First Encounter
The little girl, only about 10 years old [3 Earth years] runs into her mothers arms, crying. The woman hugs her daughter and speaks softly, trying to sooth her. “It’s okay. It’s okay. You had another nightmare?”
“Waah! It was terrible!” The little girl sobs. After a little bit of silence, the woman asks, “Do you want to tell me about it, Salsan?”
“No! I don’t want to remember it!” The little girl, Salsan, says. The woman nods her head. “Yes, but you already remember it. Maybe talking about it will help you feel better.
“O-okay.” The little girl says reluctantly. “I was fighting some really weird Screamers.”
“Ooh, yeah. That must have been scary.” The woman says, “What kind of Screamers were they?”
“I-I don’t know! They didn’t look right. They were… weird.” Salsan, the little girl says, struggling for words, “They aren’t like the Screamers in the storybooks. These ones… these ones looked like normal people, but they had Screamer powers.”
“Yes, many Screamers can appear as human.” The woman says thoughtfully. She winces as her child screams. “Agh! Mom, don’t scare me!” Salsan, the little girl shouts, pouting, “You’re supposed to tell me that my dream isn’t real.”
“Well, of course. It was just a dream.” The woman says, “But… it could happen. That’s why it’s so scary.”
“I don’t think I can go back to sleep.” Salsan whimpers. The woman gets a blanket and puts it over the little girl Salsan as they sit on the couch. “Well, maybe you can tell me a bit more about your dream.”
“Nightmare!” Salsan corrects her mother. Her mother nods in agreement. “Yes, of course. A nightmare.” The woman says, “Could you tell me a bit about the Screamer powers they had?”
The little girl huffs. “Sure. One was a boy. He held blue plastic gardening tools and used them to dig lines and big holes by merely scratching the dirt.” Salsan, the girl explains.
“That doesn’t sound too bad.” The woman says, “Why was that scary?”
“That wasn’t the scary part!” The little girl, Salsan, cries out, “That was just one of the people with Screamer powers. The scary part was with the witch!”
The woman sits very still. “A… witch?” The woman asks, tone now serious, entirely void of the soothing and tender motherly kindness from before. “What do you mean by a witch?”
“She wasn’t human. She was disgusting. Rotten.” Salsan says, grimacing in horror as she recalls the image, “Around her were others like her, similarly rotten, with something gooey growing on their bodies.”
The woman sighs. “That sounds like an Undead, my dear.” The woman says, motherly reassurance returning to her voice, “No need to be so scared of a simple zombie.”
“No! It wasn’t a normal zombie! It wasn’t an Undead.” Salsan says determinedly, “The witch brought people back from the dead. But they come back wrong. She covers them in gross, wet, gray and yellow plants. They would rise from the ground, and continue to grow those sickening plants from their faces.”
The woman frowns. “That’s… that’s not-” The woman begins to say.
“She offered to bring me back to life.” Salsan says through tears, “She said I could live forever as one of those sick, disgusting creatures.”
The woman tries to keep her voice from shaking. “S-Salsan, what was the witch’s name?”
Salsan, stops crying and looks up at her mother in confusion. “Mom, it’s just a dream, a nightmare.” Salsan says, though she doesn’t seem to believe it herself, “It’s not real.”
“Of course. It’s just a dream.” The mom says, “But, what was her name?”
Salsan looks down. And struggles to remember. “I don’t know.” Salsan finally says, “It was really long. ‘La-la-la-la?’”
“It started with an ‘L’?” Her mom asks, sighing in relief.
“Yes, but that wasn’t her name.” Salsan says, “That’s just what she called herself. I don’t know her name. She wanted me to call her a bunch of words that start with ‘L’.”
The woman’s eye is twitching. It’s not possible. The woman thinks to herself. Not my sweet little Salsan! She pulls her arms away from Salsan and stands up from the couch. “This witch. She was a lady?” The woman says, putting emphasis on “lady.”
“Yes! That’s what she called herself. Salsan says, enthusiastic but worried, “Lady!”
“I see.” The woman says, “I need to make some phone calls. You stay right here.”
“Is-is it about my nightmare?” Salsan asks.
“Is what about your nightmare?” The woman asks, feigning ignorance.
“Is the phone call about my nightmare?” Salsan clarifies.
“Oh that? No.” The woman says before quickly leaving Salsan on the couch to go to the bedroom, locking the door behind her, so Salsan can’t follow and overhear her. “Belladonna? It’s me, Witherwright.” The woman says on her phone, “I think I have a problem.”
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“Another nightmare?” The woman asks, dark circles under her eyes from sleepless nights trying to comfort her daughter. The little girl just nods. “Is it that Lady again?” The woman asks. The little girl nods again. “Alright, come here, Salsan.” The woman says, “You can sleep with mom again.” The little girl crawls up onto the bed and cuddles up next to the woman, but she doesn’t sleep. She sits there, whimpering. And the woman knows it’s going to be another sleepless night. “Mom, what will happen if I accept her offer?” Salsan asks, “What if I let myself become one of those creatures to live forever.”
The woman laughs nervously. “W-why would you ask that?” The woman asks, “Did you accept her offer?”
“No. But maybe if I accept the offer, the nightmares will stop.” The little girl says.
“No!” The woman shouts, before catching herself and more quietly saying, “I mean, no. The nightmares would only get worse. If just seeing those creatures is bad, then being one would be even worse.”
“I understand.” Salsan says, “It’s okay, mom. I won’t give in. The Lady can’t tempt me.”
The woman sighs in relief. Should I tell her? The woman wonders as she finally falls asleep for the first time all week.
