A flash of yellow.
Watching eyes blinked in and out of the dark.
There and gone.
There.
Gone.
Following, chasing, hunting.
I ran and ran and ran.
My breath sawed out of me, burning my lungs as I pushed myself harder and faster. Each inhale tasted like the bile at the back of my throat, and liquid fear scalded the blood in my veins. A gust of wind buffeted me, and I stumbled as a massive wing swung overhead, nearly clipping my ear. My stomach sank and curdled while I tried to propel myself over unsteady ground.
“No, no, no—fuck!” Roots pushed up through the soil like the hands of the dead rising from the grave. They grasped at my ankles, scratching and snapping.
A branch cracked as sharply as bones breaking, and the visceral tension in the air shifted. It was there again—the monster.
Not behind me, no, but everywhere. Multiple yellow orbs glared from the dark. A fully formed silhouette, larger than a bear, prowled between the trees. The surrounding air was brittle with something other than the chill of a fall night. Something palpable that sent a nasty shiver down my spine.
It moved with impossible silence, hunched and shoving its way into the path.
One blink—and the creature lunged at my face.
A bloodcurdling scream rose in my throat—
I jerked awake, and the terrified shriek rising to my lips garbled into a pitiful whimper and died.
Moonlight slanted through a crack in the curtains. My heart bullied my ribs and sweat trickled down my temples. For several whooping breaths, I grasped for reality while the residue of the nightmare clung to my skin like a film.
Yellow eyes had etched themselves into the tender meat of my brain, and my skin felt flensed from my bones. The owl-beast’s face had been so close in the dream. Far too close.
Even as I sat there with my face between my knees, I swore I felt the presence of something a hair’s breadth from my nose. It took longer than I wanted to admit for me to ground myself in the waking world, to latch onto the little domestic sounds of the house around me.
By the time I finished my shower and stumbled into the kitchen, I was desperate for an obnoxiously large cup of coffee. I sat at the island, warming my hands on the mug and breathingin the delicious aroma of roasted beans while watching the first traces of dawn paint the sky in blush light.
Or as much as it could. Rain had returned by the end of the weekend, and it poured on and off as if the weather couldn’t decide if it wanted to drown the world in sudden deluges or simply weep in scattered bursts.
Feathered memories wedged in the tender parts of my brain like splinters. I tried to dislodge them with logic. Monsters weren’t real. I was under a lot of stress. My mind was playing tricks on me.
I hadn’t stopped dreaming about the avian-adjacent creature all weekend. Instead of monsters or the possibility I was losing my mind, I forced my attention to the email I’d received from Professor Quinn the same night I’d come home drenched in sweat and fear. The encounter had hooked its talons in me, but I was determined to move past it. His email provided a needed distraction, and I spent the rest of the weekend thinking about my looming role with him.
His email had arrived close to midnight, when I was still winded and shutting all the curtains around the house like a paranoid nut. One simple message, polite and clipped, asking me to meet him in his office at seven-thirty. Ungodly early, but anxiety needled the back of my neck, and I wanted to get out of the house.
I wore a safe outfit that day. An oversized olive sweater, khaki trousers, and brown boots from the thrift store. A coal-colored coat with deep pockets shielded me from the gray gloom breathing through the trees and coating the roads in vaporish fog. I drove carefully, admittedly still on edge. During the short ride, I rehearsed what I might say to Professor Quinn. I would speak in a neutral, professional tone and ask about grading rubrics, confirm my availability, and not stare at his stupidly mesmerizing eyes.
The clouds opened and exhaled a thick shroud over the campus. Few maneuvered within the mist, and from the parking lot they looked like ghouls shambling through the dreary haze.
Somewhere in the trees, an owl hooted.
I rushed across the quad like a bat out of hell.
The professor’s office was in the basement of the History Hall. Warm despite the location and a welcome respite from the insidious chill outside. I ambled down the long hall of dark wood and stone, hugging my coat tighter around me. The entire corridor felt tucked away from the present, embodying the heart of another world, another time.
A splinter of light spilled across the floor from a cracked doorway. A rush of nerves skittered over my skin, and I took a steadying breath before lifting a fist to knock.
“Come in,” he called out.
