Nightmare

Making sure that the door was locked, he braced himself for a lecture, but his mom went straight to her bedroom and shut the door. He headed for his own room. He could hear the rain dripping into the bucket in the bathroom. They had a leaky roof. Leaky pipes. And the furnace needed replacing. He went to his room and tried to video chat with Levi, but his best friend wasn't online. Levi's parent-teacher conference had probably gone a lot better than his own, even if you counted Levi's AHCD. He wasn't blowing off his classes and getting D pluses on assignments.

He texted Miley but she didn't reply. For all he knew, her parents must've confiscated her phone and her dad would be the one to read his message. Better not to push his luck.

Max switched off his mobile. He was so amped up that he'd some chins up; push ups; took his bath; brushed his teeth and climbed to his bed.

"That super-human didn't do jack," he thought. "And Miley Evelyn wants to sleep with me."

Smiling faintly, he bunched his pillow under his head and turn over on his side. . .

. .. rolling onto the cold ground of irregular shapes. He was shirtless wearing only his jeans. Max lifted his head and sniffed the air. Smoke.

Fire!

He bolted upright, his bare feet rummaged the rough ground as he scrabbled to his feet. He sniffed again, trying to figure out were the fire was. There were so much smoke. Dread panic threatened to overtake his human mind. But he kept it together, getting his bearings. An enormous building that looks like a cave filled with fog also with wooden structures. He had awakened here before— the very first time he had gone sleep walking, at least that's what he thought.

After the bite.

Ash floated down; the smoke was getting thicker, and max heard the cracking of burning wood. He heard a strange whoosh and looked up. The tops of the towering wood had burst into flames that rocketed towards a hole, the only hole which he could see through. The moon.

The huge, full, bloodred moon.

"Blood moon," he thought. "That can't be right."

Coughing, Max jogged forward as the towering woods above him caught fire, as if they were chasing him. Closing in. Suddenly, as his pace increased, he found himself outside the caved hall or room, now into the forest for the first time.

A growl ripped from his chest and his eyesight shifted, everything going as red as fire. He saw things moving, transforming. Animals fleeing the flames. Heat prickled his naked shoulders and backs of his legs. Embers floated down and one landed on his chest. As he brushed it away, he lost footing on the damp leaves and fell hard onto his back. His breath was knocked out of h

him, and his thoughts shot to his inhaler. He didn't have it with him. Smoke was pouring over him like someone throwing a blanket over his face. He couldn't breathe; he was out of air, and be was a severe asthmatic.

"I'm going to die!" he thought. Had been an asthmatic, he reminded himself. Past tense.

Before the bite. Becoming a Vampire had cured him of his lifelong asthma.

An enormous, fiery limb broke from a tree above him and plummeted downwards like a bomb. He rolled to his side and leaped to his feet. Another branch crashed to his right, sending up sparks.

He was driven forward, coughing hard, his eyes watering. Then, just like the night he had been bitten, a herd of rat burst out of nowhere, leaping in a distressed stampede around him, at him, over him. As before, one squarmed under his foot and he lost balance and rolled end over end over end down the hill. Balls of flame careened down the incline at him, as if someone had torched a dozen of tumbleweeds and aimed at them.

Then he hit a tree trunk and pushed up against it. Reaching for a limb, he hoisted himself up, then raised his legs as the balls of fiery brush slammed into the trunk, mere inches beneath him. Sparks skittered upward. His stomach muscles ached, but he held the position. Then the treetop exploded into flame. The heat singed his hair, crackled in his ears.

He dropped down, stamping out the tinderbox of leaves under his bare feet. His soles blistered and stung.

He began to walk up the hill. Dead ahead, two red eyes glowed like hellfire itself. Surrounded by darkness, they bored right into his. He could feel the pull of that gaze. Sense the power, and the rage behind it.

"Come to me," the voice said inside Max's mind. Commanding and insistent. He didn't want to obey but he saw himself moving forward like a sleepwalker.

"Come with me," the voice ordered him.

A tree crash right Infront of Max, sending up huge clods of dirts and a shower of burning leaves that barely missed him. Then a wall of fire rose up, creating an inferno between him and those eyes. And still Max climbed towards them, unable to stop himself, heading for a certain death. Into hell itself.

And then the voice said:

"Kill with me."

.. .