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“What do you want from me?” Salsan cries. She can’t see the face of the grotesque figure hunched forward in front of her. “You know what I want, dearie.” The Lady says, moss covered mouth not moving as she speaks, facing downwards, “It’s the same terms as always. You can live forever if you become my host, so I can finally reach the fabled land of Screamers and expand into that realm that so despises my kind.”
“They hate you for good reason!” Salsan shouts, “You haunt my dreams every night! I’m never going to help you, so just leave me alone!”
“Haunt your dreams?” The Lady asks, straining her neck and back to look up at her and stand up straight, “Whatever do you mean?” Salsan is angry at how authentic the Lady sounds. She wants to yell at the Lady, but instead, she vomits. That face. It’s covered in mushrooms. Toadstools popping out of the eye sockets. Moss covered mouth sewn shut. Nose entirely ripped out as stringy parasitic worms sway in the wind stretching from the middle of her pale, decomposing face.
“My mother and I haven’t been able to get good sleep for months.” Salsan says, voice hoarse from bile, “You monster. Leave me alone!”
The Lady pushes down hard with both hands on her cane, a giant insect leg, forcing her back to straighten with a crack. “Dearie, you came to me.” The Lady says, “Don’t you remember? And I haven’t seen you sleep in years. Have you been daydreaming?”
Salsan’s mind is full of confusion. She just shakes her head. “No! I’ve got to get out of here!” Salsan shouts, “It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream! It’s just a dream!”
She runs for what she feels like is hours. Finally, she finds people. But they’re fighting each other. A pink flower bud blossoms in the hand of a teenage boy and grows a thorny vine that slaps the face of a dual-wielding woman covered in a cloak of blue feathers, swinging thin blades like a whirlwind.
“It’s been three weeks since I last killed anyone. That’s a new personal record.” The woman growls, jumping 10 feet into the air, diving towards the boy with blades first, “I don’t think I’ve ever gone longer than a week without killing before. I don’t know if this is the right term, but I’m hungry. Hungry to kill again.”
The boy drops the vine and two blue metal spades materialize in his hands, which he crosses in front of him to block the blades of the diving woman. “Well, maybe now you can break free from your addiction.” The boy says, pushing the woman 20 feet to the right and lifting his spades upwards, causing a wall of earth to rise in front of him.
“It’s not an addiction. It’s a necessity.” The woman says, “I need to eat. I need to breathe. I need to kill.”
“Well, that’s what I call an addiction.” The boy says, “You’ve gone years without eating or breathing, but you haven’t gone more than a week without killing before.”
“I don’t care. The woman howls, “I have to kill!”
“No. I won’t feed your addiction anymore.” The boy says, “I won’t be an enabler.”
Salsan has stopped running. She is just standing, jaw open in horror as these two people fight each other. One an adult woman, one a teenage boy.
“Do you smell that?” The woman says, and the boy parrys her strikes yet again, “It smells like prey.”
The boy looks around frantically. “Uh oh! Are we being ambushed?” He asks, then his eyes stop on Salsan, “Oh, that’s not a threat.”
“Mine! I sensed it first!” The woman says, turning from the boy and bounding towards Salsan.
“No! Come back here!” The boy says, “Don’t go killing strangers, you don’t know where they’ve been.”
Salsan turns and runs back the way she came, but the woman cloaked in feathers is hot on her tail, and gaining on her. “No! This isn’t happening.” Salsan cries, “It’s just a bad dream. It’s just a bad dream. It’s just a bad dream.”
A giant pink flower blossoms beneath the boy. The boy steps into the flower and it closes around him before blossoming in reverse, shrinking back down into the ground. Then, in front of Salsan, a pink flower bud blossoms into a giant flower, and the boy pops out, a blue spade in each hand. “Hurry, get out of here!” The boy says, “If you have any magic, now is the time to use it.”
“I-I don’t. I’m not-” Salsan stutters as she sprints, out of breath. The boy taps her shoulder and Salsan feels herself suddenly revitalized and full of energy, stamina and endurance enhanced. Breathing easy, pain gone, exhaustion but a distant memory. “I’m not a Screamer.” Salsan says, “I don’t have any powers.”
“So you’re not a native? I wonder how you got here.” The boy thinks aloud, “No matter, I shall stall her, just keep running.” The boy raises another 15-foot tall wall of earth, but the woman just hurtles it like a low bar. Salsan runs faster than she has ever ran before, but she knows it’s still not enough.
Vines wrap around the woman’s neck, strangling her. But the woman didn’t need to breathe anyway. She rips through the vines, pits and trenches form beneath her, but her cloak billows and she glides a few feet above the earth and gusts of wind push her from behind. Several pink blossoms bloom in front of Salsan and many clones of the boy pop out to slow the woman, but the woman cuts through them like butter.
Salsan stumbles to the ground as she is impaled. The blade in her gut fills her with searing pain. If this is a dream, why does it hurt so much? Why haven’t I woken up yet? She lies there sobbing. The woman pulls the blade out roughly, causing Salsan to cough up blood. The woman raises the blade to her face and grins in the reflection of the blood-stained sword. Salsan feels like she’s going to be sick.
The woman licks the bloody blade. That pushes Salsan over the line, she vomits. But while the woman is distracted, the boy sneaks up behind her and throws his hands around the woman, and a storm of fire and wind throws them into the air like a shining meteor. Salsan lies there, watching the boy grappling the woman from behind as they fly through the sky like a shooting star.
Salsan doesn’t know how much time she has. But she would rather bleed out than let that woman catch her. So she starts painfully crawling away.