Dreams (Sarah Midnight Trilogy 1) Read Online Free Page A

hard ground. I was shocked, enraged – was the man with the crazy eyes looking for a fight? I scrambled to my feet, only to be pushed down again. Someone, or something, was sitting on my back, and wasn’t letting me get up again.
    It took all my strength to turn around, throw the man on the ground, and sit on top of him. I thought a pair of green eyes would meet mine – but what I saw was something else entirely. A naked, white-faced creature with unseeing eyes. Its skin was like the inside of mushrooms, white and sickly-looking – like something that lived underground, like some monstrous larva. Its features were human, though. As if it had been human once, long ago, and then somehow took another evolutionary route, and became something quite different. Its mouth was open, showing a row of blackened but sharp teeth – and it was trying to snap at me, biting the air, seeking flesh.
    I don’t panic when I’m afraid; fear makes me sharper, colder, more controlled. My brain geared for survival, and I couldn’t see anything else. I pushed my fingers in the creature’s eyes and made it howl, a sound that came from beneath the earth, somewhere dark and primeval. Its arms were searching; its mouth was open and snapping. It kept shrieking as I pushed my fingers into its eyes.
    I had no time to think that what was happening to me was impossible . I had no time to think that such creatures don’t exist, that you can only see them at the cinema, or read of them in books. I had no time to consider any of that, because the creature that wasn’t supposed to exist was sinking its claws into my arms, into my back, drawing blood, and it was my time to roar in pain and rage.
    Just then I realized that the green-eyed man was standing beside us, not moving. He was looking on, as if he’d been watching a football match on TV. Why was he not helping? Was he the creature’s master, and was he using it to attack me?
    Then I noticed his posture – he had a small dagger in his hand, and he looked ready to strike, if he had to. He was waiting for something. What on earth was he waiting for? For the creature to kill me?
    “Help me, you bastard!” I shouted. But he didn’t move. An imperceptible smile curled his lips, making me even angrier.
    Something came into my mind. The most ancient part of my brain must have registered the information and stored it, and was telling me what to do now, in this life-and-death fight: there was a stone border that ran around the flower bed, the closest thing to a weapon I had at that moment. It was my only chance.
    I took my hands off the creature’s face – it brought its hands to its eyes, setting me free for long enough to turn my head quickly and locate the stones. One split second, and the demon went for me again. It pushed me down, its mouth snapping – it was so close to my skin that I tensed up, waiting for the bite.
    And it came – the creature bit my arm so hard it tore off a chunk of flesh.
    I was bleeding, frightened to death, and furious. A strength I didn’t know I had surged through me, and I roared , a sound I never thought could come out of my throat. That thing would not bite me again. It would pay for what it had done to me.
    I shoved my knee in the creature’s chest, so hard that its breath was knocked out of its lungs. I got up on my feet, pain tearing through me, blood pouring down my injured arm, and I kicked it in the face, feeling its nose break. I should say I was sickened by it … but I wasn’t. I was excited, I was triumphant – to hear the bone breaking, to see the creature that had tried to kill me roll on the ground in pain. It made me feel alive, like nothing else before. I threw myself on the demon, and took its bleeding head in my hands. I banged it against the stones, once, twice, until I felt the bone break, and the demon was still.
    I was breathing so hard I thought my heart would stop. I looked up at the sky – it was clear, with a million stars. I’ll