I was back in the chair in the dark again, but this time, I didn’t bother to take stock of whether or not I could move from it. Ultimately, I knew it didn’t matter, both because I knew I wouldn’t be able to, and because even if I was still stuck to the chair, there was something spiked through my chest.


    The room was different this time - instead of pitch black, there was just enough light to be able to see the vague outline of things. Mentally, I’d always pictured the room to be the hotel room I’d been staying in, but it was actually more of a hallway, with open doors along each side in front of me. Over by one of the doors, there was a hint of some movement along the ground, but it was still too dark to see what it was.


    I looked down to see a sharp, barbed spike sticking out from a small hole in my black dress, which just happened to be the one that I’d worn on the first shoot in the Peters Building. Given the size of the spike, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as I would have thought - it was more of a dull ache than anything else, as though it was an injury I’d sustained long ago that was still trying to heal. Somehow, it must not have pierced my heart, which is the only reason I was still alive.


    Or maybe it was because this was all a dream, I reminded myself, shaking my head. The movement caused the pain to reemerge in both my chest and my shoulder, and I winced. I always thought that you couldn’t feel pain in dreams, but here I was, living proof of it.


    “I told you to stay away,” hissed a low voice behind me to the right. I gritted my teeth and tried my best to turn to look at the voice, despite the barb in my chest keeping me in place. The resulting pain was so sharp that my vision started to narrow, but despite the light in the room, I could see nothing.


    “I warned you,” it hissed, coming from the left now, as though it had dodged my vision. I whirled my head to that side as fast as possible, but there was still nothing to be seen in the rest of the darkened corridor. “I warned you to stay away from him!”


    “I didn’t even know who you were talking about,” I wheezed. I could hardly get any breath out - the spike must have punctured a lung.


    “LIAR!” the voice roared, so loud that I looked over my shoulder again, because I assumed that it must be right next to me. My chest felt like it was on fire at the movement, but there was still nothing in the long corridor behind me. “You knew!”Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    “You never told me!” I cried, turning back to face the front. Whatever had been moving on the floor earlier looked like it was headed in my direction, but it was still impossible to make out what it was. It looked more like an amorphous blob than anything.


    “You still knew,” it hissed, and then it clicked for me. It’s true, I’d never been specifically told, but given that the demon was possessing Luke, who else could it be talking about? “You knew, and yet did not yield!”


    “I swear I didn’t know,” I whispered, thinking about all the times I’d had this dream. Every time I’d had it, it’d been when I was trying to free Luke of his possession. How could I be so stupidly blind?


    Slowly, I felt the spike in my chest start to pull backward. The pain was almost unbearable, but I kept myself from whimpering, if only to not give the being the satisfaction. It moved until the edge of the barb was pressed right against my chest. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, waiting for the rest of the spike to be pulled free and actually kill me, but the movement of the spike stopped. Hesitantly, I opened my eyes a crack.


    The little girl was standing directly in front of me.


    Her clothes were pristine, as though she was not the one doing this to me, but was instead just an innocent bystander. She looked me dead in my eyes, her head tilted slightly to the side as though she was merely curious about what was going on.We stared at each other in silence for what felt like hours, until finally I gasped, “So, this was you all along, huh?”


    It hurt to even draw breath at this point. Underneath the point of the spike, I could feel a damp heat start to puddle against my clothes as the wound in my chest started to bleed again. It was likely that I wouldn’t last long in this condition, and while I wasn’t sure I fully believed Liam’s claim about dying in my dreams, I wasn’t looking forward to testing it. “Why can’t you just tell me what you really want?” I sobbed.


    The little girl’s head tilted more, as though she didn’t understand the question. Her mouth opened to speak, but for a second, the only sound I heard was the pounding of the blood in my own ears. “I did tell you,” she finally said, her voice a high falsetto that did not match the current circumstances at all. “I’m still telling you, but you won’t listen. All I want is to be left alone. If you do that, none of this happens. If you don’t, well,” she said, gesturing around the room.


    Blood started to well up in my mouth and I spat it out, trying my best to reach her but it just splattered on the floor next to her. “I’m not giving up on Luke just so you can have him,” I whispered, my voice weak, but full of all the hatred I felt in that moment.


    The little girl just smiled at my words. “See?” she asked. “I knew that you knew who I was talking to all along.”


    I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could, the little girl held up her hand. Without her touching me, I felt something incredibly strong slam into my chest, forcing the barbed spike back into my flesh once and for all. I screamed, and the world started to go black. The last thing I saw was the image of the little girl, smiling back at me.