But in my hurry to follow the fae, I didn’t stop to consider that he might not be the only one there on the other side. As I emerged, it was to the sight of four ghouls—three male, and one apparently a female—standing around the fae. Their gazes shot toward me at once. A malevolent smile split the face of the female and she immediately lurched forward. There wasn’t enough distance between the two of us for me to escape this time. The ghoul wrapped her skeletal hands around my neck, and the next thing I knew, she was dragging me back through the main door, back into the dim tunnels of their ghastly realm… leaving the fae to depart.

Ben

Even though I knew what a useless endeavor it was, I couldn’t help but struggle to break free. But I might as well have just gone with her willingly—the end result would’ve been the same. If anything, my struggling only seemed to amuse her, and she dug her hands deeper into my throat. I still couldn’t get over the strangeness of feeling a ghoul’s touch. I still didn’t understand how, like the fae, they were able to touch ghosts.

She dragged me right past my cavern and, to my horror, began descending deeper and deeper through the levels, sinking through the floors with such speed that I had no hope of counting how many we were passing. She dragged me with her through thick stone floors and ceilings until finally we arrived in another vast chamber. It was lightless and completely bare, except for rows of coffins—not white like the fae’s, but black—lining the walls.

Horror rushed through me. I already knew what was going to happen next. The ghoul reached one of the coffins, flipped open the lid, and proceeded to wrestle me inside. Before I could even attempt to zoom back out, she had slammed the lid shut over me. There was a click and a dull thud—the sound of metal wedging into wood. Scrambling up on all fours, I tried with all the willpower I possessed to try to pass through the walls of the coffin, but I already knew before even attempting it that I would be unsuccessful. This was a box just like the fae’s. A box just like Julie’s.

Gnarled hands shot down through the lid and clamped around my head. Sharp fingernails dug into me, holding me so firmly it felt like I’d been strapped into a helmet.

A pain seared my head. Pain unlike any I’d ever experienced. Pain that I hadn’t even thought possible for a ghost to experience. And then I lost my vision. At least, my exterior vision. A blur of colors washed over my mind’s eye, which slowly gave way to a vision so crisp and detailed, I struggled to believe it wasn’t real. Consciousness of my whereabouts ebbed away, and soon even the feeling of the ghoul’s hands digging into my head faded. The vision before my eyes became my complete reality, a vision which began to mutate into a string of visions, morphing into a nightmare I wouldn’t have wished upon my worst enemy.

I thought the visions would never end. I thought the pain would never stop. There was no escape, none at all. How could there be when it was real? The world in which I’d grown up—in which there had been peace, happiness, family, love—vanished from my memory, and was replaced with a gaping black hole.

Then, after my heart and mind had been slashed to a pulp by slew upon slew of torturous scenes, the visions began to blur and bleed into one another. I became slowly aware of the pain in my head again… and then of firm walls surrounding me. Even still, I couldn’t open my eyes, and my mind remained trapped in the darkness. I couldn’t shake the belief that everything I’d witnessed had happened. I’d seen it. I’d been there. The experiences were actually palpable—a hundred times more palpable than the dream I’d believed to be my real life…

My mother, father and sister, stripped to their underwear and strapped to wooden stakes, as hordes of horned goblins danced around them, cackling a hair-raising chant. A fire roared beneath them even as my father—a man I’d only ever seen as strong and heroic—diminished to a hapless victim, screaming for mercy. His and my family’s anguished cries pierced the night as the flames touched their feet. Flames that rose with terrifying speed, higher and higher until the fire had swallowed them alive.

Then… River. Sitting in a damp, moldy dungeon, wearing a tattered old nightgown that bulged with her protruding stomach. She was pregnant. Jeramiah materialized from the shadows and arrived next to her, laying a hand on her shoulder before stooping low to press a lingering kiss against her cheek. He grasped her hand, upon which lay a silver ring—a ring that matched the one upon his own hand. As he kissed her again, this time claiming her lips, her eyes fixed on mine, gazing up at me hopelessly. “You should’ve come back, Ben,” she breathed as my cousin drew away. “You should have come back…”

No! I can’t take this!

I can’t bear it anymore! I screamed in my head.

Forcing my eyes open with willpower I’d believed I no longer even possessed, I realized I was crouched over on all fours, my head buried beneath my chest. Hands no longer clutched me. When I slowly raised my head upward, it was to see that the lid of the coffin was open, and staring down through it was the grinning female ghoul. Her smile broadened, revealing layers of pointed teeth.

I wanted to bolt away, away from this box, away from this creature, but I found no strength in me to move. I hadn’t even known that a ghost could lose strength. Weren’t they already dead, after all?

The ghoul reached down and gripped my arms, pulling me up toward her. As much as I loathed her touch, I felt so weak in that moment, I wasn’t sure how else I would’ve gotten out of that box. It was a struggle just to raise my hand. My mind still replaying the nightmare over and over again, I could barely concentrate on where she was leading me. But it was out of this chamber of coffins, and then upward. This came as a surprise to me; I’d half expected to be dragged downward as a punishment. Assuming her subtle, translucent form while still maintaining a strong hold on me, she sped up, and by the time she’d stopped, we were hovering at the edge of my pond.