Vengeance Through Passion

Music Recommendation: Runaway by Aurora.

***

Aricia found herself drifting, her consciousness slowly pulling away from the edges of reality and slipping into the strange, otherworldly folds of a dreamscape.

The world around her, once solid and real, had dissolved into a surreal haze. She blinked, trying to make sense of her surroundings, but everything seemed distant, warped, as if viewed through a thin veil.

It dawned on her that she must have fallen asleep while reading one of the books. The faint scent of old pages and ink still lingered in her mind, though the heavy tome she had been holding was now nowhere to be seen. Her body felt light, untethered, as if she were floating rather than standing on solid ground.

The landscape around her was vast, stretching into a horizon that seemed both near and impossibly far away. The colors were muted, pale blues and grays blending together in a strange, ethereal mist.

The ground beneath her feet was soft, like a foggy marshland, yet she didn’t sink. Instead, she glided effortlessly over the surface, each step soundless and smooth.

The sky above was dark, not with the deep blackness of night but with swirling shades of gray, as though the clouds had conspired to create a world without light.

Yet, somehow, everything was visible—dimly illuminated by an unseen source, casting an eerie glow over the landscape. In the distance, shadowy forms flickered in and out of sight, their movements strange and alien, as if they were echoes of something long forgotten.

Aricia wandered through this place, unsure of where she was headed or what she might find. The silence around her was thick, almost oppressive, broken only by the faint, distant hum of wind or some unidentifiable force.

It was the kind of quietness that filled the space between thoughts, amplifying the strange quality of everything around her.

Her mind raced, trying to recall what she had been reading before sleep had claimed her. Something about history—wars, perhaps. But the details slipped through her grasp like water, leaving her with a vague sense of unease.

There had been something important, something buried deep within those pages, and yet here she was, lost in a world that made no sense.

As she moved, the landscape began to shift. What had once been a flat, fog-covered plain started to change. The ground beneath her feet gave way to uneven terrain, and strange, misshapen trees began to rise up from the mist.

Their branches twisted and tangled, forming strange, almost grotesque shapes as they reached toward the sky. The air felt heavier here, as if it carried the weight of countless forgotten memories.

It was then, just as Aricia was about to move, that she heard it—a soft giggle, so faint and delicate that it could have easily been mistaken for the wind rustling through the leaves. But there was something off about it.

The sound was too clear, too purposeful to be part of the natural environment.

It drifted through the air like the lightest feather, brushing against her ears, and she shivered, goosebumps prickling her skin despite the stillness around her.

Her heart quickened, a pulse of unease spreading through her. She turned her head slowly, straining to catch the source of the sound.

The giggles came again, slightly louder this time, though still distant, elusive. "Hello?" Aricia called out, her voice trembling in the oppressive silence. "Who is it?" The words seemed to vanish into the air as soon as they left her lips, swallowed up by the heavy quiet of the night.

In the distance, a figure appeared. It was too far to make out clearly, but Aricia felt an odd sense of familiarity. She hesitated, unsure if she should approach, but the pull was too strong to resist. Her steps quickened, and the figure became clearer.

It was a person, standing still in the middle of the mist, their back turned to her. The figure wore a long, flowing robe that shifted and shimmered as if made from the very fabric of this place itself.

"Hello?" Aricia called out, her voice sounding strange in the stillness, as though it didn’t quite belong. The figure didn’t respond, didn’t move, but Aricia felt a strange energy emanating from them, something powerful and ancient.

As she drew closer, a cold sensation swept over her, like a breeze blowing straight through her bones. The figure remained unmoving, but now Aricia could see that it was not just any person—it was her. The realization hit her like a wave, unsettling and disorienting.

The figure was an exact mirror of herself, down to the clothes she had been wearing before falling asleep.

Her heart began to race, confusion mixing with fear as she stared at her double. The figure turned slowly, its face hidden beneath the shadow of its hood. But Aricia didn’t need to see the face to know that it was hers. The figure raised a hand, beckoning her closer, though Aricia found her feet rooted to the spot.

A sudden gust of wind swept through the dreamscape, making the trees groan and creak as their branches twisted and writhed.

The fog thickened, swirling around them like a living thing, and the sky darkened further, swallowing what little light there had been. The double of Aricia began to fade, its form disintegrating into the mist, until nothing remained but the eerie silence.

Alone once more, Aricia’s breath quickened as a new sound reached her ears—whispers, soft and barely audible, but growing louder with each passing second. They seemed to come from all directions, surrounding her, filling her mind with words she couldn’t understand. The ground beneath her feet shifted again, the marshland turning into something more solid, yet uneven and cracked, like the surface of a long-forgotten battlefield.

The whispers grew louder still, their tone more insistent, until they became a cacophony of voices, overlapping and blending into one another.

Aricia clutched her head, trying to block them out, but the sound was relentless, drilling into her mind. It was as if the dreamscape itself was speaking to her, though the language it spoke was foreign and incomprehensible.

Aricia's breath hitched as she took a hesitant step forward, her instincts warning her to turn back, yet her curiosity urging her to follow.

