The nightmare began as the others had this past week they’d troubled her.

“You’re nothing but a burdensome leech that has forced itself onto this family,” Imogen taunted her, but it wasn’t the Imogen Liliana knew in her waking time. Something had happened to her, distorted her. Long fangs poked out of her mouth, dripping with bright green venom. Her fingers were tipped by long black claws that bit into anything they brushed against, decaying it and turning it to dust. Her skin was taunt, stretched over bones, making her look more like one of the undead than a living human.

Liliana backed away from the reaching claws, scrambling to put distance between herself and the demon using her stepmother’s face. Fear pounded a heavy rhythm in her chest. She felt weak, so weak. As helpless as she’d been in her hospital bed on her last days, when she could barely move her limbs on her own. The power she’d slowly gained over the long months she’d been in this new world was gone, leaving her helpless before the creature hunting her.

“There’s only one solution for a parasite like you, it must be cleansed from the body it has infected. Once you’re gone, our family can finally be happy and healthy,” Monster-Imogen told her, her voice slowly losing its familiar tone as it became more distorted and rough, until it matched the visage it was coming from.

“Now die!” the monster shrieked, lunging at Liliana. The girl lost her footing, falling to the ground and raising her hands in defense as a scream of pure fear broke free of her. Her eyes were shut tight and waiting for the burning agony that would lead to the icy embrace of Death.

A sound of metal spearing through flesh met her ears, then the dripping of blood onto stone. She felt warm droplets land on her body, on her face, on her hands. Yet no pain greeted her and after a moment, Liliana opened her eyes and screamed once more. The body above her own was held up by her own naginata buried so deep within it she could see no trace of the blade. The body above her was not that of her stepmother’s, though. It was Alistair’s. His eyes were glassy, but his face was frozen in shock and betrayal. His blood was slowly dripping down the haft of the weapon, coating her hands in the crimson liquid.

Liliana shoved him and the weapon away from her, her strength once more returned to her. However, with the body no long blocking her eyes, Liliana could see she was now in the dining hall. A feast had been laid on the table, one fit for the Queen herself. Lights were dancing merrily in the air and it looked as if a party had been planned, some celebration or another. Yet it wasn’t the finery that bedecked the room that drew her eyes, it was the dead bodies sitting in the chairs.

Her father was at the head of the table, but someone had violently ripped his chest open until his organs spilled forth, coating his clothes and the chair he sat in a flood of crimson. To his side was Alistair, his body teleported from where Liliana had thrown it into his place. The naginata was gone from his body, but the hole had widened until it was a gaping thing that took up his entire chest. The look of shock and betrayal was still clear on his face. On the other side was Imogen, and Liliana had to avert her eyes as bile rose in her throat. The woman hadn’t been simply killed, she’d been utterly mutilated until the only thing left that distinguished her was the scraps left of her clothing and her accusatory golden eyes.

Her eyes were drawn involuntarily to the next body, that of Emyr. His mouth was open in a silent scream. Pain and betrayal were painted on his face as bright as the scarlet of his blood. Tears had tracked down his face, clearing some of the blood, before he’d died like the others. His heart sat before him on a plate, as if some kind of macabre meal.

The others heroes were here as well, though Liliana had not met Diana or Zir’elon, both of them had places at the table of death. Diana had her throat slit and her chest caved in, and her face held a look that bore deep into Liliana’s soul, asking a question of ‘why?’. Zir’elon had been mutilated in a way that hurt more for knowing what it meant to his people. His horns had been broken and driven into his eyes and his hands cut off before his throat. Though how Liliana knew it had been done before his death, she wasn’t sure. Her gaze did not linger over the bloodshed as her eyes finally caught the final member.

Marianne sat at a throne on the opposite end of the table, and Liliana fell to her knees as she looked at the girl who had become her friend. The princess’ face was still wet with tears, and a small smile on her face offered forgiveness to the person who had ruthlessly stabbed her chest time and time again, the holes numbering far more than Liliana wished to count. Her pure white dress that matched the snow white of her hair was dyed a gruesome red.

The screams finally escaped Liliana, along with tears that poured forth like a rushing river. The scent of blood was overpowering in the room, surrounding her, coating her and sinking deep under her skin until she thought she’d never rid herself of it.

“Who did this?” She asked the room, voice pitiful and broken.

“Why, you did. Of course,” a voice answered her. Liliana scrambled to her feet, spinning to confront the intruder. The person who must surely be the murderer of her family and friends.

What she saw nearly broke her. A large mirror stood behind her and in it was a reflection of herself. Wearing a dark gown the color of night, a familiar pendant resting on her chest, another Liliana stood there. Blood splattered across her skin, sparkling like spilled rubies. In her hands was a familiar naginata, its blade still dripping with blood. In her other hand was a heart. The reflection grinned, showing off far too sharp canines tipped with crimson blood. Her eyes held a dark, almost mad glee as she waved her hand about at the gruesome display around them. Blood swung in an arc from her hand, splattering more of the already ruined room.

“You killed them all, ripped them to shreds and laughed at their screams. You tasted their blood and begged for more! They were so shocked at your power, so cowed by it, that they couldn’t even fight back,” the reflection gloated as she moved to the throne Marianne sat on. She dropped the heart and stroked a bloodstained hand through the girl’s white tresses, dying it the cursed color of blood.

“This one didn’t even dare fight, just told you she forgave you with her last breath. What a weak and pitiful thing,” the reflection said before she twisted the girl’s head, a crack filling the room when bones broke. The reflection dropped the head, seeming suddenly bored.

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“N-No. I-I would never do this,” Liliana stammered out, taking several steps back until she hit the table. Her reflection looked at her pityingly.

