Homesick Nightmares

[Luci]

Luci sprints across the outskirts of the dream town down a highway, a pretty yet approachable prismatic blur, kicking up ash and shadow into the skeletal faces of her pursuers. She is faster than the hounds, but they are patient, and relentless. Only one of them can keep pace with her, an over-muscled beast with a deep crack running down the middle of his skull, and a broken fang poking out the bottom. Her legs burn, her heart is on fire, and the wolves start to close in.

Luci makes a sharp turn off the highway down a steep hill of bones and ash, gliding down effortlessly without loosing momentum. She is rewarded a moment later with a chorus of piteous whines as several beasts snap ankles and cause a pileup. As she slides down the hill she chances a look behind her, and sees at least four of the beasts still trailing her. The monster with the cracked skull is in the lead again, his strangled cries chill Luci to the bone.

At the bottom of the hill Luci finds her footing on wet grass and hits the ground running. A tangy scent hits her nose and she realizes the grass is slick with not morning dew, but a thin coating of blood. She stops at the edge of a blood river, the current already whipped into a frenzy. She sees a bridge off in the distance, connecting the highway above her with the dream town.

Luci's feet struggle to find traction as she dashes to the bridge at breakneck pace, but the beasts' claws dig into the wet ground easily. Luci sees the wooden bridge towering over her and paints a long golden rope from her spray-can to one of the legs. She lets out an earsplitting scream as the cracked-skull wolf sinks it's knifelong teeth into her left calf, but hold on as her rope pulls her up and she breaks free of its grasp.

Luci clings tightly to the leg as the hounds claw their way up the wooden bridge. Luci whips the golden rope upward again, climbing desperately, leaving a trail of prismatic blood behind her. She starts to hear the wolves fall one by one, their sharp claws shredding through the old and brittle wood. As Luci pushes herself up onto the bridge she looks behind her in time to see the musclebound, cracked skull wolf, it's teeth dripping with her blood, climbing steadily behind her.

Off in the distance, a bell chimes.

Luci sank to her knees as if in exhaustion.With a shaky hand she spray paints a cartoon icon of a bomb. She breathes deeply, gets up, and walks away.

The bell chimes again.

Luci gets about five feet before the snarling wolf pushes itself up onto the bridge and cocks it's disgustingly human head at her.

The bell chimes again.

"I'm gonna eat you," it declares in a rattling voice.

"Eat this," Luci responds.

The bell chimes again.

The bomb detonates. The wolf beast squeals as it is thrown bodily through the air, but rises up again quickly with singed fur and claws out. The bomb has blown a burning hole in the old bridge, and the raging blood rapids surge a hundred feet below them. His head snaps up to face Luci, growling from the other side of the hole.

The rotted bridge gives a thunderous creak. The wolf snarls helplessly. Luci breathes deeply, and the world seems to warp around her. She takes a single step behind her, and is on the other side of the bridge.

She watches dispassionately as the cracked-skull wolf falls into the blood river with the bridge.

With ragged breathes, Luci begins walking deeper into the dream city.