The Dream Memory

Wôdnesdâ, the 4th of Winnímonað in the year 267

The darkness pressed in from all sides, thick and suffocating. Madeline tried to move, but her body felt wrong, too large, too heavy, limbs that didn’t respond the way they should. When she looked down, the hands before her were broad and masculine, veins standing out against pale skin that wasn’t hers. Thick fingers flexed, and she felt the movement but couldn’t control it, couldn’t stop it.

These aren’t my hands, she thought, panic rising. Why can’t I feel my own body?

The smell hit her next, damp earth, rot, the sickly-sweet stench of decay that made her want to retch. She was enclosed, trapped in a space barely wider than her shoulders. Wood pressed against her face, rough-hewn planks that scraped her cheek when she turned her head. A coffin. She was in a coffin.

Terror clawed at her throat, but the body she inhabited didn’t panic. Instead, those foreign hands pressed against the lid with inhuman strength. The wood groaned, splintered. Dirt cascaded through the cracks, filling her mouth with the taste of grave soil and something fouler, the residue of bodies long decomposed.

A thick, murky mist began to swirl before her eyes, creeping across the ground like something alive. It coiled around her legs, rose to her chest, and then invaded her mouth and nose. The taste was overwhelming, sweet, but wrong, like overripe fruit left to ferment, mixed with copper and something darker. It burned as it filled her lungs, searing her throat, making her cough violently even as the body she inhabited seemed to welcome it, to draw strength from it.

The mist thickened, obscuring everything, and then….

She was standing.

Air. Cold night air that burned her lungs.

She gasped, but the breath felt wrong, too deep, too powerful. When she opened her eyes, the world had changed. Darkness remained, but within it, shapes began to emerge, not in natural colours, but in shades of black and deep, pulsing red. The red throbbed like a heartbeat, illuminating the world in a predator’s vision.

The graveyard stretched before her in shades of black and crimson. Stone monuments loomed like silent sentinels, their surfaces gleaming wetly in her altered vision. Shadows moved between them, not natural shadows, but twisted, leering shapes that seemed to watch without eyes. The ground beneath her feet crunched with debris, and in the distance, dark flames flickered atop a stone edifice, casting an eerie, pulsing glow.

Something pulled at her, a hunger so profound it eclipsed thought. Her vision locked onto a figure ahead, a feminine form outlined in brilliant, throbbing red. The red was intoxicating, calling to something primal and vicious within the body she inhabited.

She lunged.

The world blurred as she moved with impossible speed, closing the distance in heartbeats. Her hands, his hands, seized the figure, fingers digging into soft flesh. The woman’s face turned towards her, eyes wide with terror, mouth open in a scream that never came.

No, Madeline thought distantly. No, that’s,

But the body didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. The hunger was everything. She felt her head dip, felt the unnatural extension of teeth, fangs, as they pierced skin. Hot blood flooded her mouth, that same sickly-sweet taste from the mist but a thousand times more intense. It was ecstasy and violation all at once, warmth spreading through her veins like molten metal.

The woman struggled, hands clawing weakly at her attacker’s arms. Madeline saw the face more clearly now, young, terrified, dark hair matted with dirt and blood. There was something familiar about the curve of the jaw, the shape of the eyes, but the feeding frenzy made it impossible to focus. The woman’s struggles grew weaker, her red aura dimming, fading to a sickly grey.

Stop, Madeline screamed silently. Please, stop!

But the body drank deeper, savouring every drop, every pulse of fading life. The woman’s eyes rolled back, her body going limp in the iron grip. Only then did Madeline see it clearly, the face, slack and pale in death.

Her own face.

Horror crashed through her, but before she could process it, something else seized her attention. A pulse, deep and rhythmic, thrumming through the air like a drumbeat. It called to her, demanded obedience, overriding even the satisfaction of the kill. The body released its victim, released her own body, letting it crumple to the ground among the grey stone monuments.

The pulse grew stronger, more insistent. The world folded, reality peeling away like mist in a storm. The graveyard vanished.

She stood in a long corridor carved from rough stone. Harsh yellowish lights dotted the ceiling, their glare stinging her eyes. The air was dank, heavy with moisture and the smell of earth. She looked down at herself, at him, seeing bulky legs in dark trousers, feet encased in flat black shoes far too large for her.

Confusion swirled through her mind, but the body moved forward with purpose, footsteps echoing off the stone walls. Strange glyphs marked the walls at intervals, their patterns utterly foreign, their meanings just beyond her grasp. One in particular caught her attention, its angular lines seeming to pulse with significance:

She tried to memorise it, to hold onto it, but the body kept moving, driven by that relentless pulse. The corridor opened into a junction. Two doors stood before her, one marked with an intricate V-shaped symbol, the other plain and unmarked.

