Page 113 of Pareidolia

Then they close and he goes limp.

CHAPTER 5

ASPEN

When I wake up, there’s a full ten seconds when I’m not sure where I’m at. The mattress is thin, and the space is more open than my van. I sit up and inhale the scent of old wood and trees, cool fall air.

The fire tower.

Right.

I came to the fire tower to get some inspiration and…

The events leading up to me passing out flash across the back of my lids as I rapidly blink, playing in perfect time with my slowly accelerating heartbeat.

The dead body.

The flash of red and black.

Noah Daniels.

And then…

My gaze flickers to the corner of the room where the creature had been standing.

It’s empty now.

Void of whatever the fuck my imagination had managed to conjure up. Apparently murder made me very creative.

“What the fuck, Aspen,” I mutter under my breath and push myself from the bed.

I see it then.

The faint red glow on my fingers.

“What the fuck?” I whisper again, raising my hand to eye level to stare at it. It dusts across my skin like the powder on a moth’s wings, little speckles of crimson…

But when I rub my fingers together, it doesn’t smear.

It doesn’t move.

When I wipe my hand on the sheets, it doesn’t leave residue behind.

It’s beneath my skin.

There’s no way what happened was real, but I’m staring at the physical proof of it right in front of my eyes. I’d thought it was impossible, that the memories of the thing I’d seen in the forest when I was younger were nothing but that—memories. That the color crimson that burned behind my lids then was nothing more than the memory of Rory’s blood spilling from beneath his body in a fanned-out mimicry of wings.

But no.

I’d seen it.

I’d seen him.

I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t anymore.

I push myself into a standing position with a low groan. My head is spinning, and there’s a flash where I think I’m going to fall down to the dirty floor beneath my feet.

My feet…