I jerked awake, gasping for air. I had fallen asleep on the couch watching the television again. I lifted my head off of my hand and looked around, out of an odd kind of paranoia. It felt strange. It felt like someone was watching. Looking to my right, I grabbed my phone off the end table. I opened it, and the time was apparently 12:24 at night.

You should probably crawl in bed like a normal person.

The more I thought about it, the more awake I became. Therefore, I didn't go to bed. Instead, I grabbed the remote for the TV and began to scroll through which show I wanted to fall asleep to. I sighed as I began to feel a little off, physically. A sourish feeling engulfed my stomach, as if I had just spun in a circle for thirty minutes. I told myself I was just hungry, though I felt full.

You haven't eaten since dinner around seven though.

I caught myself spacing out, staring at the TV screen. It was the news.

"The brutal murder of the Goulhand family has sadly been dropped. As some of you may know, this horrific scene happened only a year ago, and the scene was fled without a shred of evidence. Homicides committed in similar fashions have continued to occur all throughout the state of Oklahoma, with its signature pictographs, writings, and drawings carved into the walls of the scenes— in blood."

A shiver shot down my spine as the info was barreled at me. I shook my head, rubbed my eyes, and stood up yawning to myself,

"What are you freaking out about? You're just delirious from being tired,"

I stretched, reaching my hands behind my lower back to crack my spine. After I straightened out, my upper back felt bloated, to say the least. It felt like I hadn't moved in hours.

You're just tired.

I turned off the TV, and walked into the dark hallway behind the couch. Just as my hand almost touched the doorknob to my bedroom, my mouth became dry and my tongue swelled. It was as if I hadn't drank water in weeks. I quickly felt as if I were going to faint. I staggered to the kitchen to quench the sudden wave of thirst that took over my body. My brain could do nothing but think grab the cup, turn on the sink, fill it, and drink. Afterward, I breathed in, reversing the oxygen deprivation. After ten seconds of holding my breath, it left me feeling dizzy. I grabbed onto the counter, reorienting myself with what I was doing.

Are you okay?

Something told me that I shouldn't feel like this. I just guzzled about two and a half cups of water, yet I still felt empty.

Perhaps side effects of the medicine.

I knew it wasn't right. I had felt sickly dehydrated, faint, cramped, paranoid, and noticed back pain in the span of five minutes.

It's just your muscles aching from yesterday.

I just shrugged it all off. Now I just had to get to bed. Retracing my steps, I laid my hand on the doorknob to my bedroom. The door creaked open just as something warm prodded my foot. I looked down, and through the darkness, I could barely tell that something had dropped onto and absorbed into my sock. Annoyed and wanting to sleep, I stomped to the bathroom and flicked on the light. I propped my right foot on the toilet lid and looked at my sock, confused.

Nothing was there.

Go to bed.

I sheepishly smiled, wondering why my brain was making me hallucinate such a random scenario. I began to chuckle as I put my foot back onto the tile and looked back up at the mirror. My chuckle became a shriek as I stepped back in an attempt to run away.

What in the hell?

I grabbed the side of the sink as I leaned into the mirror to see a black line of sludge that streaked down to my chin from my eye. In a nervous fury, I rubbed it off. It only rolled back down like a tear made of venom.

Art By: SquishyDottedWhale

This has to be a dream.

After I blinked, the eye that the goop came from became black, making it feel puffy as if I were sobbing. It looked from the outside like I was one of those innocent people in movies that got possessed by demon from hell.

This isn't a dream.

I did nothing but stare at my reflection. I didn't know what to do. My mind was zooming through thoughts that came and went. I watched in terror as a hollow, white oval slowly faded into view to replace my normal brown iris, leaving my pupil as black as what should've been the white. I stood still for a few seconds, and watched as my mouth bent into a smile and cracked into a light chuckle of disbelief. My muscles relaxed as I let go of the sharp edges of the granite sink. A little curious, I noticed my saliva was now black after sticking my tongue out at myself in the mirror. It looked a bit dull in color towards the tip. I thought,

Oh, this is definitely the start of a nightmare.

