章 215: Chapter 215
Spet came every night. No one knew where he came from, but they all knew his name. They learned it in their dreams, and once they learned it, there was no escape.
The first time Eli saw him, he was standing in the corner of his childhood bedroom, the shadows too thick around him to make out his features. Only his painted smile gleamed in the half-light, a twisted grin, too wide, too wrong. His eyes? They were hollow. Dark sockets that seemed to swallow the room's dimness whole. Eli tried to scream, but his mouth wouldn't move. His body was frozen, trapped beneath the suffocating weight of terror.
When he woke up, he felt it—his heart pounding, his skin slick with cold sweat. The sheets tangled around him, but the fear didn't fade. It had followed him into the waking world. That night, as he lay awake staring at the ceiling, he heard the soft rustling of the trees outside, but even the wind seemed too loud, too close.
The next night, Spet returned.
This time, he wasn't just standing there, watching. No, tonight he was moving, shifting through the shadows like a predator, like he knew exactly where Eli was, even if Eli didn't. He was closer now, his bloated, paint-splattered suit making soft squelching sounds as he moved, his shoes tapping out a slow, deliberate rhythm. His laughter—it was a low, throaty noise that rattled Eli's bones. Spet's lips stretched even wider, as though they were cracking, as though his smile had no end.
Eli tried to scream again, but no sound came.
Spet stopped in front of him, leaning down until his face was inches away from Eli's. The smell of rot filled the air—decay and old, unwashed skin. The clown's breath was hot against Eli's face, a putrid stench that almost made him gag.
"You're dreaming, Eli," Spet said, his voice deep and gravelly, the words vibrating through Eli's skull like an ancient song. "But you will die in this dream. And when you die here, you die there, too."
Eli's heart stopped. His mind screamed that it couldn't be real, that this couldn't happen. But deep down, he knew it was true. He had heard the rumors—whispers on the edges of his consciousness, from friends who had laughed too hard, from those who didn't take their nightmares seriously. They had all stopped laughing too soon.
In the days that followed, Eli didn't dare close his eyes. He stayed awake as much as he could, only briefly succumbing to the exhaustion that gnawed at him like an endless hunger. But when sleep came, Spet always came with it, dragging him down into the suffocating dark, his painted smile always wider, his voice always louder.
He wasn't alone, though. Others had seen Spet too. People all over town whispered of him, afraid of what they'd seen, what they'd heard in their own nightmares. No one could stop him. No one had even been able to escape.
One night, Eli met the others. They were gathered at the diner, a group of faces he'd known for years—people who had once been his friends, now just hollow shells of who they used to be. They sat at the corner booth, their eyes vacant, their minds too far gone to recognize anything but the torment of their nightmares. They'd all seen him. They all knew the name. Spet.
"I thought I could fight it," Abby said, her voice breaking, her hands trembling. She couldn't look anyone in the eye. "I thought if I stayed awake long enough, maybe he'd go away."
"But he doesn't," Ben said. His voice was flat, devoid of emotion. "He doesn't leave. He just keeps coming. Every night. Every damn night."
No one spoke for a long time. The silence was thick, suffocating, filled with the unspoken dread that none of them had the courage to voice.
That was the last time Eli saw them. The next morning, he found Abby, Ben, and the others gone—vanished from the town. No one ever spoke of them again.
And then, one night, it happened.
Eli fell asleep. He didn't mean to. He hadn't wanted to, but the exhaustion had overtaken him. And when he woke, he was no longer in his own bed. He was lying on the cold, hard ground, surrounded by fog so thick he couldn't see more than a few inches in front of him. His breath came in short gasps as he scrambled to his feet. The dream had turned real. Spet had dragged him into it, and now he was lost in the dark.
The fog cleared for just a moment, and there, standing in the middle of the mist, was Spet. His face was too close, too wide, his mouth stretched into a grotesque grin that seemed to devour everything around him. His eyes were hollow pits, endless and dark, and the smell of decay clung to the air like a shroud.
"You shouldn't have come here, Eli," Spet said. His voice rasped like old paper tearing. "But you did. And now you'll die here, just like the others."
Eli's stomach twisted. He couldn't move, couldn't run. It was like his body had betrayed him, frozen in place. Spet's laugh echoed in his ears, each chuckle a nail driving deeper into his skull.
"You've seen what happens when I kill," Spet continued, his voice dripping with malicious delight. "And now, it's your turn."
Eli tried to scream, but again, no sound came. He couldn't breathe. His heart hammered in his chest, but it was like there was no air left. Just the suffocating presence of Spet, drawing closer with every second.
The clown reached out with a gloved hand, his fingers long and twisted. His touch was cold, colder than anything Eli had ever felt. He could feel his life draining away, his body weakening, his breath growing shallow.
"You don't get to wake up this time, Eli," Spet murmured, his voice growing louder, booming inside Eli's skull. "This dream ends now."
Eli's chest tightened. His body no longer obeyed him, his limbs numb. He couldn't move, couldn't fight. All he could do was lie there, trapped in the dark, suffocating fog.
And then, Spet was upon him. His fingers closed around Eli's throat, tightening with terrifying strength. Eli's eyes widened in horror as the clown's smile grew even wider, impossibly wide, splitting his face in half. The air around him thickened as his vision began to blur, his thoughts clouding, slipping from his mind like sand through an hourglass.
But even as he felt himself slipping away, a part of him knew. He had heard it in the stories. The ones who died in the dream... they died for real.
Eli gasped for air, his lungs burning, his chest seizing. His vision dimmed, the world around him narrowing until all that remained was Spet's grotesque smile and the feeling of cold fingers tightening around his throat.
And then, with one final, horrific twist, Eli's life was extinguished.
The town never saw him again. The people who had known him didn't remember, not the way they had. No one spoke of Eli or the others anymore. It was as if they had never existed at all.
But every night, when the moon hung low in the sky, Spet's laughter could be heard in the distance, echoing through the empty streets, waiting for the next dreamer.
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