Emily wakes to the sound of a bottle tapping against metal, ringing in her head and joining the ghosts of her own voice singing a haunting lullaby.

  She winces as she sits up, clasping her hands to her head and taking a calming breath to think through the mind-numbing cacophony of numbers filling her every thought. She focuses on the faint tapping somewhere outside, willing the incessant counting into the background and feeling her thoughts take on a calculating coldness.

  “This… isn’t real?” Emily says, noticing how her voice is lighter, younger, than several of those in her head.

  She reaches up and runs her fingers through the coarse fabric of her tattered blanket, but despite the doubt creeping in, it feels solid beneath her grasp.

  Frowning, Emily pushes herself up and makes for the room’s entrance, driving her weight into the sheet metal door and knocking it down. She feels a bruise forming on her shoulder, but when her right hand raises to grasp it, a vague sense of wrongness fills her gut.

  She digs her fingers into the bruise and holds her left hand out to glare at it, feeling the pain in her head getting worse and worse, as she tries to remember what’s wrong with it.

  The pain spikes – her eyes bleed – and what shouldn’t be suddenly isn’t.

  Emily blinks away the red tears pooling in her eyes in a moment of clarity, the pain clouding her thoughts receding for a fleeting glimpse of respite, and stares at the bleeding stump her fingers are clasped around.

  Then, the pain is back, and she’s nail deep in her bicep, watching rivulets of crimson lies flow down to her false fingers.

  A snarling growl draws her attention away from the phantom limb, and Emily looks up with surprise to find herself standing in the corner of her home, staring down a shadow-clad monster as its friends feast on her parents. She sees a glimpse of scattered hazel locks on the floor behind the beast, but she doesn’t get a clear look as the monster quickly forces her to pay attention, leaping for her throat.

  She rips her fingers free of her flesh and throws her arms up, falling into a stable stance without a thought and bracing as the creature slams into her. Its teeth sink into her left forearm, grinding against the bone but not breaking it immediately.

  Emily screams in anger and pain, slamming her free hand into the monster’s head, aiming for its glowing red eyes. Unfortunately, her small, child-like hand barely causes the beast to flinch, and it simply tightens its grip before driving its front paws into her chest and pulling back.

  A strained howl tears its way from Emily’s throat as her arm gives a loud snap before being torn in two. The monster grins fiercely while devouring the severed limb, but Emily’s thoughts are too filled with pain and rage to care or question the taunt.

  She glances at the jagged white shard of bone jutting from the mangled, bleeding mess at the end of her arm before locking her eyes onto the beast’s throat and lashing out. She drives the makeshift weapon in and rips it down, scattering a flood of blackened tar onto the sheets below her.

  The beast drops with a thud.

  One.

  Emily pants, trying to catch her breath as her heart thunders in her ears, blocking out the sickening sound of chewing that fills the room. She looks up and watches as the darkness looming in the corners of the space shifts, pooling before her and forming into another foe.

  She throws herself at the terror before it can become complete, sinking her bone into it and receiving several deep gouges along her side in return as it thrashes its half-formed limbs.

  Two.

  Howls surround her, and her vision flickers as her lifeforce slowly pools on the ground at her feet.

  …

  Emily leaps from the tangled mess of rags she once called a bed, scanning the room for danger.

  Her heart slowly calms when she finds nothing, and she presses her cold metal palm to her brow for relief from her splitting headache.

  Metal?

  In a moment of confusion, she pulls back and stares at the dull silver hand before her, a perfect mirror of the right but with a metallic sheen in place of skin. Pulling up her tattered sleeve, she sees the jagged divide between metal and flesh a third of the way down her bicep, and the rightness of its presence finally clicks into place in her mind.

  “That’s better,” she mutters, flexing the chrome digits and turning her attention to the odd dreamscape around her. “Why am I here?”

  Her gaze roams the confined walls of the small hut built from worn wooden planks and old rusted nails. She reflexively goes to call it home, but the word tastes sour on her tongue, so she stops herself.

  “And where is here?”

