Curse of the Nephalem

I was a creature of the doorway, all sharp angles and held breath. The shadows didn’t just swallow me. They clung like a second skin, muffling my sobs and turning my blood to ice. I was seven years old, learning the taste of my own heart in my throat.

The air smelled wrong. Coppery blood and something colder, metallic, like lightning after a storm. Under the snarling voices, the refrigerator hummed its stupid, cheerful song. A sound I would hate for the rest of my life.

My parents knelt in the center of the floor, pinned by two men.

Men who weren’t men at all.

Their skin had the gray, knotted texture of old bark. When they shifted, I heard the dry scrape of wood on bone. They held my parents down with limbs that ended in splintered, twig-thin fingers.

“The hybrid.” A third man’s voice slid through the room like a blade. He was lean and sharp, his smile more cut than comfort. “Where is the little abomination?”

He circled them like a vulture.

“The prophecy demands its end,” he said softly, as if he were offering kindness. “Tell me, and your deaths will be clean. Defy me, and I’ll peel your angelic grace from your bones and feed your demon heart to the hounds.”

My father spat blood and fury. “Go to Hell!”

His eyes, usually a warm brown, flared with faint orange light. The bark-skinned brute holding him grunted as the heat singed his knotted flesh.

“We’ll never give you our child.”

He’d always been kind. Patient. The man who fixed scraped knees and kissed the top of my head like the world wasn’t cruel. But now his voice was steel. For one foolish second, hope pierced my terror.

Then the lean man laughed.

My knees trembled with the urge to run to him, to throw myself between them and beg them to take me instead. But my mother found me first. Her eyes locked on mine. She gave the smallest shake of her head and mouthed one word.

RUN.

The blade descended.

A wet, final sound.

The world didn’t fade. It shattered. My mother’s eyes. Wide. Fixed on me. Then light exploded into shards and the screaming cut off mid-breath, swallowed by a static roar that ripped me out of my own body.

“Falencia, babygirl. It’s okay. You’re safe. Come back.”

I gasped, lungs dragging air like I’d been underwater. My room swam into focus. The dim glow of my alarm clock. The cool wood floor pressed to my cheek. My tongue felt thick, coated in the phantom taste of ash and blood.

My palms ached. I uncurled my fingers, half-expecting splinters from the doorframe.

Nothing.

Just the frantic tremor of my own body.

I turned my head to find Berik, her dark eyes full of worry.

“You were crawling out your window when I found you,” she murmured. “I barely got you to the floor in time.”

The window?

I didn’t remember. I couldn’t remember anything beyond the weight of terror and the impression of a doorframe against my palms.

A bitter groan escaped me as I raked shaky fingers through my hair. “I wish these episodes would stop. It feels like they’re eating me alive.”

“They’ve been happening more often.” Berik’s voice carried a weight I didn’t want to name. “Do you know why, sweetheart?”

I bit my lip hard, forcing back the burn behind my eyes. I hated when she looked at me like that. Like I was still the broken child she’d taken in. “No. Nothing comes to mind.”

The door creaked, spilling a thin wedge of hallway light into the room. Freyja leaned against the frame, fiery hair mussed with sleep, green eyes wide with worry.

“Another nightmare?”

“Yeah.” My voice was thin, frayed at the edges.

Freyja crossed the room and perched on the edge of my bed, patting the space beside her. “They’re worse lately. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I don’t know.” Frustration prickled beneath my skin. “I wish I understood why they won’t stop.”

Berik brushed a strand of hair from my face. “Do you want me to call your therapist tomorrow? Maybe she could help.”

A sharp laugh slipped out, too bitter to be kind. “No offense, but she’s useless. She acts like my nightmares are just feelings wearing costumes. Like she has no idea what they actually mean.”

Freyja reached for my hand, squeezing gently. “Then we’ll figure it out together. You’re not alone.”

Silence settled over us, heavy but almost sacred.

Then Berik stood. “I’ll make hot chocolate. Salted caramel?”

Freyja and I answered in unison, a fragile smile tugging at my mouth. “Salted caramel.”

She left, and the soft clink of mugs drifted in from the kitchen.

Freyja stayed close, her warmth steady beside me. “You know… the anniversary’s tomorrow. Their deaths. And your birthday. Maybe that’s why the dreams are clawing their way back.”

The words landed slow and deep. I hadn’t realized the date had crept so close.

“I hate that you share your birthday with something so cruel,” Freyja whispered. “You deserve better.”

I closed my eyes and let the sentence sit on my chest like a promise I wasn’t sure I believed yet. “Maybe someday I will.”