I walked straight to bed. I didn't even bother to change out of my suit. I slammed my door shut, shutting myself away from whatever other horrors might creep into this lucid vision. I didn't know wether to call it a nightmare or a dream.

It's your worst nightmare, obviously.
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Getting shaken awake is definitely not my favorite way to be woken up. I scrambled awake as reptilian hands let go of my shoulders, whisper-yelling,

"Socks, wake up!"

I mumbled a bit, eventually opening my eyes. I glared at Dino, getting ready to pull the covers over my face. Before I could, he explained,

"Come on, I have to show you something."

I groaned, turning to my left to grab my phone. Feeling that it wasn't there, I mumbled,

"What time is it?"

"If I remember correctly, seven thirty-ish?"

Dragging my blanket over my face out of annoyance, I hissed,

"Give me an hour."

Dino let out a small reptilian growl, but my tired mind didn't care. He snapped, reminding me,

"You still have your spacesuit on from yesterday!"

As quick as it came, I spat out my first thought.

"How do you know that?"

"I saw the orange on your wrists when you lifted the blanket over your head. How else?"

"How did you get in my house? I locked the door last night."

Completely avoiding that question, Dino ordered for me to get up once more. After he stormed out of the room, I sat up. My back still felt sore and swelled. My gut turned as my memory refreshed, and I remembered my 'black eye' from last night. I hastily felt my cheek and looked at my fingers for any of the sticky goop.

Nothing was there.

I walked into the hall, seeing Dino sitting down in the living room, paranoia radiating from every swipe and tap he made on his phone. Once I turned into the bathroom on my right, flicked on the light, and looked into the mirror, I realized everything was normal.

What were you talking about? Of course it was a dream!

Sighing and letting my anxiety leave my body, I walked out into the living room. Hearing my footsteps, Dino immediately popped out of his seat and walked to the door. Surprised, and a bit concerned, I asked,

"Am I able to grab something to eat on the way?"

Dino, with a foot out the door gave me a confused stare before shutting the door behind him. Sighing, I turned on my heel toward the kitchen, only to realize that I was not hungry. I still felt a fullness in my stomach, the same as I felt last night. I felt like I just ate. I'm always hungry for breakfast when I wake up.

You ate last night. If you're not hungry, it's okay.

Getting anxious, I gingerly opened the door, meeting Dino outside. Like an army commander, he waved his hand to follow. He began running into the forest. Concerned now, I followed.

After a guesstimated five minutes, Dino pointed at a ball of crumpled up paper. It didn't look like anything special. It was stained tan like a muffin, and had splotches of black littered between its ruffles. I glanced at Dino, who stared back in a begging sort of desperation. Swallowing a ball of mess and stress, the reptile ordered,

"Grab it and follow me."

I did as told. I wasn't one to argue. Dino continued, now going at the pace of a speed-walk. The slowed pace gave me time to observe whatever it was. I disentangled the wrapper, and it turned out it be just a tad bigger than any ordinary cupcake or muffin wrapper. It still had crumbs sticking to the bottom, which fell like rain once I unraveled it. I began to have doubts.

Before I could ask if my thinking process was following the right track, Dino stopped in front of a small, disheveled building. The outside walls were a monotone grayish-blue, powdered with dull, green moss like a tree, with a small security camera aimed toward the direction we came from. A fogged or a cracked window was on either side of the heavy metal door in the center, though all three looked as if they were barely sandwiched between the concrete, ready to collapse in on itself. The walls were cracked and molded, and they were seemingly being held together by vibrant, green vines, which took the appearance of strong roots.

Hesitant to walk in, I watched as Dino opened the door and invited me inside. I felt my legs start to quiver as I stepped forward, whilst my eyes darted to the small, white security camera that now held its gaze directly at my forehead. I uncomfortably waved to it, crushing the muffin wrapper in my right hand, unknowing of where the feed may lead to. My timidity being broken by Dino's prodding, I stepped into the shack.

My curiosity overwhelmed me. I had never been inside, nor seen this place before. I asked,

"Since when has this place existed?"