  Emily walks to the entrance and easily slides aside the sheet metal blocking it before stepping out onto the street. Donny immediately catches her eye, but the voices bouncing around in the back of her head scream out with displeasure, causing a sickening nausea to bubble up in her gut.

  She clutches her brow and breathes, focusing on the chill of the cold night air and her metallic fingers.

  “He’s... Dead.”

  The pain recedes, but the nausea remains.

  Emily slides her metal palm down her face before letting it drop to her side as she focuses on the ghost sitting before her. Now that she really looks at him, she notices the odd way his old, torn clothes appear clear of fresh dirt or stains, and how his gaze seems to skip past her without any signs of recognition.

  She approaches him and reaches out, waving a hand in front of his face, but he doesn’t even flinch. With a light tap, she knocks him off balance, sending him down onto his side with a thump.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  He still doesn’t react, simply bringing his bottle to his lips without even attempting to sit up, like a broken robot stuck on one instruction.

  “This isn’t real, but what is it? A memory?”

  A jolt runs down her spine in time with her words, as if answering her question, so Emily rises and looks away from the unresponsive phantom, searching for any other signs that could explain her predicament. She looks up and down the street, spotting Eimdon’s wall looming at one end and picking the opposite direction, walking away from where she awoke.

  Repetitive rows of dilapidated dwellings roll by, and after several minutes, Emily frowns at the lack of variety, passing tens of nearly identical, faceless figures. Their blurred features inspire a sense of revulsion, and the seemingly endless street causes panic to build unbidden in the back of her throat.

  Glancing back, Emily sees the hut she left only a few buildings away despite having walked for several minutes, so she gives up and focuses on her breathing again, forcing her tumultuous emotions back under her control.

  Howling echoes down the street, and the hairs on her neck rise.

  Emily stands her ground, planting her feet in the centre of the street and falling into a combative stance, waiting to see the faces of her tormenters.

  Screams join the monstrous chorus and close in, but as Emily checks up and down the street, she can’t even catch a glimpse of her foes, only seeing shadows flit in the corners of her eyes before the slumped figures inhabiting the street are snatched away from view.

  The sounds of death and conflict close in, but nothing leaps out at her until it does.

  One moment, she’s on the street staring down at Donny’s ghost and waiting for him to vanish, and in the next, she’s standing in the corner of her once-home looking at two dark, furred beasts feasting on a pair of obscured corpses.

  Emily doesn’t move immediately, taking a moment to scan the features of the distracted beasts.

  They’re nearly the length of a grown man, with thick, wiry tails and thin, coarse fur woven from pure shadows. Their bodies are thin but packed with muscle, and the snarling maws tearing into their victims are canid in form.

  The choral count driving a spike through her head peaks, humming like infernal white noise, and a spark of recognition strikes.

  “Sand stalkers,” she mutters, watching the shadows fall away in an instant to reveal the sand-toned coats of the common desert beasts.

  Both feasting sand stalkers’ heads snap up towards the sound, and their amber eyes meet Emily’s, snarling with hunger. They spring towards her in sync, and Emily meets them without hesitation, stepping to the side a moment before they can tear through her throat and thigh and catching the more ambitious beast by the jaw.

  Her metal fingers clamp shut around the stalker’s teeth, so Emily drops to the floor and pulls with all her might. Her heels dig in, and the beast flips as its mouth tears open, spraying blood and letting out a gargled whine.

  She loses her grip as the jaw breaks, and the second stalker stops and turns back before she can recover, lashing out and taking a chunk from her right shoulder. She winces and drives an elbow into the beast’s neck before turning to deliver a twisting kick to the side of its head.

  The blow sends the beast reeling, but its friend swipes at Emily before she can follow up, forcing her to turn and drive her metal fist into the top of its head, driving its broken jaw into the ground. She stomps on the beast’s head while it's down, finishing the job for good before looking to the other as it stands with a stagger.

  The stalker tries to leap towards her with its mouth open wide, but its aim goes wide, and she doesn’t need to move aside before slamming her unnaturally strong metal hand down on its skull.

