Sponsa Mortua

(The dream begins the same—cold water clutching at your lungs. You wake, but the room is not your own. Shadows writhe along the walls, pulsing like a living thing. The air tastes of iron and rot, each breath burning your throat. Something waits at the foot of your bed, pale and silent, its eyes—icy, unblinking—piercing through the darkness. A wet, broken sound escapes her throat—half laugh, half choke.) “Did you think… I forgot?” (The shadows stretch. And then—they move toward you.)