Without hesitation, the body chose the unmarked door, throwing it open and charging up a spiralling staircase. The pulse grew louder, more urgent, driving her upward. Another door burst open, and she emerged into a vast hall.

Polished floors gleamed beneath a magnificent chandelier. Grand staircases rose along either wall to a second-floor landing. But her gaze was drawn to the imposing front door ahead, and with it came a strange sense of recognition. She had been here before. Somehow, impossibly, she knew this place.

“You’ve arrived!” a coarse voice called out.

Her head whipped around, fear gripping her chest,

And then she was falling, tumbling through darkness, the manor dissolving around her like smoke,

Madeline jolted awake with a strangled gasp, her body drenched in sweat. The sheets were tangled around her legs, twisted and damp. Her heart hammered against her ribs so hard it hurt, each beat a painful reminder that she was alive, that she was herself again.

But was she? Those hands, those terrible, strong hands, they’d felt so real. The taste of blood still lingered on her tongue, sweet and copper and wrong.

“Madeline?” A gentle voice cut through her panic. “Madeline, can you hear me?”

She turned her head, the movement making her dizzy. A nurse stood beside her bed, concern etched across her round, kind face. The woman’s greying hair was pulled back in a neat bun, and her eyes, soft brown, warm, studied Madeline with professional worry.

“I…” Madeline’s voice came out as a croak. She swallowed, tried again. “I’m here. I’m awake.”

“You were thrashing about,” the nurse said softly, reaching out to smooth the tangled sheets. “Calling out. Was it the dream again?”

Madeline nodded, unable to speak. Her hands trembled as she raised them, staring at her own fingers, slender, feminine, hers. But the memory of those other hands, those masculine hands tearing through wood and earth and flesh, wouldn’t fade.

“You’re safe now,” the nurse said, her voice soothing. “You’re in the Magisterium medical wing. Nothing can harm you here.”

But that wasn’t true, was it? Because the harm had already been done. She’d been inside his mind, the creature that attacked her. She’d felt what he felt, seen through his eyes, tasted her own blood in his mouth.

“I saw…” Madeline began, then stopped. How could she explain? “There were symbols. On the walls. I need to remember them.”

The nurse’s expression shifted, becoming more alert. “Symbols? Can you describe them?”

Madeline closed her eyes, trying to recall the angular pattern she’d seen. But it was already fading, slipping away like water through her fingers. “I can’t, it’s going. There was a corridor, and doors, and…” Her breath hitched. “I saw myself. I saw him attack me. I was him. I felt….”

“Shh, it’s all right.” The nurse’s hand was cool against Madeline’s forehead. “You’re experiencing trauma memories. What you went through was terrible, and your mind is trying to process it. This is normal, even if it doesn’t feel that way.”

“Normal?” Madeline’s voice rose, edged with hysteria. “I was inside his head! I felt him kill me! How is that normal?”

The nurse’s expression grew more serious. “I’m going to note this in your file. Lord William will want to know about these dreams, especially the symbols. And I think we should arrange another session with the psychiatrist. Would that be all right?”

Shame flooded through Madeline, hot and suffocating. “Is something wrong with me? Am I going mad?”

“No, dear, no.” The nurse’s voice was firm now, brooking no argument. “There’s nothing wrong with you at all. What you’re experiencing is your mind’s way of working through something terrible. The psychiatrists are here to help you understand these memories, to guide you through the healing process. You’re not mad, you’re surviving.”

Madeline took a shaky breath, then another. The nurse’s words helped, but they couldn’t erase what she’d seen, what she’d felt. The hunger. The violence. The terrible, intimate knowledge of her own death.

“Try to rest,” the nurse said gently, adjusting the blankets. “I’ll be just outside if you need anything. And I’ll make sure Lord William knows about this in the morning.”

As the nurse moved towards the door, Madeline called out, “Wait, what’s your name?”

The woman turned back with a small smile. “Elspeth. I’ll be looking after you tonight.”

“Thank you, Elspeth.”

After the nurse left, Madeline lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling. Sleep felt impossible now, dangerous. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that corridor, those doors, that manor. And worse, she saw her own face, pale and terrified, as inhuman hands reached for her throat.

Somewhere in the depths of her memory, a truth lurked, something about who her attacker was, where he’d come from, what he wanted. The symbols, the compound, the manor, they meant something. They were pieces of a puzzle she didn’t understand but somehow carried within her.

She was a witness to her own attack, trapped in the mind of a monster.

And she had no idea what that meant, or what horrors might still be waiting in the shadows of those stolen memories.