BITE ME

CHAPTER FOUR: Be Careful What You Wish For

CHAPTER FOUR: Be Careful What You Wish For

Dreams usually didn’t scare her. But as she stood facing a very familiar statue, shivers running down her spine, she swore she could almost hear her whispers.

“Be careful what you wish for.” The voice wasn’t coming out of her. It wasn’t whispered by someone in front of her.

She took a small step back and waited.

There it was again. “Be careful what you wish for.” The voice had been closer to her—clearer—and she knew just then not to wait for her instincts to kick in.

She ran.

Dashing past twigs and leaves underfoot, she flinched as the ghostly mist of the forest chased after her. Everywhere she looked, the silhouettes and shadows of the dense canopy above only added to the fear she felt as she continued running away.

She wasn’t even sure what she was running away from but she continued, her breath ragged as she stumbled and tripped over roots.

“Be careful what you wish for.”

“GO AWAY!” A hand appeared out of nowhere and before she even realized it, she was already falling. What caught her though wasn’t the ground.

It was water.

She was drowning. And as she looked up, pure, immobilizing fear swarming in her eyes, she realized where she was.

The fountain. She was back at the fountain, the ghostly statue of the mermaid looking down at her with blank eyes as she scrambled for breath.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to live. But as the sound of the forest slowly disappeared, replaced by deafening silence, all she could muster was a small cry. A cry for help.

“Be careful what you wish for.”

Bree woke up with a start and she sat up, her head spinning as she tried to catch her breath. She was covered in sweat, but her heart wasn’t beating fast. In fact, it didn’t seem like it was beating at all.

“No,” she whispered and scrambled out of her bed, clumsily staggering her way into the one shared bathroom they had on the second floor. Almost too quickly, she could feel the rest of the house waking up with every heavy step she took.

“Mason? Is that you?” She heard Avery call out from inside her room and as expected, light poured out from her door which was only shut halfway through.

Bree ignored her call and rushed straight into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She looked at herself in the mirror, horror painting her face as she saw how pale she looked even with the warm lights overhead.

She thought it had been a one-time thing: a five-minute hysteria episode that had eventually led her to question her sanity.

The next morning after her quick brush with a weird man and his equally weird fountain, she woke up covered in sweat, her memory sluggishly playing a few snippets of her dream that night. At that time, she couldn’t remember anything. But when she saw the dream again, she was sure this time ...

It had been the same dream.

And now, it was like that morning all over again.

She turned the faucet on and cupped her hands, ignoring the sharp sting of the cold water against her skin. “It’s all gonna go away,” she said to herself and started washing her face, rubbing at it almost harshly as if doing so would wash the unusual paleness off of her skin.

News flash, it didn’t.

She cupped her hands again and this time, tried washing her face with soap. A knock on the door startled her for a split second but she continued, ignoring it.

“Aubrey, is that you?” It was Mason’s voice this time.

She ignored him and stared at herself in the mirror. Still pale as a f*cking ghost.

“Hey, kid, is that you?” he asked again and turned the knob, slowly pushing the door open. “I’m coming in.”

“Go away.” Her voice came out as a hoarse whisper. She turned the faucet off and grabbed a towel, looking away from her reflection.

“Bree, are you okay?” Mason didn’t sound like his normal self. Usually, by now, he’d be throwing lines and lines of insults at her, laughing at her face as she glowers at him in contempt. But at that moment, he had a particular softness in his voice, concern clouding his eyes as he took several steps closer to her.

But she flinched. So, he stopped.

“What’s going on with you lately?”

Bree turned away from him and bit her lip, feeling something sharp pierce right through as she clenched her jaw hard. She felt the same unusual sensation she felt the first time that it happened. Glancing at her reflection in the mirror, she almost threw up when she realized her lips have already been bleeding.

“Bree—”

“I’m hungry,” was all she could manage to say before turning the lights off and the faucet on. Quickly she washed her face, and along with it, every trace of the blood that had started to drip down her chin.

Mason tried to open the lights but she stopped him, slamming her hand against the sink.

“I’m hungry,” she said again, more intently this time.

“O ... kay?” He furrowed his brows, understandably confused but just brushed it off as her menstrual cycle kicking off with a rough start. “Well, what do you wanna eat?”

“Anything,” she answered. “Meat.”

“Okay. Well, maybe I can cook you up some hotdogs—”

“That’s not meat.”

“You know Avery’s gonna kill me if I touch the chicken wings. She’s probably gonna toss me out of the house if I do even so much as breathe close to it.”

“Well, can’t you ask her?”

“And risk eating asparagus for dinner? No!”

Bree still wouldn’t turn to face him. But when she had been silent for what felt like five minutes, Mason finally gave in and broke the silence with a sigh.

“Okay, fine. I’ll just buy her new chicken, then. Wait in your room.”

“Well, can’t I eat—”

“In the bathroom? No! Go to your room and stop being weird. You’re scaring me.”

✧ ✧ ✧

You’d think that eating an entire platter of chicken wings for breakfast should’ve been the most satisfying thing on the planet. But no. She was once again sitting on the floor, a huge plate on her lap as she chewed on her last piece of chicken.

Her fangs were gone now, but her eyes were still darker than usual. She wasn’t as hungry, but she wasn’t full either.

In fact, she felt empty. Like knowing you want something but not knowing what it was. She wanted to slam her head against the floor but obviously, that’d be very stupid. The sight of blood would only make it worse. And speaking of ... why the hell had she been acting like this? Like some kind of ... monster?

What had been her wish exactly if her dreams had been warning her about it?

“Wanting a better life? To finally finish a book? Getting out of my dull fate? What?” She racked her brain for something—anything—but nothing seems to come. She remembered wishing for something but she had forgotten what exactly it was that she had settled on wishing for.

“Are you talking to yourself?” Her brother’s voice broke her line of thoughts and she instinctively frowned, wiping the hot sauce off the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand. “You know, hearing voices isn’t really a good sign.”

“You’re right. I keep hearing your voice and I really wish I couldn’t.”