Free Glimmer by Vivi Anna Page B

toward me, its fingers like spears.
    I scrambled on the ground, trying to get away. Terror seized me and I could barely breathe.
    The body stumbled closer, moving faster than I thought possible. I tried to turn to gain my feet and run, but its hard warped fingers grasped my arm. I swatted at it, not wanting to touch it but knowing I had to. But as I did, I made the mistake of looking up into that malformed face and saw my father’s beloved features.
    “No!” I screamed, blind with panic, swiping at my arm to get it away.
    “Nina. Nina, it’s all right. I’m here.”
    My father’s voice sounded so clear, so normal. But it was a trick. The tree creature was trying to trick me. “Get away!” I flailed my arms and kicked out with my legs.
    “Nina. Stop!”
    The voice’s adamant tone gave me pause and I risked a peek at the wooden golem, afraid to gaze at it again but knowing I had to.
    My father gazed back down at me. He was holding my arm and sitting on my legs.
    Confused, I looked down at myself. I wasn’t on the ground of the woods but in my bed, twisted and wrapped up in my sheets. Turning my head, I saw that I was in my room, maybe at dusk by the slight gloom outside the window.
    “Da?”
    He nodded, his face pale, his eyes sunken and dark. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a few days. “You’re safe, Nina. I got you, my girl. I got you.”
    Relief spread through me like a rush of furnace heat. Closing my eyes, I collapsed back into my bed and took in a huge breath of air. I relaxed my arms and legs and stretched them out. Already, I could feel the ache in my muscles that would come from all my thrashing about.
    “Bad dreams, darling?”
    I opened my eyes and blinked up at my father. “The worst.”
    He patted my leg. “You’re okay now.”
    “Am I sick, Da?”
    He nodded. “I heard you getting sick the other night. You could hardly walk, so I brought you to your bed. You’ve been feverish for over twenty four hours now.”
    I ran a hand over my face. My skin was sweat slicked and warm. “Is there water?”
    He reached over to grab a water cup from my bedside table and handed it to me.  
    I raised my head and took a few sips then handed it back to him. I couldn’t remember the last time I was sick. Maybe over twenty years ago. Maybe never.
    “Did the hospital call?” In all the years I’d worked there, I’d never taken a sick day. At least, not until all this stuff with my father had happened.
    He nodded. “I told them you quit.”
    “What?” Maybe I had heard him wrong.
    “I told them you weren’t ever coming back.” His mouth spread into a wide smile.
    I sat up, confused, angry. “Why would you do that?”
    He tilted his head and regarded me. I found it strange how he was looking at me. A maniacal kind of gleam lit his eyes. “Because you’re dead, Nina. You drowned in the pond in the garden, remember?”
    I recoiled in horror. Scrambling away from his words and what he was saying to me. I shook my head. “Da, you’re confused. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
    His grin grew bigger, wider, impossible for his facial shape.
    I could see bits of green between his lips—it looked like algae, wet and dark, stuck in his gum line.
    “Nightfall is coming for you, darling. It’s pointless to fight it.” He grabbed my arm hard, his fingers digging into my skin.
    I tore at his hand, trying desperately to get away. But he had a strong hold on me. Impossibly strong.
    As I ripped and tore at him, he just smiled, as if we were play fighting, as if I was five and he was the tickle monster trying to make me giggle uncontrollably. But I wasn’t laughing. No, I was screaming.
    Especially when green tendrils, like ropey vines, burst through the back of his hands and wrapped around my wrists.
    “Stop fighting, stupidz girl,” he slurred as he pulled me close.
    I continued to fight, but lost all reason when the leafy vines exploded out his