You wake up in hazy, hot darkness beneath your comforter. There is a sound coming from somewhere in your room. It is the sound of a foot, shifting positions. It is soft, but heavy, as if someone tall is trying not to make any noise. You go through your list. Your roommate. But he is gone until Tuesday, and it’s Sunday. And why would he come into your room unless it was an emergency. Your girlfriend, but you saw her last night at her place and then left. Sometimes she comes here to shower after the gym, which could be it. Very quietly, you turn your wrist towards your face. It glows green, illuminating the time: 3:32 a.m. So yeah. Your girlfriend would not be coming from the gym at this time.

The rain fell hard as the moon hung in the obsidian sky like a chandelier. Bramble Manor stood resolute over the dark village of Black Brier. The village, founded on partial truths and gossip, sat at the edge of the cloaked woods surrounding it like a crescent. The only way to leave was down an unkept dirt road through an opening in the black woods. 

It was just plain rotten luck, or perhaps some cruel twist of fate, that Melinoë, the goddess of nightmares, had plenty of nightmares of her own.

Nightmares of smooth scales and winding bodies pulled flush against her own. Serpents, snakes. They curled around her shoulders, tangled in her hair, corkscrewed around her wrists and ankles. They pulled taut, slithered, and writhed, covered her mouth, her eyes, her ears. And she woke up gasping.