Tingling pain crawled across Sylvia's skin as a thousand frantic voices screamed in unison. They demanded only one thing: the Desire that swirled like a burning frost in her gut, luring her towards the land of dreams.

Sylvia cupped her forehead in her palms, tugging gently against her scalp. She enjoyed the temporary relief that came as it eased the dull throbbing in her head. Nothing could distract her from the gnawing in her stomach, rumbling like a distant thunderstorm.

The voices clamored over one another, desperate to be heard.

No one should have to starve.

You didn't ask for this.

They never told you this could happen.

It's their fault. It's on them.

They left you to fend for yourself.

You're not hurting anyone. Just feed.

Feed! Feed! Feed!

"Fuck!"

Sylvia swept everything off the coffee table in one deft swing, shattering the last gift her grandmother had given her, a beautiful glass vase. She heaved a heavy sigh. The dying sunflowers lay wilting in a pool of dirty water on the worn laminate of her living room floor.

A persistent buzz promised the only cure. The only way to ease the pain.

With a scowl Sylvia glanced at the phone to find a call from her best friend, Sergeant Jean-Pierre Cote. Her salvation. The only cop--or person for that matter--in the Greater Boston area who still treated her like a human being. Who hadn't dumped her like trash.

The only one who could make the Need stop.

Jean-Pierre had risked everything for her: his reputation, his career, even his life. Thank God his brother had blown the whistle on Big Pharma about the illegal treatments that caused her condition. Otherwise she might have ended up in super-max.

Still, Sylvia's relative freedom involved her near complete isolation while she lived off of meager state benefits like some parasite.

Until the class-action lawsuit came through.

If it came through at all...

In the meantime Jean-Pierre--the detective who had taken over her case--checked in on her from time to time. Mostly on official business. Except when it wasn't.

She answered it with a heavy sigh. "What's up, JP?"

"Bad timing?" he asked with a curious lilt.

"You could say that. I'm getting a little--"

"Say no more," he said. "I've got good news."

Sylvia's heart leapt into her throat. Good news. Their euphemism for another lead on a heinous criminal who had escaped justice, one that deserved a fate worse than death.

Finally something she could do. A way she could let go and feed.

"Thank God!" Sylvia ran a trembling hand through her hair. "I'm fit to burst, JP."

The silence hung heavy between them. "Would you like a distraction?"

A shiver of delight coursed through her veins as she recalled the last fantasy they shared. Even though they'd never touched one another in the real world, Jean-Pierre had invited her to sink into his mind.

Each time she tumbled down, down, down like Alice into the rabbit hole. Electric tingles flooded her cheeks at the memories of tangled limbs and passionate kisses. A release a thousand times better than sex. A greater euphoria than any drug.

But Sylvia refused to treat him like cattle. She insisted on consent, only sharing his dreams when he offered them to her of his own free will.

After cascading through his deepest thoughts, Sylvia had realized that Jean-Pierre had feelings for her, ones he'd kept hidden in his unconscious mind. She couldn't use him the same way that blood vampires kept lovers as their own portable food source.

Feeding from the innocent was cruel.

In another life they could have dated--even gotten married--but not now. Even though she loved him with all her heart. If she hurt Jean-Pierre by mistake, it would destroy her. Not to mention she'd fly off the rails.

Again.

Sylvia bit her lower lip. "That's a sweet offer..."

"You know I don't mind," he whispered in a tender voice that made that omnipresent Hunger fester inside her. "I'd share my daydream with you now, but I'm at work."

"Don't tease me," said Sylvia with a hint of a predatory growl. "I'm so damn hungry."

He hummed in thought. "So am I. Meet me tonight at Antico Forno?"

"I can't."

"Too dangerous?"

"Yeah."

A wave of regret washed over her. Yet another reason why they could never date, much less marry. If they shared a life, he'd never get to enjoy all the normal things that couples did.

Sure, it'd be a cute novelty at first.

Hey, look! My gorgeous wife is a dream weaver who can never die. Oh, yeah. And she can create any fantasy we want. We can travel the world and return before lunch hour ends.

Beat that, mother hubbards!

But a life with Sylvia meant retreating from real life. They'd never be able to go to public places like restaurants, cinemas, or museums. They'd have to avoid family get-togethers and barbecues with friends. Not to mention travel in confined spaces with others was out of the question.