“But you did, just look at your hands,” the reflection told her, and Liliana looked down to see herself dressed in the same dress, the same pendant resting over her heart. In her hand she held the blood-soaked naginata and her other hand was so deeply coated in blood it looked as if she was wearing a scarlet glove. The naginata fell with a clatter as Liliana released it in horror. Tears traced down her face, dripping pink with the blood they mixed with onto her dark gown.

“Mommy?” a voice called as the door to the dining hall opened slowly, revealing the face of her younger half siblings, Blaine and Beatrice.

“Ah look, more for us to play with,” the reflection purred and something filled Liliana. A blood-lust so profound and deep, she struggled to resist it with all the effectiveness of holding back a tsunami with bare hands alone.

Power thrummed in her blood, so far more than she had ever felt. It nearly broke her mind. It was intoxicating in a way even the pain medications they had given her on Earth couldn’t compare to. The power was everything. She felt as if she could rip the world asunder with a thought, as if she could bring the very gods themselves to heel. It filled her and then leaked out when it was far too much to handle.

By the time Liliana had regained her mind and the power had begun to vanish back to wherever it had come, two more far too small bodies had been added to the seats at the banquet of blood. Liliana had more of the thick liquid coating her skin, and the taste of copper filled her mouth.

She shivered and shuttered, both horrified by what she’d done and yet some part of her reveled in it. There was a part of her that enjoyed the blood that was slowly cooling on hr skin, that pushed for more. A part that had slumbered in her before, but was now raising its head as it was awoken.

“I can give you this, the power you need to destroy any who would stand against you. You could become a being so powerful nothing in any world would stand in your way. You could even fight the gods who gave you such a cursed fate. I can give you the power to make everyone who ever hurt you weep and repent. Prostrate themselves before you. I can give you the power to own all,” a dark voice floated through the room.

Liliana’s eyes were drawn once more to the mirror, which no longer showed her reflection. Instead, a chilling darkness swirled within it, leaving only shining eyes that burned the blue only seen in the hottest of fires. Liliana felt a primal fear fill her, before her sat an apex predator. Something that could kill her without even trying. Even the Queen herself had not felt even a fraction as strong as this being.

“Simply agree and I shall provide you with everything you could ever wish for,” the voice crooned, and a part of Liliana yearned to agree to this monster’s deal. To take that power for herself.

But there was a stronger part that rejected him. The part of her that had begun to grow from the suspicious and hurting child she’d been. The part that had ventured friendship with those she should’ve feared and hated if for nothing more than the fate she’d known had been written for them. The part of her who could look at a boy who at one time had tormented her, and seen someone trapped in a thick web of manipulation with no idea of what was right or wrong anymore. Who had seen not an evil tormentor, but just another child like herself who needed help, not hate. Seen someone who was willing to change, and helped nurture the change.

That part of her beat down the part of her that wanted to accept the offer. It clawed itself to the forefront, and Liliana gripped her blood-soaked naginata in her hand, not knowing when it had returned there.

“Go fuck yourself,” Liliana hissed at the mirror as she threw her naginata at it with every scrap of strength she could summon. The mirror shattered into a thousand pieces and as they fell, her reflection was revealed again. Liliana watched her reflection shift. In some of her eyes shone a comforting bright blue, in others a dark and haunted sapphire flared with unholy power.

“I’ll be back,” the voice whispered to her.

Liliana woke with a shriek, hands scrambling at her covers and sheets as if searching for a weapon. Lelantos came running into her room, the tiger nearly demolishing several pieces of furniture in his haste to reach his distressed Bond. Liliana looked around, tossing an overpowered [Shine] into the air to chase away the shadows wreathing her room. Liliana’s fear widened eyes took in every detail, hunting for a threat or splash of blood. When she’d reassured herself that there was nothing lurking in the room, and the only wetness on her skin was the sweat that had been soaked into her covers and sheets, did she relax. Her tense muscles gave way, and she wrapped weak and shaking arms around Lelantos.

Her Bond was half in her bed, trying his best to smother her fears as his body was trying to smother her. Liliana didn’t begrudge him it. The feedback she was getting from him was panic. He hadn’t felt her emotions as she was dreaming, but as soon as she woke it had all slammed into him at once, nearly driving him mad with the terror she’d felt. As the two sat in her bed, they were comforting each other as much themselves.

“Just a dream, my heart, just a dream,” Liliana murmured to Lelantos, though her words felt hollow even to her own ears.

The nightmares had plagued her for the past week, since they’d come home from the dungeon. Liliana wasn’t sure where they’d come from. Other than the dreams of memories she’d had, she normally did not have such vivid dreams. More often than not, she didn’t even remember her dreams. Though the nightmares weren’t much of an exception to that, within hours of waking the nightmares would fade in her memory until all she could remember was blood, despair, terror and an almost all-consuming greed.

She would say some of it was likely a result of her stepmother. Since Liliana had come home, the woman had doubled down on her. Trying to find any reason to punish her, and restrict her from leaving the manor for any reason. It was obvious to Liliana what Imogen was doing, trying to cut off all ways she could gather power. If she couldn’t go out to socialize with the other nobles of her own age, she would lose social power. Many would even take offense to too many denials to their invitations, no matter her excuse. And the system cared not for why one couldn’t level. If you couldn’t go out to fight, you would not progress.

Her lessons with Miss Beckett had also become more difficult, undoubtedly from her stepmother’s desire to see her failing and to give her more ammunition. Yet fail Liliana did not, spite fueled her as much as her need to know more about this world she now called home. However, the stress she was under, to perform perfectly every test set before her, was wearing her thin.

The nightmares just made it worse, the small bit of sleep she had time for being so wrought with fear and turmoil, making it no rest at all. Liliana sighed and gently pushed Lelantos off of her as she herself slid out of her bed. She would not be returning to sleep anytime soon, so she set about getting ready for the day.