Eve."
I blinked and staggered back as Amy appeared right in front of me, her eyes dark and sunken like she hadn't slept in a thousand years, skin as white and starchy as bleached gauze.
"If you die in a dream, will you wake up?" That voice, it's Amy's but— her mouth didn't move.
"Let's find out."
The floor vanished underneath me.
My eyes shot open surrounded by darkness and bright light at the same time.
A forest?
Moonlight streamed between the spooky trees, casting an eerie light to the darkened grey shades of the forest.
Fog rolled around on the ground and some part of me expects to hear wolves howling but nothing.
The ambient noise of the forest is absent, leaving a tension broiling in my chest.
I'm cold but, I can't feel it.
I know I am, I can't feel my jacket.
I looked down just to make sure and a disembodied wispy screech pierced the forest.
My hands— they're— bones
I clawed at my face but my fingertips went straight into my eye sockets, clacking against bone.
That same piercing screech echoed, vibrating my bones, even blurring my vision with the shake.
"You better pray she's okay."
"Daryl!" that's not my voice.
They're my words but that inhuman pitch — it's not mine!
I felt something slide down my cheeks but only then did I realize I actually have cheeks.
The bone of my fingers dragged down my face, finding the rest of it intact but when I pulled them away, a thick black substance dripped down the off-white between the cracks.
The moonlight refracted off something at my feet and I moved my hands, setting sight on the shining silver blade at my boots.
'If you die in a dream,'
The bone clinked against the metal as I lifted it from the dead leaves.
'...do you wake up? Or do you sink further into the dream?'
A groan vibrated my parched throat as the seal on my eyelids peeled apart.
"Oh thank god"