Page 1 of Whisper of Nightmares

Chapter 1

Haunted by a Beast

The horse of violet flames has found her again.

Massive hooves rear up, and Euphemia staggers back. Away from the monster. Away from the heat. Away from the damage she knows this beast can wreak.

“No. No. No.” Each word claws from her throat more panicked than the last. “Leave me be!”

But the nightmare horse does no such thing. A sound like a banshee’s wail tears from its cavernous maw at the same time its violet flames burn more fiercely.

Euphemia shields her face from the inferno, but it catches her arm regardless. Just as she knew it would. As it always does. Flesh ignites in a blaze. Flames whip around her wrist, searing into her until there is nothing left but marred and mangled skin. The broiled stench churns her stomach.

Euphemia flings her arm away, a scream clogging her throat.

But no sound escapes.

This terror is hers alone.

And then she is running. Putting as much distance between her and the wicked nightmare as she can.

Maybe this time it will be different.

Maybe this time she will escape.

The sound of galloping hooves pound on the grassy meadow behind her. Warmth blooms against her back. The creature is gaining on her, its equestrian gait no match for her pathetic human strides. But home is just in sight. She’s nearly there. Euphemia tries screaming again. Hopeful that someone might hear her. That they will come out and save her and finally end this cycle of fear and pain she keeps reliving night after night.

But the one person who might’ve saved her is gone now. No more than a pile of ash she abandoned in the meadow to outrun this beast.

Fire crashes into her, bright and blazing.

And as everything gives way to agony, the last thought that floods her mind is, “Forgive me.”

A wall of darkness crumbles atop her like falling stones.

Suffocation ensnares everything.

A moment later, Euphemia bolts upright in bed. Tears stream down the sides of her face. She clutches her chest with her scarred hand. It’s only a dream, she tells herself, trying to wring comfort from those hollow words. But they’ve long since lost their meaning.

Euphemia flexes her fingers against the distant ache of old wounds. She cannot bring herself to look upon her scars. Instead, she traces a small cross over herself, clasps her hands together, and utters a hurried prayer. “Lord, please protect my soul from the darkness that seeks to claim it⁠—”

The bedding rustles beside her.

Euphemia startles, eyes wide as she looks upon the shifting sheets. Shadows like black vipers slither across the bed. She’s about to scream when Ismene’s serene face appears from beneath the sheets. Not snakes, Euphemia realizes. Just the lump of the younger sister who had been sleeping next to her last night.

Ismene blinks up at Euphemia with sleepy eyes. “Is it morning already?”

The tension in Euphemia’s chest unspools. She pats her sister’s shoulder. “Shh. Go back to sleep, Ismene. It’s only a dream.”

It’s only a dream—that simple, soothing phrase that she herself has bled dry too many nights to count. It is a lie. An empty chest of hope that she has dragged around with her for nearly a year now.

Ismene, however, is not plagued by the same nightmares. Nor the same secrets. So with little encouragement, she promptly nestles back under the covers and resumes her peaceful slumber.

Euphemia, however, is anything but peaceful.

She lay awake for hours afterward, reliving that dreadful night over and over.

The terror.