She turned around to eye Simon, who was cowering in his corner still, with a disapproving, slightly bemused look. Her features had changed back to normal and Simon decided he liked her much better this way than in that grotesque grimace she had worn moments ago.

  With difficulty, Simon shoved the body of the dead chimaera off himself, still fighting with his breakfast, intend on keeping it in his stomach.

  “Or are you staying? For all I know, they could be your friends,” the girl said then, her eyebrows rose.

  “Trackers?” said Simon numbly.

  “The ones who brought these.” She indicated the dead chimaera at her feet, then the other, which lay several feet away, an indistinct, bloody mass of bone, claw, and skin.

  Simon wondered if they had they ever been alive at all, still questioning his own sanity rather than believing his eyes. And then, he suddenly had another epiphany: There was no girl who could turn into a strange abomination in the blink of an eye, or such mythical creatures as chimaeras in real life. Come to think of it, chimaeras weren't exactly part-wolf either, as far as he could remember... And not only that, but it was impossible for a girl to be here in the first place. The chamber had been locked from the outside, and there had been no signs of disruption before he got there.

  Thus, Simon concluded that she must be a vision of some sort. Next moment, it hit him. Of course, the spike that had pierced his shoulder earlier must have been been doted with some kind of venom, and he was still stuck in the wall, imagining all sorts of things. He was hallucinating.

  “This is not real,” he said, convinced by his own train of thought, his fingers dabbing at the wound in his shoulder.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Suit yourself,” said the girl impatiently, and she made to leave.

  “Like the pit trap...” Simon mumbled to himself.

  He chuckled, a sound that echoed like the cackle of a madman in the small chamber. This all wasn't real. It was a feverdream, and at the center of it was this strange girl. If only he could get rid of her...

  Simon made a split-second decision. He grabbed the ancient dagger tightly, jumped upward and ran at her, brandishing the weapon over his head.

  What happened next happened so fast that Simon's numb brain had great difficulty registering it. He only knew that, just before he reached the girl, there was a flicker of gold and ruby, and then he was flung backwards, slammed against the wall with a sickening crack and redoubled pain in his right shoulder, and slumped down at the strange girl's feet. When his temporarily hazy and black-star strewn gaze had focused again, he found her looking livid.

  “Are you out of your mind?” she screeched, fur spreading rapidly across her skin, her features distorting again. “I'll have your head on a pike!”

  Although Simon still believed that she was a hallucination – she had to be – the pounding pain in his head was persistent and very much real, and so were the gravelly voices now coming from above. Morgan must have at last found a way in, and he would end this madness.

  “They're coming for me, just you wait,” Simon said over the loud, dizzy buzz in his head.

  The girl seemed to consider this, making a quick decision. She took the shredded bag (which was, somehow inexplicably, still slung over his shoulder) away from him, tied his hands together at the wrists with rough rope and unceremoniously stuffed a filthy rag into his mouth to keep him quiet. As he tried to spit it out, she put her hand on top of his lips.

  Now it was her turn to smirk, and Simon did not like the way it made her look more like the predator she had become before, rather than a friendly, if violent, hallucination. As long as she stayed pretty, at least he could pretend this was a sort of daydream of his.

  “We'll make sure they don't find you then,” she said sweetly.