  With the stalkers dealt with, Emily catches her breath and puts pressure on the gaping gash pouring blood down her back as she turns to look at the nearby corpses. Neither of their heads is turned towards her, but the matted hazel hair they share sparks a sense of familiarity. She slowly steps closer, a nagging feeling already telling her who they are, though the words elude her, dancing on the edge of her awareness.

  With a gentle, bloodstained hand, Emily reaches out and turns the dead woman’s head towards her.

  The vibrant blue eyes that gaze back at her, far too bright for the gaunt, malnourished face they adorn, draw an instinctive sob from her chest as realisation floods her and another count joins the chorus.

  One. I’m stuck in the memory of the night my parents died. Two.

  A third stalker growls behind her, but Emily ignores it, reaching out to turn her father’s head to face her instead and staring into his blazing emerald orbs.

  How do – Three – I get out?

  …

  Emily wakes to an urgent sense of purpose and immediately slams her metal palm to her forehead, momentarily clearing the cacophony that hits with her waking, allowing her to focus on the newest voice to join the song.

  One. I’m stuck in the. Two. Memory night died. Three. Get out. Four. Five. Six…

  The voice devolves into a standard count like all the others, but the unique message sticks in her mind.

  “Stuck in the memory of the night someone died… get out,” she mutters, rolling the words around on her tongue and trying to parse the meaning.

  She looks around the small hut she once called home, drumming her metal fingers against her chin, but the moment the question of where her parents are rises unbidden, she realises the answer.

  “It’s the night my parents died!”

  As if on cue, she hears a series of distant howls signalling the start of the night’s slaughter.

  “How does knowing help me? How do I get out? There must be a reason I sent myself that message… when did I send it?”

  Rapid footfall approaches the hut, but Emily doesn’t pay it any attention as she stands up and begins pacing. She presses her hands to the sides of her head and listens to the chorus of counting voices bouncing around in the back of it, trying to work out why they feel familiar.

  “It’s… repeating? I start counting when I hide from the sand stalkers, so if I can hear it already… it’s happened before. Do I try confronting the stalkers?” The moment she asks herself the question, she gets a sense of déjà vu and a sinking feeling forms in her gut. “My parents?”

  A thud against the sheet metal blocking the entrance draws her attention, and Emily watches silently as it's shoved aside and two dark figures slip in.

  They don’t notice her looming in the corner as they fall into a mumbled conversation, giving her a moment to take in their features. At first, they appear slightly blurry, like she’s looking at them through a dirtied window, but the longer she stares, the clearer they grow until her eyes trace the lines of age and stress creasing their brows, memorising every last detail like it’s the first time she’s seen them.

  “Mum? Dad?” Emily calls out softly, barely noticing the minute shift in her voice and perspective as the ghosts turn to face her and she grows to match their height.

  They meet her gaze but look through her, and she sees the innocent child she used to be reflected back in their eyes.

  “Don’t come out,” her mother hisses, stepping forward as her father turns his attention back to the door. “Don’t even make a sound.”

  Emily walks forward to meet the woman halfway, ignoring the mounting desire to turn around and forget, to dive back into the bedsheets in the corner and become the scared child once more.

  “What are you doing? Help me!” her father barks, as Emily gently wraps her arms around the ice-cold body of her mother.

  “It’s too late. They can smell us in here!” the corpse in her arms says, not even acknowledging the contact.

  “I’m sorry,” Emily whispers, feeling tears flowing down her cheeks as she holds her mother close, pushing the woman’s face into her shoulder with a hand on the back of her head and muffling her final words.

  “Emily, darling-”

  “Goodbye.”

  The blade in her left palm rockets out, piercing through the back of the ghost’s skull and silencing her in an instant. Emily retracts the blade and catches her mother’s weight as she slumps lifelessly in her arms, before gently lowering her to the ground. She lays her out and shuts her eyes before turning to her father, walking over and ending his final struggle with a single quick stab before setting him down next to his wife.

  Emily leaves the door untouched as she stands over the two corpses, searing their pale, peaceful, slumbering faces into her mind, unable to divide the pain splitting her head from the numb sense of loss draining all warmth from her chest. She never hears the stalkers enter, but she feels the moment a jaw closes around her neck, and all sensations cease.

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