The Night Curse (Book one)
Chapter 33 The Hunter

As a boy, I’d look forward to sunrise. It was like witnessing a miracle each morning. The way the sky changed colour, from deepest navy to the palest of pastels, was like watching a master painter at work. When I became a man, I turned away from such things. I’d focus on the deed at hand, the troubles in my head. A sunrise had become like wallpaper to me. There but unappreciated. There but forgotten.

Of course, the idea of a new day holds so many opportunities. Even if one never saw a sunrise, they could still understand the appeal of a clean slate, a fresh start. How it could fill one with a sense of hope.

There’s always tomorrow.

Unless there isn’t.

Waiting for the sunrise now is like waiting for a curtain close. The beginning of the end. The redness of the sun bleeding into the horizon will be an omen, not a palette of optimism.

A jangle of keys brings my thoughts back to my prison walls. A plate clanks down by my mattress. I peer up to see that the guard with rotting teeth has returned with my nightly supper of stale bread and gruel.

His chest rattles with mucus, and the simple act of bending down has him coughing his guts up. He pulls out a handkerchief and covers his mouth, muffling the retching sound only minimally. It’s enough to turn my own stomach. He stuffs the handkerchief into his jacket pocket and motions to stand.

I lean over to him, the first indication that I’ve registered his presence. “Better get that cough seen to, sounds nasty.”

The guard’s lips pucker and he straightens, pivoting for the cell door. The click of the lock signals his departure, and only then do I unfurl my hand and inspect the stained cloth in my palm.

Taking a man’s used handkerchief surely has to be an all-time low.

Mia told me that the more sentimental an object, the better the connection. A tissue has little meaning to a person. As little as a button on their shirt, perhaps even less than that. It might not even work at all, but I have to try.

Attempting to ignore the dampness of the cloth, I clutch it to my chest and wait for the evening to pass. The prison creaks and howls with the agony of those awaiting trial and those sentenced to a life of persecution. The guards have long since abandoned their posts, save for a single soldier manning the entrance, with a rifle by his side, indicated not by his flesh but by the silhouette of his shadow on the flagstone.

My lids close. I collapse my mind, feeling the layers of consciousness slip away like falling floorboards from under my feet. The landing, the destination I herald, comes into focus with a kaleidoscope of colour. Blurry lines snap clear, and I see the guard, but not as I know him to be. Gone are his rotten teeth, his sickly ashen skin and wiry, peppered grey hair. He is young and handsome with the same green eyes and face—the same but different. His eyes sparkle bright. His face is clean and shaven. It’s either a vision of a former self or a wish of one. Either way, he’s smiling at a feast laid atop an endless table, yet to notice me.

“Quite the spread,” I announce with a stride forward.

He looks up with quizzing eyes that turn sharp with awareness. “You’re a prisoner. I don’t want you here.” He shakes his head as if to banish me from his dream.

“I don’t want to be here either and you can help me with that.” I idly pick up a glistening knife from the table and serve myself a slither of cheese, then tread closer to him, slow and steady like he might buck with any fast movements.

“What do you mean?”

I stroke his cheek. “What is your name?”

“Graham,” he chokes.

“This won’t hurt, Graham.” I place my palm against his ruffled forehead and inhale.

Push through to the thing that you seek. A memory, a feeling, a skill.

I do as Mia instructed and plunge my hand into his mind. It does not resist, and my fingers sink in.

Or conjure that which you desire.

I do not search for anything. Instead, I plant a seed.

Speak it, see it, feel it, and it will be.

“You will wake early and arrive at the prison before dawn. When you get there, you will venture only to my cell. As soon as you reach my chamber, you will unlock the door and you will release me. You will escort me out of the prison. After, you will return to work and have no memory of how I escaped and no recollection of this dream.”

Something hard forms between my fingers and slips free. I remove my hand and stare at his bewildered face.

To be sure that you will cease to exist from their memory, conjure a blade and slice your hand.

I do so and feel instant, stabbing pain.

Don’t forget to will it to be numb.

The pain evaporates and my hand becomes weightless. Silver blood trickles from the wound.

Smear the blood across the person’s face and then your own.

I glide the liquid over the guard’s head, from brow to chin, leaving him dripping in the metallic fluid and repeat the process on myself.

Speak the words.

“Forget me,” I say and disperse from his dream with a flicker of my lids.

Familiar footsteps thud against the stone hours later. I sit upright and grip the edge of my mattress.

Graham appears and fumbles through his keys.

I lurch forward, in disbelief and delight that my dream was successful. “Hurry,” I whisper.

Graham’s gaze is devoid of any life, and he only responds with the turn of his key in the lock. The cell door creaks open, and he leads me out of my prison, wordless and cold, as if sleepwalking. With his hand on my wrist, we descend down the hallway, and I can’t help but peer in at the sleeping prisoners who will never see the light of day, until they meet their maker. Sorrow blooms in my chest.

We turn a corner, and some vague recognition of this trail resurfaces from when I first arrived, all those days ago. I can taste freedom, the proximity of it. I envisage Mia and the surprise on her face when I finally embrace her. We’ll run away together, or stay at the Harling Manor, whichever she prefers. So as long as we get to be together.

A crossroad comes into view, and Graham halters, then motions right.

Wrong.

A guard twists at the sound of our approach. He clutches the handle of his gun.

“And what is the meaning of this? No executions are scheduled until dawn.”

Sweat plumes and my heart skips a beat. I look to Graham and then back at the guard, considering my next move.

“I am escorting this man out of the prison,” Graham says plainly.

Surely shock is written all over my face, for I did not see this coming.

But I willed him to forget… I followed every step.

I scan my actions with fierce velocity while the guard closes in, rifle now aimed at my head.

You will wake early and arrive at the prison before dawn.

When you get there, you will venture only to my cell.

As soon as you reach my chamber, you will unlock the door and you will release me.

You will escort me out of the prison.

And then it hits me. My impertinent error.

After, you will return to work and have no memory of how I escaped and no recollection of this dream.

Only once I had escaped would he have no memory of my instructions. Only then would he forget the mission. And with my blood, I only willed him to forget me, not the dream itself.

“And who told you to escort him out of the prison?”

I glance at the guard, blood crashing in my ears.

“He did,” Graham admits with a pointing finger towards me. I drop to my knees, and hang my head in shame. “He told me to free him in my dream.”

Even without looking, I can sense the impending doom. I hear the clang of his gun, the explosion of a bullet, and brace for death.

Graham joins me on the floor in a crumpled heap, and as I realise too much time has passed, blood begins to pool from underneath Graham’s head.

A forceful hand yanks me up, and suddenly we are running.

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