The dedication was simple. He's so sweet and so nice and super awesome. His comments are amazing and make me laugh. I always look forward to them {: I hope you like this chapter!

I woke up screaming. Actually, come to think of it, screaming wasn’t the right word at all. Screeching was a better fit. The loudest, highest pitch screeching I had ever made was tearing it’s way through my throat in the dead of the night. It was almost blood-curtling. My eyes were screwed shut so tightly it was as if they were cemented in place.

I writhed and thrashed in the bed. I felt my elbow smack into something hard. I heard a yelp. That God awful noise kept coming out of my throat. The images were still playing across the cinema on the back of my eyelids.

I had been walking through woods. The night sky was blacker than anything I had ever seen before. I had barely been able to see my hand an inch from my face, it had been that dark. A menacing, bone-chilling howl had then cut through the silence of the night.

I had broken into a run. There had been another howl, and then another. They were getting closer. I had begun to hear the pounding of four-legged animals running across the ground. I had run as fast as I could, trying to escape the howling. I couldn’t see a thing in the woods. I had clipped a tree with my left elbow. Then I had caught another with my right shoulder. I was thrown off balance, but had trudged on desperately.

Three howls sounded into the freezing cold air. They had been a whole lot closer that time than the ones before. The pounding grew louder. As if on cue, my foot had caught on something on the ground. I had tumbled quickly to the dirt. My ankle had flared up in the most intense pain I had ever felt before. I had tried to stand and fell back down. I had panicked. My heart felt like it had been ready to leap out of my chest.

There had been one more howl. It was louder. More powerful, and more terrifying. It was the sound made before a kill. I had crawled on my knees, frantically trying to escape. The darkness had left me unaware of my surroundings and blind. The broken ankle kept me on all fours.

The night had grown silent. The only noise audible was my ragged breathing, my whimpers of pain, and the whistling of the wind past my ears. The fear had gripped me. It shouldn’t have gotten that quiet so quickly. It had been a bad sign.

Nothing happened. I had carefully gotten to my feet, holding tightly to a tree for support, keeping the weight off my broken ankle. Like something straight out of a horror movie, I was forcefully knocked to the ground. A wolf had launched itself at me. I hit the ground hard, feeling a sharp crack in my shoulder. Pain erupted everywhere.

Jaws snapped and snarled in front of my face. Giant paws and razor sharp claws were pressed to my chest. The noise coming from the throat of that wolf had me frozen in place. Not a sound had escaped my own vocal cords. The full weight of the wolf had been on me, crushing my body into the grass and dirt beneath me.

The claws had ripped into my flesh. I had been unable to move, fear taking over my entire mind and body. The wolf had reared its head back and sent a loud howl into the night. It lasted for what had felt like an hour. But then three seconds later there had been two more howls. They had overlapped and they had sounded extremely close.

I had been unable to breathe, due to the wolf crushing my chest with it’s massive weight. My body had begun to struggle, but to no avail. The pounding of paws seemed to shake the ground. Then the other two wolves had arrived. The one on top of me snapped it’s head down and had stared me in the eyes. They had been a sickening yellow-orange color.

That was the last thing I had seen before the three wolves had sunk their teeth into my body and began to tear me apart. I had screamed and then those powerful jaws had ripped straight into my throat.

I shrieked and screamed as those images kept hitting me like a ton of bricks. I couldn’t stop the vivid pictures and feelings from replaying on an endless loop. And the sound I was making refused to end.

“Caspar!”

I kept screaming.

“Babe, shh! It’s alright. Shhh, Caspar, calm down. You’re fine. Please stop. Please calm down. You’re safe.”

Those words kept being murmured. They didn’t do a thing. Instead, they fell on deaf ears. I kept yelling, eyes still closed.

“Please,” he begged so desperately. The pain was evident. “You’re hurting yourself.”

Those four words were what did it, for some reason unbeknownst to the both of us. I gasped in a gigantic breath of air. I choked, I spluttered. I stopped screaming. Tears were soaking my cheeks. Hands were gripping my wrists incredibly tight. The pain was hardly noticed, though. The bedside lamp had been flicked on.

I steadied my breathing for a moment and looked to the side. Nialler was inches from me. He had been crying, but not as much I had. He looked almost as terrified as I had felt. I saw a red mark on his nose. Guilt ate at me as I realized that was what my elbow had done earlier to receive that yelp I had heard. I traveled my eyes down to his hands. They still had a hold of my wrists. It was as if he were trying to make sure I didn’t get them loose again. I couldn’t figure out why. Then I looked at my own hands and saw it.

