Amurehna

There existed a demon in the form of a house, it lured women inside and then corrupted their souls over the course of a thousand-thousand years, making them sacrifice everything in the hope of solving the puzzle of its interior while also insisting that if they had played their cards right...maybe they could have kept their bodies. I watch as the woman reaches the bowels of the structure, the walls are bleached bone, with pits in the floor that squat demon head jump from. She is only a head now, lacking even hair, and her skin is deathly pale. Eagerly she rolls onto a switch in the floor, which triggers a sort of mousehole/slide in the wall to open. Sickened, I observe her dogged journey and departure down the slide. I understand that the house is a liar, and though it would like her to think she could have kept her body, even a small woman would not have fit through that hole in the wall.

I pull myself back to a less unpleasant arena, struggling for something normal. This place feels like it is both inside and outside, but there are many rows of Whirlpool refrigerators, all identical and white. Myself, two managers and a stranger rush over to one of them. I am panicky, as though my life depends on this action. The filters in these refrigerators signify purity, and I drop to my knees before one of them and pop open the casing in the bottom. The filter falls into my hand. It is blue and translucent, filled with water. There are dark particles in the water.
"Is it okay?" Someone whispers, leaning down beside me.
"No, it's corrupted." My voice comes out a whisper. Then IT is there, at the end of the aisle. It is so dark here that I only see the suggestion of ITs form, a two-legged, winged monster. In the space of a breath, it is behind us and the world is consumed by the suffocating dark.. My panic and terror spike, I feel its hot breath on my neck in a ragged gust, and I force myself into a less threatening layer of sleep.

There is a rest stop on a highway in Japan, all the roads that look like they lead out have signs saying NO EXIT. The true road is hidden, only me and my manager M can see it. We tried to mark it with a sapling, but the road became a river, and we marked its edge with colored rocks. We try to gather the others, letting them know we will leave at first light. Dusk here is strange and uncomfortable, smoky and ill-lit.
I'm walking on a golden dirt road, I round a bend...and standing there is a small white house. I immediately don't like the look of it, something about its whiteness. There is a distant pulling at my mind, but I understand that whatever fate this thing is promising will never be mine. Then my best friend Denni is there. She is wearing a deep red 1800's dress. It looks almost satiny, but has a low, unpleasant luster. There's a...matching cape from neck to elbow. There's a gold pattern, outlined in dusky purple. She is fascinated by the house, beginning to be in its thrall, wondering what is inside.
"We should leave." I say.
"We'll leave at first light." She says, waving a hand dismissively.
"You don't understand." I reply, finding it difficult to speak past the tightness in my throat. She takes a step toward the house. "The sun doesn't rise here, Denni. It never rises." She doesn't believe me. Since I am behind her, I take her shoulders in my hands and start to drag her away. It's hard because she won't turn around and it's even darker now, and her backwards walking is seriously creeping me out. There's a dark flash and she twists in my hands. Her shoulders collapse backward as though she is facing me, and her head snaps between her shoulder blades, forehead becoming a chin that dips to her chest, then rises, teeth bared. The cloak is now a veil, obscuring all but her chin and teeth. I try to snatch my hands away but her arms are tangled in mine. I divorce myself forcefully from this awful place, trying to wake.

Because I'm me, I have a false awakening. I believe for a moment that I am safe. Then I feel the weight of sleep paralysis and notice a shape in the blankets next to me. It is the witch, she has followed me from the dream. She is like a bundle of sticks wrapped in leather, her skin is sooty grey, her mouth wet and oily, lips nonexistent. She whispers to me, asking if I want to taste her rotting mouth. I struggle to wake myself up and fail for several long, terrible minutes. When I finally do wake up, I cannot get out from under the weight of the SP and find myself next to her in bed again. Sigh.