A Reality Worse Than Any Nightmare

“Why do I feel so anxious?” Heidi asked no one in particular as she beat a fist on her chest.

The unease felt like an invisible substance filling her lungs and knotting in her gut, making her want to puke and unable to breathe properly.

Saturn raised a brow while reaching out to place the smoothie glass on the table. “Like?”

“I don’t know.” Heidi shook her head. A shiver ran down her spine, chills crawling on her skin. Hugging herself, she mumbled, “I just have this… it feels like I’m suffocating. I find myself holding my breath without realizing it.”

Saturn studied the girl for a while, then her lips curled into a smirk. “You’re scared, aren’t you?”

“Of what?” Heidi frowned.

“Me, obviously,” Saturn replied as she thrust her chin.

A scoff escaped Heidi’s lips. “Nah... I’ve never been scared of you.” She shook her head dismissively, staring Saturn in the eye and watching the latter’s smirk falter at the truth of her words. “Hard pill to swallow, isn’t it?” She snickered before pushing herself from the bed and moving toward the mirror.

Standing before it, she fingered the rough edges of the adhesive. Then she began, with hasty fingers, to plait her unruly hair into big braids.

“Let me give you a massage,” Saturn offered. But, to Heidi, that sounded more like a polite way of asking to give physical pain.

“Stay where you are,” she rejected quickly, her tone firm.

“And if I insist?” Saturn said in a playful manner, though it wasn’t so for Heidi who retorted.

“With threats? You’ve already destroyed my phone, and there are no maids to drag me around.”

“Ah, you’re getting snappy,” Saturn grumbled as she shook her foot. 

The room fell into an uncomfortable silence, with Heidi quietly braiding her hair. After a long pause, Saturn spoke again, this time her voice sounded softer. 

“I can’t believe it took me dying to realize what a crappy person I’ve been.”

Heidi didn’t know where this time spent with Saturn would lead to. Knowing the girl for nearly two years, she was pretty predictable. But now, Heidi couldn’t figure out why she acted soft all of a sudden—and made strange comments too.

“Why’re you here anyway?” Heidi scoffed. “To continue taunting me or something?”

“I’m not taunting you.”

Heidi rolled her eyes. “Sure, only because you’re bloody drunk.”

Saturn yawned. “Yeah, I did drink a lot. But alcohol has got nothing to do with what I’m saying.”

“And I’m supposed to take your word as it is, yes?” Heidi let out a small chuckle. And Saturn huffed out a humorless laugh in response.

“You don’t believe me,” she said as she uncrossed her legs and sat up, the remnants of a smile still clinging to her lips.

“Mm.” Heidi finished the last braid. “I do believe I’ve spent enough time here though.”

“You go then,” Saturn replied, reclining back in the chair with a sigh. “I want to enjoy the peace down here for a while. I might never get it.”

“Suit yourself,” Heidi muttered curtly before sitting on the bed to slip on her shoes. “Your fucking self,” she said under her breath.

“When are you going to ‘bath down’ your habit of swearing?” Saturn asked with mock disapproval, and Heidi shot back without missing a second.

“Whenever you stop being a bitch.”

“Right now, I think I’m not that.”

“It’s just the alcohol. Saturn can’t survive without her attitude,” Heidi quipped while getting up.

“Haha. Maybe you’re right,” the other girl conceded with a lazy chuckle. “Just watch out for the heart reaper. He doesn’t seem to show mercy.”

Heidi paused, a chill running through her at Saturn’s words. She didn’t respond, but when she placed her hand on the doorknob, the unease in her chest only deepened.

The events of earlier started to flood in—from Madam Kwakye’s change of attitude to Heidi stepping into the party and encountering Zavere, along with the guard she thought she had knocked out.

She turned to Saturn. “You said I hit my head… that Hunter brought me here.”

The other girl peered at her and, after a moment, chuckled. “Yeah, I see you’ve figured it out,” she said casually. “Hunter killed a guard for hurting you, and then brought you here.”

“How can you say that like it’s nothing?”

“Because that’s how it is. He did kill her like she was nothing… right in front of everyone.”

Heidi didn’t believe Saturn. It was hardwired in the girl to be dramatic, often exaggerating matters to get reactions. But something in her words unsettled Heidi, making her headache throb even more, nausea building up.

She pushed the door open and stepped out into the hallway. As she did, Saturn’s voice came through the crack in the door. “By the way, I didn’t destroy your phone. Someone stole it from my room. I actually thought it was you until you asked…” And the voice trailed off as Heidi stumbled down the hallway.

The mansion was eerily silent. The music that had been pulsating through the air earlier had vanished.

Was the party over?

Had the guests all retired to their rooms?

These questions kept coming in Heidi’s head as she arrived at the stairs. There should have been maids bustling through the hallways, but there was no one—only an oppressive silence that pressed in from all sides.

She stealthily descended to the second floor. And her eyes were immediately drawn to a sight that made her chest burn, a cold pit forming in her stomach. 

Bloody strokes were made across the walls; bodies strewn down the staircase like discarded dolls.

Heidi shrank back in fear. “Oh God!” she gasped; her voice choked with terror as her heart raced uncontrollably.

When she heard a shriek pierce the air, followed by desperate cries for help, adrenaline surged through her veins, and without thinking, she bolted down the stairs, not caring if she kicked the lifeless bodies in her way.