"For a while, actually,"

I silently lipped an oh, a bit wary about Dino's statement. Following the mini-dinosaur, I ducked under a drooping canopy of wires, which revealed a giant monitor. It was split into six sections, three of them being blank. Dino hopped up onto a wooden stool that stood in front of the televised views, which had coffee stains that inevitably dribbled down to the underside. He stared at the screen, his panic-stricken eyes darting to wherever something moved. I observed the camera outputs.

The first was the top left, outside Meme's med-bay. The bright beige of the sand burned my eyes a bit, only because it contrasted with the darkness of the space so much. The camera must've been mounted on the one tree there, aimed down. The section to the rectangle's right was outside the group base, technically at its front door. I hadn't been there in a while, actually. Lastly, the screen below the first had a view of the forest itself. Nothing special.

On the other three screens, a deep purple hue enveloped the views. In the center of each, they read in white text:

[CAMERA 3: NO INPUT]
[CAMERA 5: NO INPUT]
[CAMERA 6: NO INPUT]

Looking back at Dino, confused, he then grabbed the mouse and clicked the bottom left screen, which I assumed was camera four. It enlarged, pushing all of the other cameras off-screen. After clicking a few buttons, the screen faded into black. The timestamp at the bottom of the footage read as one-twenty-eight in the morning. Before pressing play, Dino turned up the volume of the speakers imbedded in the computer.

The footage began to play. A small shadow with glowing yellow, rectangular eyes ran into the sight of the security camera, its panting audible. I began to feel queasy in the stomach as my instinct told me something wasn't right. The yellow rectangles quickly darted towards approaching red slits. The shadows were hard to make out because of the video quality. The yellow began to turn away, but halted as the figure with red slits grabbed it. As fast as a preying mantis, the yellow was jerked backward, and the golden hue faded. The red slits halved, showing the figure had smiled. Before walking away, it noticed the camera, and spun it all the way around somehow, leaving a black triangle in the corner of it that slowly began to drip.

(Original)

(Redraw)

The footage then stopped. That was it. I was terrified. I looked at the wrapper in my hands as I managed to mumble,

"Muffin's dead?"

Dino stayed silent, letting me process. After I looked back up at him, he gently asked,

"Do you have any ideas on what that might've been?"

Uneasily looking back at the screen, he continued,

"I've been stumped all morning."

Swallowing, which reminded me that my saliva tasted slightly like coins, I reasoned,

"No animal has glowing red eyes like that, at least that we'd know of."

Dino looked back at me, afraid of the situation. He wasn't sure how to handle it, and I knew that for a fact without even needing to ask.

"I just don't get it! What could even find Muffin, or want to in the first place? He lives beneath some random tree's roots!"

"Me."

I perked up, startled by a voice that seemed to speak from right behind me. My body shivered in a kind of terror that I only felt in nightmares. I rubbed my mouth and nose as they continued to feel tingly afterward. Dino didn't seem to notice the voice. He asked,

"What?"

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

I looked behind me, and I was only face-to-face with a gray, cracked wall. I turned back to Dino, slightly embarrassed that my brain had tricked me.

"I thought I heard someone, sorry."

"Yeah, I locked the door after we-"

Dino froze mid sentence. He was stared at me in a confused sort of shock. His eyes darted between my mouth and my eyes.

My eye is black isn't it.

"Did you ever end up grabbing something to eat?"

Concerned, I shakily replied,

"No, I wasn't as hungry as I thought."

Dino nearly interrupted me as he blurted,

"You're joking."

"Why are you so skittish right now?"

"What is on your cheek."

I rubbed the corners of my mouth with my fist, confused but willing to calm down Dino, or see what he was so concerned about. Pulling my hand away, it was clear that something had rubbed off. I licked my lips, tasting a certain sweetness that I recognized. My eyes widened as I shoved my hand into the light of the monitor, confirming that it was, in fact, a brown syrup mixed with brown sugar.

I felt myself begin to tremble as the realization set in. I looked back at Dino, who was now getting off his seat and beginning to slink behind the vines of wires. I opened my mouth to attempt to explain something that needed no more further explanation. Dino firmly asked,

"Did you eat Muffin, Socks?"

I didn't know what to say except,

"You really think I would.. kill someone?"

Dino began to stomp away in a multi-emotioned frenzy. I ran after him in a panic.
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