Then I heard him groan behind me, still fucking me like an animal regardless of how close to actual death I was now.
“Fuck! Your fucking cunt, Elena!” he whispered, his dick expanding inside me. As my body let out whatever was left in me, it dawned on me that this ghost had fucking cum in me, and as much as that terrified me, it made my nipples even harder.
Slowly, the roots freed me, and I fell to the ground, naked, bare, and now soaked in mud and rain. My eyes began to close, and my breathing slowed to an even pace. I tried to squint hard enough, but I still couldn’t see anything. I could swear I was alone, but I still felt him around me, somewhere, everywhere, and nowhere at the same time.
“Don’t hide from me, Elena. The dark loves nothing more than a willing soul.”
And with that, I let the darkness consume me. It had claimed me, in body and mind, and I had given in and let it. I felt alive now in a way I had never been before.
Chapter Five
Elena
I woke to the soundof silence. Not birds or wind, just that kind of heavy quiet that makes you think the world had finally stopped breathing. The sheets were hauntingly cold when I touched them, and my body ached like I’d run miles barefoot. My muscles burned, my neck throbbed, and my knees…God, even my knees hurt. It was so much pain threaded through every muscle, every inch of skin, that it really felt like I’d been running for hours. Like the night had pressed its weight onto my body and refused to let go.
My eyes fluttered open to the soft glow of the morning, only I was met with a different setting, and the smell of sheets that oozed of old cologne and dust. This room wasn’t mine, it was my brother’s. I finally pushed myself upright slowly, confusion pricked through the fog in my head. Every movement tugged at some tender place I didn’t remember injuring.
Did I crash here last night after dinner?No…no, that didn’t make sense, I had gone outside. Yes, I remembered the cold andthe mud sticking to my legs.
My heart started to pound before my mind even caught up with the last thing I remembered…the maze, rain, running…Oh my god!My hands covered my mouth, as if it could contain the feelings trying to escape me. My thoughts felt sluggish, heavy, and like they were slipping through my grasp as I looked down at myself. My nightgown was staring at me, clean, white, and unmarked, with no trace of mud, dirt, or blood. Sitting up, my bare feet touched the carpet, landing softly on the dry surface. I pressed my palms against my face again, my heart pounding harder with each second.How was everything so spotless?
For a second, I wondered if it had all been a dream, a sick, vivid nightmare, or an insane, hallucinatory dream that my brain had stitched together from exhaustion, too much peanut butter, and rom-coms. I wanted to believe that so badly my hands started shaking.
Still, my body disagreed, making every breath ache, as if something had held me too tightly. My thighs trembled when I stood, stumbling toward the window. As I opened the curtains, the sunlight poured in, its warm, golden rays hit me, the sky was pale blue, and calm. The grass sparkled with frost, not rain. There was no sign of a storm, no broken branches. Nothing.
I pressed my forehead against the glass as I whispered, “It wasn’t real.” But the words tasted like a lie.
I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and called Max, but he didn’t answer, so I tried again, and still nothing. Panic surged through my bones, and I sank onto the bed, clutching my knees, while trying not to cry. I replayed everything, the chase, the rain, the voice that wasn’t a voice, the feeling of being watched, touched, licked, eaten…fucked.
No, don’t think about that,I tried to tell myself, but my body succumbed to the thoughts, my thighs pressed against each other, and my nipples…
When the phone finally rang, I nearly dropped it, abandoning my trail of thoughts. I quickly picked it up. “Hey, troublemaker?” His voice was groggy, but warm. “Is everything okay?”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah. I mean, no. I don’t know.”
He sighed, a sleepy chuckle in his tone. “Talk to me, princess. What’s wrong?”
My eyes darted to the window again, to the unmoving maze below. “Something strange happened last night,” I whispered. “I think I…I dreamt something, but it felt real.”
He went quiet for a beat. Then his voice softened. “It’s probably the stress of moving, that house, and the memories. It’s probably your mind playing tricks.”
“Maybe,” I said, though my stomach twisted at the lie. For some reason, I wondered why he sounded calm, almost too calm, but then again, everything that wasn’t my raging nerves was too calm.
“Yeah, don’t overthink it. I’ll be there in two days, and we can watch some bad rom coms, alright?”
I chucked lightly. “Okay.”
We talked some more, he asked me to make some tea, rest, and not to spiral. They were all things I agreed to do, because it was easier to let him believe I was fine. After we hung up, the silence came back, and it made my pulse drum in my ears as I tried to convince myself, to believe him, and to believe what I was telling myself. Maybe I was sleepwalking, maybe I imagined it, maybe…just maybe it wasn’t real. So I tried to focus on normal things: making the bed, opening the curtains, and breathing. I even told myself I’d laugh about it later, at how silly I was being, how insane my dream was. Heck, I would even call Mara and Talia and tell them about it. They eat shit like this up.
I finally summoned all the willpower I had to head to my room, after stopping for a mug of coffee, of course. I needed to be awake. Being sleepy was making my brain short-circuit. AsI walked back to my room, the floor creaked under my steps, sounding so familiar and wrong at the same time. The house I grew up in, which I knew like a second skin, had somehow turned into something I couldn’t recognize anymore. It sounded old, hurt, and almost like me on a good day.
I walked to the bathroom, ready to put this behind me and have a nice, long bath. As I stared at my reflection, I almost didn’t recognize myself. My eyes were swollen, my skin was pale, like I hadn’t slept in days. I lifted my mug to take a sip, and as I wiped the dusty mirror for a better view, the mug slipped from my grip in seconds, hitting the sink and shattering, sending pieces everywhere.
I stood there frozen in time and space. I was staring at my reflection, but…my breath caught, and I slowly straightened up to take a closer look at what was glaring at me.
Fingerprints; five distinct marks. Deep, bruised marks wrapped around both sides of my neck. Like someone had held me there and dug its fingers into my skin,hard. I touched them, hoping they’d vanish under my fingertips, but they didn’t. My knees buckled, and I caught myself on the counter, my eyes going wide as my heart crashed against my ribs.
And in that moment, I knew. The rain had been real, the maze had changed, the roots, the hands. The ghost who claimed to be death and the way he had held me, had me, ate me, used me, fucked me…oh god!I began to feel it all, the fear that turned to desire, the coldness that made me hot, the weight of desperate need for him that pressed into my skin.
