"We revel in the laxness of the path we take."

- Charles Baudelaire

Tim thought the scene in front of him was straight out of a classic horror movie. The television in the dark room was showing a repeating loop of a Tom and Jerry's cartoon where the mouse joined a space program. It would have been a relatively normal dream scape had he not stood behind a single red leather recliner that faced the television, away from him. An on-screen explosion lit the surrounding in a bright flash akin to lightning, revealing the outline of hundreds of skeletons and decomposing bodies surrounding the chair.

Run. Tim thought to himself.

The image of the moat of corpses stayed vivid in his mind, even as the reduced glow from the television diminished his sight. The bodies position suggested they died scrambling away from the chair, creating an odd doughnut of corpses where the middle was bare.

But running's hard.

His body still could not move. It felt tired, about to fall asleep. He wondered what would happen if he fell asleep in the dream world. Maybe he would wake up. Maybe he would die.

Maybe I'll turn into a frog.

Despite his inability to command his body, his legs began walking towards the recliner on its own. Desperately fighting the urge to sleep, he staggered leftwards in his failing attempt to regain control of his feet. He looked back up to the recliner and saw the left facing portrait of a port-bellied man in white-singlet and boxer shorts, intensely watching the show, not once laughing at the gimmicks of the cat and mouse nor paying heed to his existence. Right leg first, he took a step up onto the pile of body, bones crunching beneath his feet.

“Tim!” Sister shouted from behind him.

He felt her cold hand gripped his right shoulder and with a heavy yank, she spun him around to face her. White eyed with worry, Sister placed both of her hands on his arms to prevent him from toppling over from weariness. He felt the sudden urge to walk back towards the man in the recliner.

“Give it awhile,” she said, tightening her grip as his body made a lazy attempt to turn around. “You'll get back control soon.”

Voice slurring, he asked, “Who...is...that?”

“The Uncle. Don't worry, he's not under The Father,” she explained.

A wave of energy washed over him without warning, as if he had just been woken up by an alarm clock and downed an entire can of energy drink at the same time. His knees buckled as his sleeping body unsuccessfully tried to catch up to his awoken mind.

He fell forward, but was caught in an embraced by the petite girl. “I got you,” she said with heaved breaths from his weight. Clumsily, he managed to jelly-leg his way back into standing. “I got you.”

“Thanks,” he said. They pulled themselves apart. Breathing deeply, Tim continued, “But...holy crap! What the hell was that?”

She took a hold of his hand and led him away from The Uncle. The further the pair was from him, the brighter their surroundings became, until he could make out the outline of the corridor they walked in and the door placed at the end.

She explained, “The Uncle can literally tire you to death. It'll get to the point where you won't even have the energy to open your eyes.”

“And what did you mean by him not being under The Father?” he skipped forward and asked, absorbing information as fast as his brain allowed.

“He's not a hunter. His victims goes to him. The Father has no need for someone that doesn't openly kill. Your luck must be terrible if you managed to fall into his world.”

The couple reached the end of the hallway. Without hesitation, she flung the door opened, blinding him with the light from the outside. He felt the tug on his arm as she dragged him out into the sun.

Even before his vision adjusted, he could already hear the sound of the waves beating against the shore and felt the breeze of the sea on his skin. He already deduced they were near the sea by the time his sight had adjusted to the change in light. Standing on a wooden pier with the sun half set into the ocean on the horizon, he breathed in the fresh air of the parallel world. Bathed orange by the sunset, the world looked as if filtered by summer itself.

He jumped as the door behind him slammed shut and he turned to see a wooden fishing hut built into the side of the pier. It was nowhere near large enough to accomodate the room they had exited from but Tim had long since stopped questioning the physics of the dream world.

“Is he okay?” he heard Stella's voice spoke in worry. He turned back as Sister let go of his hand. Despite her grip being ice cold to the touch, he felt his heart sank as she released him and a lost of warmth.

Sister approached Stella as she jogged down the pier, still wearing the same red tunic and white tights from their previous in-dream meeting. Sister explained, “He's fine. Poor boy's a little groggy that's all,” she replied condescendingly, though her tone playful.

Rubbing his eyes to regain some form of concentration, he remembered what he had asked of Stella before falling asleep in the car on their way back. “Did you tell her about what happened?”

“Yeah. The diary, the photo album, the birthmark on your butt. Everything.”

“Why did you tell her about my birthmark?”

“I just thought it'd be funny,” she grinned.

Tim stood stunned as the cogs of his mind worked to place a missing puzzle piece. “How did you know about my birthmark?”

Stella replied with cheeky smile. “Not telling,” the girls proceeded to laugh at his expense.

Feeling a headache coming along, he diverted the topic back onto a serious track. “So Sister, anything you can tell us about Vashmir that could help?”

She shook her head, “Nothing comes to mind. I think this is another dead end for you.”

Thinking her reply as strange, he folded his arms in thoughts and said while contemplating, “That can't be right...”

Sister whispered to Stella, “He's so hot when he's all serious.”

Ignoring them, Tim continued, “In Vashmir's diary, he specifically mentioned being chased by The Family. That means he wasn't being targeted by just one of you.”

Stella caught on and pointed out, “So he's just like you?”

Sister replied, “How can that be? I don't remember anyone before Tim who had multiple encounters.”