My fingertips were coated in blood. It was thick under my fingernails, almost a black instead of red. My eyes widened. Then I felt the pain. I felt it on my neck, around my collar bone. But I couldn’t see it. Nialler’s eyes met mine. They were just as wide and full of concern and pain.

Nialler let go of my wrists finally and I leaped out of the bed. I tore off, running out of the room. Nialler called after me. I didn’t stop and I heard him chase me. I knew that for some reason he didn’t want me to see. I wasn’t going to let that happen.

I barged into the bathroom. I flipped the light on. I glanced down at my hands first. The blood was drying. It was so red. There were dark purple marks on my wrists. The marks were in the shape of Nialler’s fingers. I couldn’t blame him, though. Because when I looked up into the mirror I understood what could have possibly forced him to leave bruises like that on me.

The scratches that were on my neck and upper chest were so deep, it almost would have been fair to call them gashes. Blood was dripping from them. There were so many cuts. Only a handful were deep, though, thankfully. The rest were just scratches you might get from your cat. That didn’t mean they didn’t sting, and that wasn’t to say that they weren’t still bleeding. Because they were.

I gasped very loudly as I looked at what I had done to myself. The tears began to flow again, this time I was sure they were worse than when I had been having that nightmare.

I held my hands as far from my body as I could. I was disgusted with myself. I couldn’t believe that I had done that. It was awful. I wasn’t one to hurt myself. So the fact that that had happened because of a night terror freaked me out. I was mortified, ashamed, and scared.

Everything had happened so fast that Nialler was just now getting to the bathroom. My body wretched and I harshly fell to my knees at the toilet. I vomited until my stomach had nothing left to give up but acid. Nialler held my hair back. My bloody hands stained the white toilet bowl a scarlet color. When I had pulled back, seeing that was enough to make me try to throw up again. But nothing came out.

The tears had stopped. Nialler wiped my mouth with toilet paper and flushed the toilet for me. I kneeled there, in complete shock. The night’s events had me astonished. I wasn’t even sure if this was real life anymore. Nialler stood me up. I could feel that my knees were bruised as well because they hurt as I shifted on them in the process of standing.

Nialler pulled me to the sink and turned the water on. I didn’t make a sound. Not one single noise came from me. Even my breathing was silent, finally completely steady. Nialler set the water to warm. He shoved my hands under the faucet. I watched as if I were an outsider and this wasn’t my body. As if that wasn’t my blood that was turning the water in the sink an intense red color. As if I hadn’t been the one to do it in the first place.

Nialler scrubbed at my hands. He put soap on them and washed them for me. He had to add soap and repeat the process two more times before every last bit of dried blood came loose from underneath my fingernails. I wanted to cry, but I had no more tears left to give.

Nialler shut the water off and grabbed a towel. He dried my hands. He left me to stand there and went to clean the red from the toilet. I stood there, not feeling anything but the constant sting from my cuts and bruises. I felt emotionally numb.

Nialler came back to me and gently took my shoulders in his hands. He steered me back over to the newly-spotless toilet and sat me down. For the next two hours he cleaned up all of my cuts and scratches on my body. Nialler worked in silence as he poured the alcohol. He didn’t say a word as he smeared the medicine on. He didn’t look me in the eyes as he placed the gauze and bandages over the worst of my wounds.

He hadn’t said anything and neither had I. I wasn’t quite sure if I was grateful for that or depressed. I loved him and I was thankful for all he had just done. But his silence worried me. Was he upset with me? I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell. I was so confused.

Nialler got off of his knees and put everything he’d used to clean me up away. He still didn’t speak.

“Say something,” I said. My voice came out raspy and it scared me as much as it made Nialler jump.

He spun around and came back over to me immediately. He carefully grabbed my face and pressed his lips to mine. I responded right away and a moment later we broke apart. Nialler rested his forehead against mine. A few tears fell from his eyes.

“Please don’t ever do that to me again.”

I stared into his hazel eyes. Then I broke. I started to sob even though I had no tears left. Nialler pulled me to my feet and cautiously hugged me, careful of the scratches on my neck.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. I repeated that over and over again.

He kept saying that it was okay. That it was going to be okay. I knew better. I wasn’t okay. He wasn’t okay. We were both afraid and we had no idea what to do right now. So we just held onto each other for the longest time. Until we eventually found ourselves back in the safety, but not comfort, of my bed.