Azalea Rose Jackson:

It felt as though every inch of my body was pinned with lead to the wooden floor beneath me. Arms throbbing, legs immovable, I struggled against the invisible weights that lay crushing my frame.

Fear barking through my brain, my eyes finally opened underneath rays of pale brightness cast from the ceiling by ashen, rectangular lights. A scarcity of metallic desks littered the front of the room in which I now found myself, stationed directly ahead of a thick chalkboard powdered with brushstrokes of frosty white.

"Very good."

My heart jumped the moment I heard his voice, that dragging rasp that scraped from between his lips. Twisting my head slowly to the left, I stared across the stretch of carpetless hardwood, eyes landing on a single figure in a blanched, streaming robe as he held the body of a smartphone to his ear.

"Who was that?" I asked, my voice tired but mocking. "Your lace-faced girlfriend?"

"Why, yes," he said. "Yes, it was. She informed me that your little friends are headed our way."

"You'll never get away with this, you creep!" I spat, throat burning as I screamed.

He started cackling. "Your ignorance is laughable. Those imbeciles are playing into my hands." He began to pace back and forth. "I have been watching you, my dear, slowly and carefully. It has taken years, decades even, to bring my plan to fruition. But the hour has finally come. In just seventeen minutes, Azalea Rose, you will know all the pain I have felt."

Seventeen minutes? I looked at a clock hanging above the chalkboard at the front of the room. It's 12:09 now. What's so special about 12:26?

I heard footsteps outside, then White Robe moved closer to me and drew a long syringe tipped with silver.

"Do you hear that?" he whispered. "That is the sound of fools running to their demise." He grabbed my arm and stabbed the needle into it. "Come now. We mustn't keep them waiting."

The room began to spin, a whirlpool of light and shadow twisting over my body, pulsing through my brain. The lead pressing my arms and legs to the ground seemed at once to double its own weight. The last thing I registered before passing out was that long white robe as it flowed deftly out of sight, leaving me at the mercy of the bleak darkness.

****

I blinked my eyes twice, turned my head frantically left and right—heard the sound of trees rustling nearby, of birds chirping sweetly.

"Azalea," came a deep, resonating voice. "Azalea..."

I glanced earnestly behind me, desperate for the source of the sensual melody that called my name.

"Hunter!" I breathed, letting out a sigh of relief. "Hunter, where have you been!?"

I ran forward into his arms, breathed in his fresh and luscious aroma, felt life surge through my body.

"Azalea," he cooed. "Gosh, you're beautiful."

"You're so sweet," I gushed, resting my head against him.

"You have the prettiest, brightest, most golden eyes I've ever seen," Hunter whispered, that beautiful voice flowing like the waves of his sea-brushed eyes—deep as the waters, soft as the sky. "You're perfect. I'm so glad you're mine." He embraced me tighter, hands wrapping smoothly around my lower back as I let his warmth wash over me.

"I love you," I whispered. "I love you."

As soon as I spoke, his body grew limp, his muscled arms flaccid.

"Hunter?" I asked, hesitating. "Hunter, what's wrong?" I lifted my head, glanced up into his eyes—but the face staring back at me was not Hunter's.

"Dale!?" I screamed. "But, but you were just..."

"Your beauty," he purred. "It is as if all the majesty of the great oceans were swept together and locked within your soul, sweet Azalea Rose."

"Let me go!" I screamed, ripping his arms from around my waist and turning to run.

"Sweet darling, don't flee my affection!" he called as I began dashing away.

The moonlit darkness sailed all around me, rippling as my feet propelled me forward on a wave of terror.

"Oh, Azalea," he mused, his voice echoing as though mere inches from my body, slowly devolving from its sweet, sing-song tone into a ragged and scraggly pitch. "Why can't you adore me, as I adore you?"

I looked over my shoulder as I ran onward, fear gripping my heart as I watched Dale's golden-brown face twist and contort into the countenance of a demon. His eyes darkened into pitch-black balls; his teeth lengthened into uneven sabres, dragging the grassy ground; the ends of his cheeks curved into sharp, pointed edges as spiked bones pierced through the flesh; the caramel skin surrounding his lips and nose melted and began to cascade down his throat and chest, revealing beneath a distorted, monstrous conglomeration of meat and bones.

I screamed in horror, his only response a dark and hysterical cackling.

Though he'd been scores of yards behind me, he was on top of me in an instant, grabbing both my arms and hurling me onto my back. He spread my legs apart, then his sabred teeth extended and ripped to pieces the skirt and undergarments that covered my lower body.

I tried to push away, to fight, to run—but I was no match. The strength of his monstrous arms bound my wrists and held me against the unmoving ground, blades of grass jutting upward and pricking me where I lay. I parted my lips to scream, just as a long and jagged protrusion sprouted suddenly from between his legs.

"No!" I screamed. "NO!"

"Azalea," his voice began again as his body drew closer. "Azalea...Azalea..."