“It's likely he just got lucky and ended with only one hunter each time. Or maybe you've only ever met him by yourself,” Tim theorized. “It's like with The Uncle. Back then, you guys don't hunt openly. You don't jump for the people who are still alive. Maybe that's why you didn't find him all the time, cause you were focused on your respective preys.”

The goddess of death nodded, “Okay, that makes sense,” Tim felt a grim chill at her not denying they were her 'preys'.

But Tim had another theory in mind that was even more worrisome, but did not have a single shred of evidence to point to it. That someone else was working behind the scenes, even further away into fantasy than the dream world.

Stella added, “There's one thing I'm not getting. Vashmir wrote that he made a 'deal'. What's this deal?” she looked to Sister for answers.

She replied, “I don't know. The only one of us who makes deals is The Mother.”

Tim remembered the woman with the fire-red hair from the barn, who stood dry despite being out in the rain. “The woman in the business clothes.”

“That's her,” Sister acknowledged. “She gives you what you want in exchange for your soul.”

Having read her fair share of horror books about demons and deals with the devils, Stella scoffed at the premise of The Mother's powers. “That's really cliché don't you think? Who in the world in this time and age still falls for that sort of tricks?"

"Enough to keep her busy," Sister replied.

“So we go look for The Mother and interrogate her,” Tim suggested. Though he knew that it was an act that was easier said than done. Weary of their odd and grim situation, Tim sighed, “Interrogating a supernatural being. This is some fucking dream.”

Suddenly, he felt as if he had been injected by a doze of anaesthesia and fell to his knees. He looked up to see the two girls continuing their conversation as if nothing was happening to him.

He asked, “What's going on?”

Stella replied, “You're waking up,” having experienced more of the phenomenon herself, she was not only stoic about the situation, but also sounded confused at his lack of knowledge.

“Normally for once. Without dying that is,” Sister added. She bent over seductively, showing cleavage through her soft white dress, leaning her face in to his, close enough for him to smell her cherry scented breath. His vision started to cross and fatigue overtook his physical body. She kissed him on the nose, devilishly whispering, “Sleep tight.”

The sunbathed ocean was engulfed by darkness.

XXX

12:54 a.m

8 days earlier

Tim woke up in the passenger seat of the S.U.V with Clay at the wheels. The in-built digital clock flashed from 12:54 to 12:55 and the darkness that surrounded them on the highway confirmed the time as passed midnight. As before, no cars crossed, trailed, or lead them. Surrounded by the smog of night, even the stars seemed to have disappeared within the clouds. Only their headlights were left to shine a path ahead on the dark empty road.

Rubbing his eyes awake as he adjusted to the change in scenery, he realized it was the first time since he had gotten Sin that he had the chance to wake up normally. He sat watching the seconds blinked past on the digital clock, wondering if it would be his first and last 'normal' awakening from the nightmares.

He asked Clay, “Why didn't you wake me up?” realizing his shift to drive had started almost an hour ago.

“I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd drive it off. Too much shit in my head.”

“Like what?”

“All the normal shit in my head.”

Tim turned to the back to see Stella still peacefully asleep across the seats. One of Clay's oversized jacket covered her body. Her brother must have stopped mid-drive to get it from the back compartments.

Clay continued, “You were pretty amazing back then. Against that thug,” they recalled their stand-off with the would be drug robber.

“Can't say I was terrified though,” Tim turned back to watch the road, remembering how calm he had felt during the event. “But you were the one who stepped up first.”

“I was scared shitless, kid. Especially when the dude pointed his gun at me,” Clay's fixated his attention on the road even as he spoke. The reflection of light from the front highlighted the dark rings around his eyes. “Didn't even know if you or Stella noticed how batshit crazy the man was, or even what to do with that.”

“We're not stupid you know.”

“I know. But it just feels like we've been trusting our luck to survive so far. The deal with Adam and Joseph and all that. It's like we got out by the scrape of our hair,” he reminiscenced his bullheaded assault against the drug dealer and the ambush by the Sin-crazed senior. “I trusted you guys to deal, you know. What if the next scrape comes to close to our heads?”

“Don't worry, we'll continue scraping.”

“What if we stop lucking out? What if we miscommunicate even once the next time shit goes down?”

“We've been friends for years man,” Tim turned worriedly to his best friend. “I've got your back.”

From behind them, Stella murmured, “Me too,” as she began to stir.

Without replying, Clay decelerated despite the empty road. Curious of his action, Tim looked out his window and saw that they were passing the diner from earlier. However, the building, from the eatery to the motel, was unlit. Not a single bulb of light. But the red tail light of a white pickup glowed in the darkness like the eyes of the devil itself.

Slowing down to a crawl, Clay turned the car sharply right, shining its headlights over the scene. They watched as their school's air rifle captain, Joseph, dragged the limp body of the waitress from the morning out of the diner door, piling it onto a small mount of corpses.

Stella, now fully awake, let out an unfamiliar voice of shock, “What. The. Fuck.”

Joseph turned towards the source of the light, and for a moment, squinted in their direction while trying to make up the figure behind the hood.

Tim shook Clay's arm fiercely. “Drive.”

The crazed captain's eyes widened in surprise before a sadistic, manic grin ripped opened his lips, the shine of their headlights reflecting against his teeth and the blood stains on his face.

Tim repeated, “Drive! DRIVE!”

Clay floored the gas and their S.U.V screeched and jetted away from the diner. Stella peeked out the rear window and watched as the headlights to Joseph's pickup flashed on.

She warned, “He's coming.”