72: He’s losing the battle.
**Aife pov**
It started with the sound of crunching bones. Not too loud or sharp, kind of wet - more like strings being cut during the rain, hard to explain but impossible to mistake for anything but that. The sound reminded me of a wild animal, chewing on their prey, still warm and twitching.
From the very beginning I knew it was just a dream, but in that sleep induced reality, I wasn’t myself. I didn’t feel my fingers twitching, nor my breath as I supposedly sucked in oxygen.
I didn’t exist in the usual way, as weird as it sounded, I wasn’t in my own body.
I was somewhere behind a set of eyes - just watching, not moving them.
I could smell something rotten, but I couldn’t feel disgust at the stench. Then, I was moving, but there were no directions in my mind. I realized far too soon that I was trapped inside someone else’s skull.
The edges of my vision were black. Not the way they were when one walked through a dense forest in the middle of the night, this was more like thick ink underwater - intense and spreading.
And when those eyes met a mirror in passing and I caught a glimpse of the face, I knew then and there, this wasn’t Bane. Not my Bane.
I was inside him - the monster.
The dream continued in flashes of scenes and the first thing I saw was a neck snap backward - a clean break. Before the body hit the dirt, I already knew the monster knew what he was doing, the killing was too precise and quick for someone who hadn’t killed many times before.
Then, I could hear the blood dripping as it hit the crunchy leaves around us.
I tried to scream, to wake Bane, to force him to fight back, but my voice never echoed. I didn’t have a mouth of my own anymore.
His whole body buzzed as I finally heard the monster’s voice - a whispered chant *“kill, eat, move.”*
The body beneath the monster twitched. He looked down, so I too could see who the unfortunate soul was. A pack member - I didn’t know his name, but the warrior was young, far too young to die like this.
Then, I watched the monster crouch down and tear out the warrior’s throat with his bare hands - fingers covered in that same black substance I saw covering Bane’s skin the day he found me and Kala in the woods.
After, he didn’t bother pretending he had done anything wrong as he shook the blood off his hands, stood up and stepped over the dead warrior like the body wasn’t even there.
Then, there was another snippet of killings, same as the previous one - cold and calculated, emotionless. And then, another and another, like an endless replay of horrific deeds I couldn’t escape.
I saw claws slash a woman’s face, a hand twist in hair and slam her head into a rock. The dream murderer was laughing - the sound giddy, almost like he was drunk on gore and his own doings.
*“They cried out for you, you know. Right before they died. Called your name like you were some fucking savior.”* He said to Bane.
I wanted to wake up, I wanted to die, but the body kept moving, and the black edges at the vision pulsed like some invisible force.
And then, in the middle of it all, I saw myself - just for a second. I was standing at the edge of the woods, barefoot, my eyes wide as I supposedly watched the carnage from the outside.
The monster turned its head toward the dream me and from the inside, I could feel its jaw stretch with delight. *“You smell like his undoing.”* He whispered.
I sat up with a scream, but the sound never made it out fully. Instead, it caught in my throat and turned into a ragged, desperate sob. My entire body was shaking while sweat pooled under me.
And the first thing I saw was a hand gripping mine tight. “Breathe,” Kala whispered, her voice tight with emotion I couldn’t explain as she whispered near my ear. “You’re safe, Aife. It was just a nightmare, trust me it’s over. You’re here, with me, Zion and Jonahtan and you’re safe. Breathe, sweetheart.”
I blinked through the tears and looked around. The room was dim - still dawn, maybe. In the background, I could hear the rustle of fabric and hurried footsteps. Jonathan’s voice was hushed and tense as he whispered orders to Zion from the other room.
In the bed, it was only me and Kala, which made me feel a tiny bit better. She sat beside me, her hand still clutching mine, her other hand was brushing away the damp hair from my forehead.
“You were screaming. I realized you were having a bad dream so I rushed here as fast as I could. I don’t know what you saw or what held you captive in that dream, but I couldn’t wake you up,” she whispered.
I tried to speak, but as I opened my mouth, not a word left me. My throat hurt for some reason and my chest ached.
