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Quinn tossed and turned in his bed as his nightmare progressed, knocking a bag of cheez-its to the floor. His body went rigid, his neck craned up as his face was distorted into an expression of extreme pain. He let out a choked scream, then his eyes popped open as his muscles relaxed themselves. He was in an upright position within seconds, clutching his hands to his chest, heaving and looking about the room as if he wasn’t aware of his location. He got his breathing under control, and then slowly brought his hands from his chest. He expected to see his hands caked in blood, but saw they were clean and breathed a sigh of relief as he pushed his shoulder-length black hair from his face. His nightmare had been a bad one, worse than the ones he had been having the past couple of nights. The last few were chaotic, fragmented, but this nightmare was vivid and clear. He found himself in the middle of a clearing, being approached by a figure cloaked in the shadows of the night. Something told him that this was an evil person, but he simply could not run away. In fact, he couldn’t move at all. He was forced to the ground by unseen hands and held firmly in place. Even though the figure was hovered over him, Quinn could still not identify him, for he had no facial features or markings of any sort. There was only black shadow and the shadow was like a shroud that hid his identity like the hood of an executioner. The shadowed being then raised his fist into the air, and with great force managed to punch a hole right into Quinn’s chest and removed his heart. It was at that moment that he snapped out of the nightmare, but he felt the flesh rip, heard his ribcage crack like brittle twigs and felt his crimson essence squirting from his body and splashing him. What did this all mean? He knew it wasn’t the result of smoking pot, because he had been buying from the same dealer for years and these nightmares only started up again recently. The last time he had similar nightmares was when he was twelve, and he was seventeen now. Correction, Quinn thought as he glanced at his alarm clock. Eighteen. He had been eighteen for over a minute now, being that he had been born at midnight on this date. He was now an adult. Not old enough to legally drink yet, but still an adult none the less.

Time to celebrate with some cartoons and bong hits.

He was reaching for his remote, located on the nightstand to his right when a sinking feeling came over him. He felt like there was something awry in the house. It wasn’t to be compared with pot-induced paranoia, for the high he had received before passing out was long gone. He wasn’t the paranoid stoner anyhow. The feeling he was getting was intense, nagging at him like a toothache nags you to see your dentist. He had to pay attention, and he knew he would have to get up and go searching about the house to see if anything was truly disturbed. Hopefully, some stupid racoon got into the garbage and that was all. However, the nightmare made him cautious and worried. There was also the fact that lately he had been seeing odd things while walking home. Strange shadows leaping from treetops and watching him with large glowing eyes the color of the moon. He had seen these shadowy beings before, at age twelve, but blamed it on his eyes playing tricks on him back then. He only saw them from a distance and only at night, so what other explanation would there have been? Now, he wasn’t so sure there was a logical explanation. As he began to think back more, Quinn began to realize so many strange occurrences in his life. So many unanswered questions. Now was not the time to ponder such things, for the eerie feeling was gnawing at him harder than ever before. He had to tend to it and make sure everything was okay in the house. Deep down, he already knew the answer. Nothing was okay. Not now. Not anymore
Quinn got to his feet, nearly tripping over the box of cheez-its he had forgotten about and had knocked to the floor whilst in the throws of his nightmare. Cursing the box of junk-food, he crossed his room and approached his dresser. He opened the small top drawer, which was where his socks were housed and moved them aside to reveal a rectangular velvet box. Within the box was a dagger. The handle was made of wood from an ancient sycamore tree, as was described to him in a letter his grandfather had written that had come with the dagger. There were various symbols carved into the handle, none of them identifiable. The blade itself was four inches long and three inches across, and sharp. Both Quinn and his older brother Donovan had received daggers from their grandfather after he had been murdered six years ago. Holding the dagger felt right, as if it was meant to be in his hand and his only. Quinn didn’t know if he would need it or not, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Besides, he felt more calm holding it. He rushed up the stairs, being careful to make no unnecessary sounds. He cringed each time the wooden stairs creaked under his weight, but finally made it to the top and to the door that separated his room from the rest of the house. After taking a few cleansing breaths to steady the drum solo being played out against his ribcage by his heart, Quinn opened the door and peered into the kitchen. Nothing appeared to be out of place, but then again the light was off so he couldn’t really see if anything was out of place. He ventured from the doorway and across the kitchen to where the light switch was located. His barefoot landed in something sticky and warm, nearly making him slip. Someone watching from afar would have thought this funny, for it resembled the typical slipping-on-a-banana-peel shtick. He caught his balance and flipped the light switch. The fluid he had stepped in was blood, and it was a large puddle of it, with bits of some sort of tissue matter mixed in. There was also a trail of blood that went from the puddle and stopped at the door leading into his parents’ bedroom. He took a deep breath, which did nothing to calm him and curled his fingers around the knob. He brought the door open and was greeted by a scene that ought to have been thought up by the likes of Clive Barker or Wes Craven.

The room was covered in blood, from the ceiling to the floors. It resembled one of them splatter paintings that certain artists do, which made him wish that was all it was. His mother was the first body he saw. She was sprawled out on the bed with her nightgown twisted and disarrayed, suggesting that she had tried to fight off her attacker. Her throat had been slit deeply but with surgical precision, nearly decapitating her if not for the muscles in the back of her neck. Her chest was obliterated due to a large gaping hole. He could see her innards, and could also see that her ribcage was shattered and her heart was missing. His father, or what was left of him was on the floor. His head was caved in, the skull crushed to bits like someone with super-human strength just grabbed his head and squeezed it like a piece of fruit. Brain matter and blood, but also the way the face caved in made his facial features practically unrecognizable. Like his mother, his father’s chest had the same wound upon it.