The giggles came again, softer now, and the girl moved, slowly walking further along the path. She didn’t seem to notice Aricia, or if she did, she gave no sign. Her movements were graceful, almost too fluid, as though she were floating rather than walking. The girl turned another corner, disappearing from sight.

Without thinking, Aricia hurried after her. She called out again, but the words caught in her throat, her voice faltering. The soft giggles echoed back to her as she rounded the bend, but the girl was always just ahead, always just out of reach.

Aricia’s steps quickened, but no matter how fast she moved, the child remained distant, gliding effortlessly further into the forest.

As the minutes passed, Aricia began to notice something strange. She had turned around the same bend multiple times, the trees around her becoming increasingly familiar. The same twisted branches, the same crooked roots.

It was as if she were walking in circles, trapped in an endless loop. Her heart pounded in her chest, the feeling of unease blooming into full-fledged dread.

"Who are you?" she demanded, her voice rising with panic. The little girl didn’t answer, didn’t even acknowledge her. She just kept moving, disappearing around another bend, leading Aricia deeper into the forest.

Frustration and fear gnawed at Aricia’s mind. She called out once more, louder this time. "Who are you!" Her voice echoed through the empty forest, bouncing off the twisted trees and vanishing into the void. She waited, breathless, her ears straining to catch any sound.

And then it came.

"Silence!"

The tone of the voice that replied to her was not like the soft giggles she had heard.. It was something dark, something twisted and monstrous. The word erupted from the girl as she stopped in her tracks and spun around to face Aricia. But what Aricia saw wasn’t the innocent face of a young girl. The figure before her had transformed. Her features were distorted, warped into something grotesque and unnatural. Her eyes, once hidden beneath her hair, were now wide and hollow, empty pits that seemed to devour the light around them. Her mouth, stretched impossibly wide, hung open, revealing rows of jagged, sharp teeth.

The word “Silence” reverberated through the forest, not just a sound but a force. It echoed with such intensity that the ground itself seemed to tremble beneath Aricia's feet. The trees groaned as the wind picked up, swirling violently around her. The sound was deafening, a horrible cacophony that drilled into her skull. Aricia clasped her hands over her ears, trying to block out the unbearable noise, but it was too late.

The scream from the girl grew louder, impossibly louder, until it seemed as if the very sky was ripping apart. The air vibrated with the force of the sound, and Aricia felt her knees buckle beneath her. The pain hit her then—a sharp, piercing pain in her ears. She touched her fingers to her head and felt the wet, warm trickle of blood streaming down the sides of her face.

The last thing she saw before her vision blurred and faded was the girl, standing still in the center of the path, her hollow eyes watching as Aricia’s world collapsed around her. Her form seemed to grow larger, more twisted, as if feeding off Aricia’s fear. The trees seemed to close in, their branches reaching out like claws, trapping her in this nightmarish landscape.

Then, everything went black.

As., the ground gave way beneath her, and she found herself falling—plunging into an abyss of darkness. The wind howled in her ears, and the whispers turned into screams. Panic seized her, and she reached out, grasping at the air, but there was nothing to hold on to. Her body felt weightless, suspended in the void, with no sense of direction or time.

Just as the darkness threatened to swallow her whole, a blinding light erupted from below, pulling her back toward consciousness.

***

The dreamscape shattered around her like fragile glass, and Aricia jolted awake, gasping for breath. Her chest heaved as reality came rushing back, but her limbs felt like lead, and before she could steady herself, her body collapsed to the ground, limp and unresponsive.

Her mind teetered on the edge of unconsciousness, fading into the inky depths of whatever realm she had just escaped.

"Are you alright, child?" came a voice from above. Mr. Edward, the librarian, peered down at her, concern etched across his face as he leaned closer, his brow furrowed.

Aricia struggled to sit up, her vision still swimming, but she forced herself to meet his gaze. Sweat beaded on her forehead, dripping down her temples as she released shaky, panicked breaths.

"Yes, kind sir," she responded, her voice strained but masking her fear with an unconvincing, almost comic tone. She waved off his worry, as if trying to dismiss what had just happened as nothing more than a strange fainting spell.

But then, she felt it—warm and wet. Aricia’s eyes widened as she touched her ear, her fingers coming away smeared with crimson.

Blood was trickling down the side of her face, seeping from her ears in thin rivulets. The shock sent a cold shiver down her spine, her pulse quickening with fear.

Using the cloth she had wrapped around her palms, she hurriedly dabbed at the blood, trying to hide the evidence of what had just transpired. Her heart raced in her chest, the events of the dream—no, the nightmare—still too real in her mind.

The whispers, the eerie figure, the deafening scream that had ripped through her ears. It felt real.

Too real.

"I’ll be going now," Aricia muttered, her voice barely more than a whisper. Her legs wobbled beneath her as she jerked to her feet, ignoring Mr. Edward’s concerned expression.

The bell above the door rang ever so gently as she hurried out of the library, leaving behind the eerie echoes of her dream and the growing dread that something was terribly wrong.