Kala, as always, the angel she truly was, didn’t try to push me. She simply held my hand to remind me she wasn’t going anywhere and I wasn’t alone. Not anymore.
Eventually, I looked at her and rasped, “It wasn’t him.”
Kala’s eyebrows furrowed, a slight frown pulled at her face as she asked, “what?”
“In the dream, it wasn’t Bane. I-I thought maybe it was at first, because it, I don’t know, something felt so familiar but at the same time so darn distant. Then, I saw him in the mirror, how do I explain it’s him but not him at the same time? It looks like him, walks and talks like him. But this.. Kala, this wasn’t him.”
Kala’s eyes widened a little as she pressed her mouth in a thin line and nodded sharply. “Tell me everything. Right now.”
I turned toward her fully, pulling the blanket around my shoulders like it could shield me from what I was about to say. “There were bodies,” I began and looked around, not really wanting for Zion and Jonathan to overhear me. “Blood, Kala, there was so much blood. This was the weirdest dream I’ve ever had because I could feel everything. It was as if I wasn’t watching from the outside, but I was inside the monster. But not in the way I would see just Bane, you know. This was different, the edges of the dream were pitch black and I swear those edges moved like they were alive.”
Kala’s breath caught, but she stayed still, occasionally squeezing my hand to show her support and encourage me to tell her everything.
“The killing was quick and precise, but not entirely clean. There was joy and playfulness about it. That thing inside Bane was laughing and playing with its victim before it killed them all. It really might be only a bad dream, but what I saw was an absolute massacre.” I felt bile rise in my throat and forced it back. “I watched someone’s skull get caved in. And he liked it - the thing whose eyes I was in.”
Once I finished retelling my dream, I looked at Kala, waiting for her to tell me it was just a nightmare and everything I saw was nothing but a fragment of my imagination, but she didn’t.
Kala nodded slowly and muttered, “the edges of the vision. You said black?”
I nodded and bit my lip, hoping against hope she wouldn’t say what I assumed she would.
“I’ve read about this once. A long time ago when I was still with the witches, before Zion happened. There was this book about curses and from what I saw at the pack and your retelling it sounds suspiciously alike. When someone is tethered to a cursed soul, especially through blood or magic, they can bleed through each other’s minds. But if the cursed being is ancient, older than its host it can pull.”
“Pull?” I frowned.
“Pull you in, Aife, show you things and make you feel like it’s your own rage. That’s how it breaks the mind. Not only the one that hosts the soul but also others.” Kala explained.
I shivered. “It almost did. I wanted to die just so I wouldn’t have to see more of the murders.” Kala nodded as if she truly understood the horrors. I swallowed hard and added, “but why now?”
Kala hummed, squeezing my hand a little tighter. “I think it’s because you saw through him and the creature inside Bane doesn’t like that you managed to get past the defenses. Or, to be more precise, that Bane broke through for long enough for you to see him. The creature knows it happened and will do anything to ensure it never happens again.”
I looked over Kala’s shoulder toward the door, where the sound of things being packed filled the small cabin that was supposed to keep us hidden and safe.
“We’re really moving away?” I asked, desperate to talk about anything that wasn’t the messed up nightmare.
Kala nodded. “Jonathan thinks we should get ahead of whatever this is. He’s genuinely worried about you, Aife. He already contacted his Alpha and he agrees too, we need to get away from here and hide you away. They’re worried about the baby too.”
I instinctively pressed a hand to my belly, as if the action could shield the unborn from the mess of the reality we were living now. “They don’t trust me now, do they?” I whispered.
Kala hesitated and averted her gaze, “Aife, you must understand, they don’t know who to trust anymore. I think Jonathan and Zion don’t trust each other, let alone anyone else.”
All I could do was nod. I understood why everyone acted so out of character, especially with Bane’s monster finding our hiding place.
“Do you think he’s still in there?” I asked quietly, despite everything still feeling like I needed someone to reassure me that he wasn’t completely gone.
She stared down at our hands for a long time before she answered. “Yes, but I think he’s losing the battle against the entity.”
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