A dreamscape relationship would put Jean-Pierre at great risk. If they spent too much time there or if Sylvia fed too much from him, they could cross the line from fantasy into oblivion. If she lost him to that horrific land of Limbo, she'd never forgive herself.

And she'd have eternity to regret it.

"Ma souricette? You're awful quiet," he said in that deep voice, soothing yet gruff all at once. "Do you regret our agreement? You can change your mind."

Her heart melted. When he calls me his little mouse, I just can't...!

"No, I'm grateful," replied Sylvia with a twang of her heart. "I want to use this power for good. I refuse to sit here on my ass, living off the state because no one wants me."

"I want you!"

Sylvia's jaw dropped and Jean-Pierre cleared his throat.

"I mean, I'm here for you." He sighed in resignation. "Why don't you meet me at home after work? We can discuss the next idea, and you'll feel much better."

"I'll go to the bar first," she muttered in reply. "Feed off of some free-floating misery so that you're not in any danger from me."

He chuckled. "What do doctors say about eating too much junk food?"

"I'm serious, JP."

Jean-Pierre's voice turned solemn. "We got you out of trouble once. I'm not sure we could swing it again. Please be careful in public, will you?"

"I won't go indoors. Trust me, their dreams are potent even from the outside." Sylvia spoke through gritted teeth. "If I don't feed now, I'll fucking lose it. Then we will have a problem."

"Okay, ma souricette. I trust you."

She smiled. That was one reason she loved him. He did trust her and let her make her own decisions. Lead her own life. That forced her to make the right choices rather than avoiding them altogether. It helped her to keep some semblance of her humanity and autonomy.

***

The only thing Sylvia loved as much as Jean-Pierre was the thrill of the hunt. He'd taught her well. Rule number one? Don't get caught. Rule number two? Hurt no innocents. Rule number three? Leave no trace.

That meant wearing rubber gloves, a balaclava that covered her nose and mouth, and the proper attire.

Good thing her power didn't require direct skin-on-skin contact. Only Jean-Pierre shared that level of intimacy with her. Not these creeps.

The dregs of society didn't deserve her pity or her mercy. They were food. Cattle. No, even worse. They belonged behind bars for life but had gotten away with murder, rape, and more thanks to an unjust legal system.

Like this piece of work laying asleep before her. Alex Luciano. A former football star with rugged good looks and a body fit for a sports magazine. He'd earned a full scholarship to Harvard simply because he could pass a ball and sprint like Usain Bolt.

Granted, he'd worked hard and had plenty to show for it. Life had handed him a way to get filthy rich, recruited by one of the best teams in the nation on a multimillion dollar contract.

Until the allegations had started and Alex had lost it all.

So many underage girls had fallen prey to the twenty-three-year-old pedophile who couldn't wait one damned year or two until they were perfectly legitimate dating prospects. Alex was rich, though. That meant he could afford some of the best defense lawyers in Boston.

Alex received not a single conviction. Not one.

Most women settled on the advice of their lawyers. Some didn't even bother filing charges against him. The ones who persevered despite legal advice found themselves raked them over the coals more than Alex and ended up with nothing to show for it.

Sylvia suppressed a snarl as she touched the man's temples. For one desperate moment, Alex stared at her, wide-eyed before he tumbled down the rabbit hole.

Into Sylvia's nightmare where she could play with him like a cat with an injured bird.

I'll see justice done, you pig.

***

Sylvia slunk past Alex dressed in none other than a Catholic schoolgirl uniform. Her yellow blouse draped lazily over a tartan skirt rolled up so that she looked like one of the cool girls. Other than that, she resembled a willowy nerd, her body sculpted from years of dancing.

Just his type.

Hopping onto the old-fashioned yellow school bus, she showed the driver her monthly pass and scoped out her prey. There Alex sat on a tattered bench, gazing at her wide-eyed as he licked his lips.

I'm good at this. He'll never suspect a thing.

Sylvia flashed him a shy smile and sat on the worn bench adjacent to him. A familiar warmth rose inside her, the beginning of the buzz that came from the first stages of a feeding frenzy.

She would need to concentrate. To hold the crescendo at bay until she got her evidence. Once she did, though, she'd rip him apart like a snarling fiend.

