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Every night, Steph Lauter dreams she’s being eaten.
And not in a way she’d enjoy.
It’s been this way all her life, as long as she could remember her dreams. Falling into an abyssal maw; infinity was a blessing. A wet, wet tongue wrapped around her ankle, pulling her toward a great pink mouth; she tried to resist, dug her nails into the ground, broke each and every one. Teeth, grinding her into little bits, starting with her legs and going slowly so she felt every little agonizing moment, until she was nothing but a consciousness floating in a fuchsia void.
It got worse when her mom disappeared, but then again, so did everything.
She didn’t sleep after the summoning. She wasn’t even avoiding it, sleep just never came for her. Maybe that was a blessing. That mouth. It looked like Ms. Tessburger. It had always looked like Ms. Tessburger. It had never looked like Ms. Tessburger.
It wanted her. It had always wanted her.
The first time she slept after that night, things were different. She was still falling, still resisting, still being chewed to bits, but it wasn’t just the mouth- Nibblelinenephym, she knew now. It was all of them. She was in their domain. But they weren’t focused on her.
They each had their own toys.
Strange, that each of these gods were so focused on these humans.
Grace, under a spotlight, a deep purple spotlight. She was trying to hide herself and she couldn’t. Grace, stripped to nothing, even less than what Max left her with that night. Steph couldn’t look away from her. She had to look away from her. That was the one thing she could do for her. She couldn’t look away.
Pete, in a yellow translucent box, banging on the walls, trying to get to his brother, trapped in another box. Ted had so clearly already resigned himself to his fate in the box. Steph could almost - almost hear Pete’s scream when a giant hand picked up his box and threw it into the air-into the void-like a child playing with a ball.
The guy from the coffee shop, screaming a tortured song, only interrupted by a gout of blue slime occasionally bubbling from his throat. It flowed freely from his nose and eyes and ears.
In the center of the odd circle was the great green thing. Marionette strings from his fingers to the guy from those stupid doll commercials. Of course those stupid fucking dolls were connected to The Lords.
Even in the distance, a girl Steph kind of recognized-Hannah. The one who’d do her homework at the toyzone. The one whose sister wouldn’t say anything when Steph pocketed something small from the shelves. She wasn’t in near the danger nor the pain as everyone else. A giant spider spun webs and webs around her; the terrible colors of the black and white could not penetrate the silk.
Why couldn’t that spider have chosen Grace. Cover her up. Tie her arms tight over her so that purple light couldn’t uncover her over and over and over again. Keep the boxes on the ground. Stop the singing. Destroy the puppet strings. Give Steph something to hold onto before she was swallowed whole.
But it wouldn’t, Steph knew that. Of course it wouldn’t. Because it couldn’t, obviously. Five against one. Five against one, Webby!
She shouldn’t have known that name. She didn’t know that name. She lost her grip. She fell. She was ground to nothingness.
She woke up.