Splashing through pools of blood, she followed the trail of corpses until she reached the party hall. 

The low, besetting notes of music still played in the background, barely audible, as dim lights flashed in hues of blue and red.

But the scene before her was a bloodbath—bodies lying scattered across the floor, the once vibrant celebration now turned into a grotesque beano of death.

Heidi’s legs felt like lead as she forced herself to move. 

She heard another piercing cry, with two more almost immediately, thuds resonating in her ears. And each of these noises paralyzed her with fear.

The terror grew so intense that it became numbing, leaving her to stare blankly at the blood-pooled floor. 

But then a thought sliced through her foggy mind—Hunter. Was he among the dead? And her dads and Morton—where were they?

“Saturn, I need help!” Heidi thought she screamed, but the words barely escaped her lips in a hoarse whisper.

She began to search the bodies frantically, her mind racing. 

When she spotted a familiar satin cloth shimmering under the dim light, she rushed over, only to find Saturn’s pale, bloodied body lying lifelessly with her heart ripped out.

“Saturn?” Heidi whispered in disbelief. Surely, this had to be another dream—a nightmare. “No! That’s not you.”

Panic-stricken, she raced back up the stairs, her heart pounding. She burst into Hunter’s room but found it empty—no trace of Saturn nor her scent.

Heidi leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor, gripping her braids with frail fingers as tremors wracked her body. 

The pain was overwhelming, and she needed to cry but the tears wouldn’t come, so she just sat there, her face in between her thighs, eyes staring blankly at the floor.

She soon rose and headed downstairs when she thought of Hunter. The idea of escaping the mansion didn’t occur to her as she sped down to the hall as fast as she could.

The fear in her seemed to have suddenly been locked away somewhere as she searched the bodies, looking for anyone she knew. 

She discovered that, just like Saturn, their hearts were all ripped out, which slightly convinced her that this might be just another dream.

“Hunter? Dad?” she called out with growing dread.

When she spotted Dad Tad amidst the carnage, her shoulders dropped instantly before she fell to her knees in front of his sprawled corpse.

She had hopes… hopes that at least her family was alive if she didn’t find their bodies. But now that hope just dispersed into thin air.

“Gods. What’s all this?” she mumbled while staring defeatedly at Dad Tad’s open eyes before reaching out to close them, sitting on her feet; frozen in place.

As someone’s whimper, as life left their body, rang through the mansion walls, Heidi couldn’t tell where the voice fucking came from. 

She whipped her head around the blood-painted hall in confusion before she scrambled to her feet, suddenly aware that the killer was lurking nearby.

Her eyes darted across the archway that introduced the hallway, where the light shone bright; a stark contrast to the near darkness surrounding her. 

Something caught her attention—the moving shadow of a large wing cast on the wall, its feathers shaped as deadly spikes, exuding a menacing aura.

Heidi recoiled in a terrific blast, her eyes widening as fear gripped her. Cold sweat broke out on her skin, her hair standing at attention as if commanded by the sight.

Even as the ominous shadow slipped from her view until it disappeared, Heidi couldn’t find the spirit to run. She merely stared at the empty, bloody space on the wall where the shadow once was while finding it difficult to breathe properly.

A towering figure emerged from the hallway and stepped under the archway. The light from the hallway illuminated parts of him—his nose, hair, and shoulders—but the rest of his form remained shrouded in darkness, which was why Heidi couldn’t figure out who he was until…

“Heidi,” a familiar voice broke the silence.

The girl gasped, relief flooding in, as she only then recognized the silver-blonde hair glinting beneath the light.

“Hunter!” Heidi cried out, then sighed before sprinting across the room to where Hunter stood.

She collided with him and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, pressing her face into the warmth of his broad, solid chest.

He might not have hugged her back but Heidi was satisfied with him being alive. She soon disentangled after letting go of some tension.

“Are you alright, were you hurt?” she asked quickly as she pressed his arms and patted his shoulders. He seemed fine to her; except, he wasn’t moving.

“Say something, Hunter. Did you see who did this?” Heidi asked while searching his cold, distant eye. 

As her hands slid down Hunter’s limb—from his forearms to his fingers—she felt something cold and gooey beneath her touch.

Heidi looked down to see the gore that coated them before taking notice of the coppery tang of blood that had filled her senses. Then she recoiled her hands when she saw the thick blood soaking Hunter’s clothes, his hair matted with it.

She stared at her own bloodstained hands, and then back at Hunter’s, watching the man let go of the bloodied hearts that he cupped in each fist.

Heidi staggered back, just before the spotlight suddenly flickered across them. And in that short moment, she caught Hunter’s emotionless, crimson-streaked face, his expression darkened with an aura from the other side of a moon.

“No, this can’t be happening,” Heidi whispered. She shook her head frantically, resigning to the fact that whatever was going on played only in her mind.

“Hunter, don’t fuck with me again,” she muttered with a breaking tone. “Please tell me this is another damn dream!” She demanded, her voice echoing in the hall.

Yet, Hunter remained silent, his gaze fixed on her. And with every second that passed without him talking or moving, Heidi felt her world spinning, suffocating her.

This wasn’t a dream; it was her own hell invading—a reality that was worse than any nightmare she could have ever imagined.