Sweat starts dotting Kam’s armpits. “You’re super strong, so we’ll be fine, right?”

Asa looks at Kam seriously. “In your dreams. This is Ruaidhri’s territory. I’m just a regular ol’ Dream Eater here. He’s probably not happy I’m here.”  

The sky stops bending and warping. The world returns to normal. Kam puts his back to Asa, hoping to cover all sides but then 

Silence. 

The bullets flying are gone. The explosions in the distance dull and dissipate. The light wind only flowing in one direction stills as if waiting on bated breath. All Kam can hear is his own body functioning. His stomach gurgles. His breath is shallow until he notices and breathes deeply. It’s like a waterfall compared to the incomprehensible nothingness of their environment. His heart can’t stop beating so hard. Why won’t it stop beating so hard? It’s like his heart knows that it’s trapped in a cage and the only way out is to bloody its knuckles against the walls.

“Asa, what’s going on?” Kam turns. 

Asa is gone.

Kam’s spine straightens. 

It’s watching.

He knows it is. Nothing gives it away. The world around him gives him no tell, but he knows like how a dog knows just before the mailman rings the doorbell. It is stalking him. Waiting. Kam’s legs tense, ready for flight. The scale of this feeling is beyond the Nightmares Asa saved him from. Nightmares reflect his own emotions. The peril of whatever Ruaidhri is creeps into his consciousness from the outside. 

A kiss of air brushes the hairs on the back of his neck before a searing pain tears across his shoulders instantly followed by a thud. Kam falls prone on the ground, gun under him. His right shoulder burns. He twists his neck. 

Asa is frozen in place. A spider limb extends outwards just as if it struck something. No. Frozen is the wrong word. Asa’s eyes are blinking His face contorts unnaturally as if he’s a film paused at the wrong time. He’s stuck, not just frozen in fear. 

Kam’s eyes follow the extended limb. Just a few meters away is a massive silver and black striped tiger. That’s not quite right, though. It’s not quite a tiger. The shape is correct. Kam’s mind understands that. It screams at him, tiger. It’s a tiger. There’s a fucking tiger. But a tiger can’t explain the creeping sensation forming in his bowels. Not a tiger. The fur undulates and bristles unnaturally as if the fur itself is alive. The stripes are wrong. Something swims along them, parting the flesh like a canoe’s wake in a river. 

Eyes. They are eyes.  They’re moving. Kam follows where all of the eyes are trained. Asa. Even while stuck in place, Asa’s expression shouts “SHOOT OR DIE.”

Kam knows why the deer in the headlights stands still.

The tiger-like thing stands on its feet as Kam stands on his. The two eyes where they should be stare him down. It steps forward, and Kam does the only thing he can do.

He shoots. The recoil surprises him for an instant and he shoots wildly, but the tiger pounces and bounds around every shot as it approaches. Kam steadies. Will shooting it even do anything? Doing nothing will kill Asa. That’s enough to keep Kam going. 

Then, it happens. Kam sees it in slow motion. A single bullet grazes one of the eyes drifting on the Tiger’s sides. It blinks. Then, Kam stops. He can’t pull the trigger. His time has stopped. And the tiger still approaches. Its shoulders are the same height as his head. Kam can’t even swallow his fear as the tiger pounces for the kill. 

Mid-air, something pulls at the tiger. The web is barely perceptible. At the other end, Asa tugs the creature towards him. Asa drags the helpless airborne tiger and slams it down. 

In the space of a breadth, Asa lunges at Kam, grabs him around the waist with his free hand, and commands Kam to hold onto him. He finds he can move again, and wraps his arms around Asa’s chest. 

Asa then dives into the ground, breaking the barrier between dreams much faster than their trip to Jacob’s dream. Behind him, he drags the tiger with them. 

It’s too fast. Kam takes a deep breath before remembering that in this black space, he can’t. He gags before his eyes meet the Tiger, chugging along behind them, trapped by Asa’s pull. Before Kam can make sense of the dread in the Tiger’s eyes, the world changes. The space warps. The hundreds, no, millions of lights fade, and Kam feels something like relief fill his chest as he instantly recognizes his own dreamscape.

But then, they are falling, falling, falling. 

A tiger, a half-spider, and a terrified boy plummet through the sky.