Quinn turned away from the carnage as nausea washed over he like a tidal wave. Before he knew it he dropped the dagger, fell to his knees and vomited. He barely got anything up, and was dry-heaving for a bit, his entire body trembling. His body became still, and he was able to wipe his mouth on his sleeve. He grabbed the dagger again, for he felt so weak without it and felt better with it in his hand. It was then that he realized he wasn’t the only one in the house with a pulse anymore as a shadow covered him and blotted out what little illumination he got from the lights in the kitchen. He was afraid to look up, for he knew that who he would see would be the figure from his nightmare. Before he could look up, or react in any sort of fashion, a dirty boot collided with his chin and he was airborne for a few seconds, landing in the middle of his parents’ bedroom, the impact knocking the dagger from his hand and the wind from his lungs. He watched helplessly as it slid under the bed and out of reach. Quinn coughed and spat out blood from having bitten his tongue as his body collided with the floor. He looked ahead and saw the image from his nightmares, only instead of just shadows he could see features. The first thing he noticed was the granite gray prison jumpsuit. It was caked with dirt and what could have been dried blood, but the numbers on the breast pocket were nearly clear enough to make out. He remembered seeing those exact numbers on the prison uniform belonging to Vastago Reznikova, the Russian who plead guilty to several murders that occurred a few months ago. That man’s ugly mug had been plastered all over every aspect of the media. His face still looked similar, only his flesh appeared to be charred in places and blistered in others, his head shaven and his eyes were milky white. He had chosen death by electrocution after all, which according to all the online news sources, had been carried out a few days ago. If he had been executed, then what was he doing here? If not for the pain in his lower jaw, Quinn would have thought this was just another nightmare. Vastago took a few steps closer until he was standing over Quinn with his legs on either side of him. He then bent over to get closer, the scent of burnt flesh, blood and fresh dirt baking off of him. He appeared to be studying him, boring his eyes into his very soul even. A smile curled his chapped and blood-stained lips, revealing rotting teeth and gums, both covered in blood. His breath stunk of raw meat, which made the overall odor of him enough to make anyone vomit or pass out. Quinn could do neither of those, for he feared if he was rendered unconscious, he would never wake up.

“So you are the real thing,” Vastago growled, his accent making it almost impossible to understand. “Those two were nothing more than decoys I see.”

Quinn didn’t know what made him do it, but he did it none the less. He curled up one leg towards his body and with the other he kicked up as high and as hard as he could, bringing it into Vastago’s groin. As the behemoth fell to his knees, cupping his groin and yowling in pain, Quinn backed away on his hands and feet like a crab, then quickly got into the vertical position and rushed towards his parents’ bedroom window. The pane was up, but there was a screen in the frame. With another movement that seemed to be purely instinct, he kicked the screen out of the frame and started climbing his way out the window. His glimmer of hope was extinguished as his hair was grasped and he was pulled back into the house. His feet were nearly two feet off the ground and his scalp felt like it was about the separate from his skull as he was whipped around like a ragdoll and slammed face-down onto the bed, only mere inches away from his mother’s corpse. Vastago’s hand was now on the back of his neck, squeezing the pressure point so he was unable to move. He could feel the coagulating blood sticking to the front of his clothing and his cheek, and it made him want to vomit.

“I was going to make it quick,” Vastago hissed in Quinn’s ear, his beard scratching his neck. “But since you did that, I will make it as slow and painful as I can.”

Quinn began to feel his heart rate speed up until it felt like it was about to burst forth from his chest. His body also began to shake, a little bit at first until it was apparent that he was shaking. He felt fear at first, not knowing what was happening to him. Was he about to have a heart attack? What happened next was no heart attack. His emotion went from being scared shitless to being angry. The anger was understood, being that his eighteenth birthday became something other than a joyful event. He was supposed to have had his parents give him some money, sing that cheesy birthday song, then he would have went off to smoke up and celebrate with some friends. But no, he had to wake up to dead parents and a death row inmate who was supposedly dead. The anger spread through his body, the warmth comforting at first until it felt like his insides were boiling. He needed to release this anger so he did the only thing he could think of. He clamped his eyes shut and started screaming, and with that scream, the energy, the shaking and the heart racing all seemed to gather up like a big ball of energy. His entire body started to glow neon blue and it started lifting up from the bed. Vastago backed away, his face frozen in an expression of confusion and fear. The entire bed and the objects all around Quinn began to shake along with his body. The neon blue glow appeared to rip from his arms, legs and head like serpents and all headed straight for Vastago, hitting him right in the middle of his chest and tossing him backwards.

Quinn fell back to the bed, an immediate calming and cooling relief coming over his body. He opened his eyes and saw the room around him in disarray. The bed was slumping in the middle, which suggested it was broken. The pictures on the wall by the bed’s headboard were either broken or no longer on the wall itself, which had a deep crack forming in it. The impact of whatever had occurred was enough to push his mother’s corpse against the headboard, her back to Quinn. He found that as a relief, so that he would not have to look into her face any longer. The house was once again eerily silent, once again still save for his movements as he got himself off the bed. He steadied his shaking legs and found Vastago sticking out of the wall across from the bedroom. The look of his upper torso in the hole and his legs sticking out could have appeared comical, like the wicked witch of the east when the house fell on her. However, Quinn was not laughing. He did not know what he had done, but he seemed to know that he did not kill Vastago. He had merely stunned him, knocked him out cold if anything. He needed to get out of there, but first he needed to get something. He came back into the bedroom and took to the floor, his arm stretched under the bed. After groping for but a few seconds, he felt the dagger’s handle and retrieved it. He felt better with it in his hand, and ready to split before the behemoth woke up. He rushed through the kitchen, avoiding the blood puddle and exited through the back door. He let instinct take over and headed into the woods on the back of the property.