She dreamed she was walking a dark path...
It was so dark she could not see her own feet or tell what the ground felt like beneath her. The trail alternated between slick mud and jagged rock; some stretches were treacherous and slow. Still, she walked on.
Far ahead, a single beam of light pierced the darkness, and she moved towards it as if pulled. The light was distant and narrow, but it was the only thing that made sense in that blackness, so she kept going.
Despite her will to move forward, her feet advanced painfully slowly. Even so, the light ahead kept her from losing her way. Step by step, she pressed on—never stopping, never giving up. But then she noticed...the light was fading. What had once been bright and sure now wavered, thinning like mist. It looked as if it might vanish at any moment.
Wait... Don’t disappear...
She reached out desperately, forcing her legs to move faster, to close the distance before the light was gone. Yet no matter how hard she tried, her body refused to obey. She wanted to run, but her legs would not move. The light grew dimmer...and dimmer...until at last, it vanished.
No...
Darkness swallowed her whole. She was alone, unable to tell up from down, forward from back. Was there a sky above her, or just a low, oppressive ceiling? Only the unpleasant pressure beneath her feet told her the ground still existed. Before, she had been able to walk. Now she couldn’t even tell which way to go. She simply stood there, frozen.
Then, slowly, her eyes began to adjust. Shapes took form in the dark. The world that the light had once hidden began to reveal itself, faintly, grimly.
Huh...?
She looked down. The ground was littered with fragments of all shapes and sizes. Between them oozed something thick and dark red. These were what had made the path uneven and soft beneath her feet. And now, she understood what they were.
No... I don’t like this...
She pressed her trembling hands to her face. The fragments covering the ground were bones.
Ribs... Splintered skulls... She realized at once that they were human bones. And the thick, glistening sludge between them was rotted flesh, fused with congealed blood. The moment she understood, the stench hit her—the sickly stench of death.
No...! No, no, no...!
She’d been walking all this time on a road paved with bones and flesh, heading towards that distant light. Without seeing where she stepped, without wanting to know, she had moved forward blindly. And now that she finally saw the truth, it was far too late.
“Huh?!”
Skeletal hands rose up from the ground beneath her feet, clutching her ankles. More of them sprouted up around her like twisted roots, grasping at her legs, her clothes, anything they could reach.
“No... Let go... Please...”
The grip was merciless. The bony fingers dug into her skin. Then, something pale floated up through the viscous red sludge. A white, round sphere—a human eye.
“Eek?!”
She gulped. And then more of them surfaced, one after another, until the ground was covered in them...dozens, hundreds, all staring at her.
“Don’t look at me... Not like that... Stop...”
She tried to avert her gaze, to twist away, but her legs were pinned in place. Still, the eyes stared—unblinking and wordless. Were they angry that she had walked over them? Mocking her helplessness? Or simply watching in silence, empty of thought or mercy?
Whatever they were, their gaze pierced her like needles, filling her chest with panic. Even when she squeezed her eyes shut, even when she covered her ears, their silent stare burrowed into her mind.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!!!”
At last, unable to endure it any longer, she screamed.