Will opens his eyes and sees his ceiling. There are no old, dust cover mirrors, no heaps of dusty red velvet curtains, no broken shafts of light streaming in through a hole in the floor of a stage above. Just that plain white ceiling.
He lays there a minute longer, noticing things. He is almost shocked to find that his eyes are not blurry with sleep, and that it seems hardly a second ago he had just gotten into bed and closed his eyes, willing sleep to come faster. But he doesn't feel as though he has slept at all. He feels like he has just been running for hours unending, swallowing dust instead of precious air.
Will sits up with a breathless, coughing, grunt and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, still panting, and realizes it is still dark outside. He moves to look at the clock and finds that that simple motion causes him pain across his shoulders. Breath held, he turns his head gingerly to glance at his shoulder and sees black-edged holes in his white t-shirt. He frowns at these holes in confusion and his breath comes back harder than before. Moving as little as possible, he pulls the shirt up over his head and looks again at his shoulder. There are five black crescent shaped indentions in his skin. A glance at his other shoulder confirms that the same marks are there as well, just as he feared.
He pulls himself out of bed, and finds that even this simple motion sends wave of pain rippling through his muscles. He winces and sucks in a breath that does no good to soothe the dryness of his lungs. The walk to his mirror seems to take an age, and when he gets there, he looks at himself in the mirror and is horrified to find that crescents are bleeding, oozing black ink. He rubs at them frantically but nothing happens. It is as though his skin is water, and the crescents five drops of black venom, swirling and twisting through his skin while slowly infecting his entire body.
Will is transfixed by their movements and only looks up when he sees a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. She is standing there, looking over his shoulder into the mirror, smiling. Will spins around, back to the wall, prepared to fight her for as long as his dusty lungs will allow, but she rushes forward in a move too fast to be seen and has him pinned to the wall. Her hands grip his wrists and one of her legs slips through the slit in her skirt to come between his legs.
Will has lost his strength, he finds, and feels like he has not felt since the fall of his first year at sky high. She pushes her head forward against his neck. "Did you think it was all just a dream, little boy?" she hisses, tongue running over his ear. And then she is gone, and Will realizes that she had been holding him off the floor. He crashes down to the floor and pushes himself as close to the wall as he can, arms wrapped around his bare chest. His breath comes faster and he rubs his skin. He feels like he has been frozen.
Then Josie stronghold calls out "will? Are you awake yet? I have breakfast ready for you!" her voice echoes as it comes up the stairs. Will looks around himself, shocked. Bright light streams in through his window and birds sing songs, muffled by the glass. His mother calls to him again and he jerks, pulls himself to his feet and looks around, wide eyed. "Will?" Josie calls out a third time and will finally responds.
"Yeah! Yeah, mom, I'm-I'm up! I'll be down in a minute!" he breaks into a fit of coughs after this announcement, feeling as though his throat has just been rubbed raw by sand. When he can finally take a breath without coughing it back up again, he bends over and picks a shirt up off the floor. He pulls it over his head and winces when it touches his shoulders. He stuffs his feet into his shoes and tumbles out his door, almost falling down the steps.