The moon was a strange tinge of orange as Terry walked briskly to his Northbridge apartment. Exhaustion began to kick in and suddenly the normal route home began to look foreign to him. The shadows that formed looked wicked and it’s as if they had voices. Terry strained his ears to try and figure out what the voices were whispering. He realised that the muttering was not coming from the shadows but were closer. They were at the back of his head. Maybe I’m just tired from the extra long shift, he thought. He felt an uncomfortable presence but there was no one else around. Strange for a Saturday night. Usually there were swarms of young bodies looking for taxis. He picked up the pace and manoeuvred through the side streets. A sharp sound filled his ears and a bright light flooded his vision. His pupils dilated and his skin turned pale, his lips so blue he could pass as being lifeless. And then nothing.

Darkness filled his mind as if he had blacked out, but he knew he was conscious. He could feel the cold ground beneath him, and the wind sweeping across his skin. Fragments of memories slipped through cracks in his perception, but were they echoes of past events or were they happening right now? He saw elements of a recurring nightmare he had. It was as if that very nightmare began to materialise. He felt like he was in some kind of simulation. Blink. He could see the concrete ground now, worn and covered with weeds. Blink. A vast god-like figure stared at him. Blink. A stone god with a triton? Eroded stone and a hollow stare. This was a familiar sight. He had never been there before but Terry recognised this as Atlantis Marine Park.

Images of the park faded in and out and he could still hear the voices. They were speaking what sounded like latin but too mumbly to make out what the words were. Terry felt a sickening feeling flood his body. One of the voices sounded like his ex-girlfriend, Simone. She was screaming “Save me” multiple times. He hadn’t heard from Simone in over two years. The voice began to get more urgent until it rapidly became deeper and more satanic. The words then turned back to latin. Regie Satanas. Regie Satanas. Regie Satanas. The deep voice chanted rhythmically. Hail Lord Lucifer. Hail Lord Lucifer. Hail Lord Lucifer. Simone’s voice chanted in English. And then violent sobbing that sounded like Simone. She sounded trapped.

Whilst the words flooded Terry’s ears, King Neptune’s grin began to increase until he looked like a Cheshire Cat. Fragments of these images began to come back to Terry from his nightmares he had before he met Simone. Despite feeling like he was encountering some sort of horrifying out of body experience, Terry managed to turn his head and he spotted a cabin. It looked like an old ticket booth, the window smashed. He caught a glimpse of a bloodied hand print smudging all the way down the window. Terry began to endure a panic attack as this time the nightmare seemed very real. He continued to stare at the cabin and what he saw next caused his entire body to freeze over.

First he saw the grey hand smack against the bloodied print, and then he saw a chalky face appear at the window looking through the broken glass, creating a shrieking sound that he had never thought a human would be capable of making, let alone someone he slept next to every night for three years. This was the part that was missing, but finally the fragments of his nightmare were complete and a blanket of darkness wrapped Terry as he passed out, but not before he saw the horrific face inches from his own.