After readjusting her cute secretary glasses, she opened a battered copy of Nabokov's Lolita. A bit on-the-nose for her taste, but it would send a clear signal to Alex of her intentions. To tell him what she needed.

His predatory gaze landed on her, one given through lidded eyes that pierced her defenses. Or so he thought. She could feel his every emotion inside her dreamscape as his desire rose with hers. A sigh escaped her lips as another wave of satisfaction flooded her body like sinking into a warm bath, a desperate hunger on the cusp of fulfillment.

Alex interpreted it another way and almost lost his senses right there.

His overwhelming emotion gave Sylvia all the evidence she would ever need, but it didn't suffice. She wasn't here simply to render justice as his own personal judge and jury.

Oh, no!

She needed to play with him like a wildcat, torture him a bit, and once she had drunk her fill, she would execute his sentence without laying a finger upon his wretched body.

Another sigh escaped her lips as the dream nourished her, satisfying her like a wholesome roast dinner on Thanksgiving Day. Vengeance was a dish best served sweet with the fluttering of eyelashes and the parting of lips and the ache of unrequited desire.

That sultry moan lured Alex to follow Sylvia off the bus. He stalked her from afar with a growing, inescapable Need crawling up his throat, scampering like a rat across his mind. His craving cried out to Sylvia, desperate for satiation while she did all she could to ignore its call.

Not yet. Not yet.

Chase me.

The demand echoed in Alex's mind--Sylvia made sure of that--and it drove him into a frenzy. His shape morphed into that of a masked hunter while the most grotesque, violent images flooded her mind. Ones of love forcibly taken, wrenched from the hands of innocence.

Alex's true form.

His Need fueled her power and her anger as she led him to the very place where he'd harmed all those women in the past.

I need proof. And you're going to give it to me.

"Here?" asked Alex, wide-eyed. "You led me here?"

Tucked into an evergreen forest, Sylvia and Alex stood before the Great Oak. The Witness. The One Who Had Seen It All. That tree creaked as it swayed in the wind, revealing all of Alex's secrets like a young girl unable to keep a friend's confidence.

It was true. All of it.

And more.

"No!" screamed Alex at the oak. "You betrayed me!"

It did indeed. For an unconscious mind can never lie.

Sylvia pressed him against the trunk as he'd done to those women. She felt his pain as the gnarled bark scraped against his skin like the talons of a fearsome eagle.

Alex screamed as she fed from him, draining him of all his lust, pride, and terror. Sylvia bled away his soul as he'd done to those poor children, leaving him naught but an empty husk.

"Mercy!" he cried as the pain of a thousand knives stabbed his heart. "Mercy!"

"Like you gave to those girls?" sneered Sylvia, her anger rising to a crest. She bashed his head against the trunk. "Like you gave to them!? Answer me!"

He bawled and hugged the trunk. "Please I beg you. I didn't mean--"

"No mercy." Sylvia gripped him by the hair. "Never."

Cupping her hands to his temples, she forced his consciousness into rabbit hole after rabbit hole. Down, down, down he fell to the point of no return. Layer after layer of dream, forcing him to relive his torture for all of eternity.

As the power of a thousand dreamscapes built to a peak, Alex shuddered with unspeakable fear. Sylvia bled his emotions dry, the euphoria rising inside her like a tidal wave of glorious warmth.

I need this! Please...!

Like a geyser it burst inside her with a cry of exquisite pain. Her body shone with the light of a thousand stars as a flood of tingles rushed through her from head to toe. Tears fell from her cheeks with unspoken delight, trembling with ecstasy.

She wept with glorious triumph as his soul faded from her grasp, trapped forever in the land of Limbo. An eternal prison worse than the fiery pits of hell, where Alex could never hurt anyone again.

Alex collapsed at her feet before the oak, his mind and soul lost to reality forever.

***

When Sylvia opened her eyes, she scowled at the man on the bed. Alex slept--but not at peace--for his mouth hung open, distended in a grotesque, silent scream.

His eyes refused to blink, wide with horror.

And yet Alex breathed still. So would he live for the rest of his life, his soul trapped inside a nightmarish coma.

Hell on Earth.

Draining his emotions--feeding from his dreams--had quenched her Need, at least for now. In its place nestled a quiet contentment akin to soaking in a hot bath after a freezing excursion in the depths of winter.

Now Sylvia could live.

Once again she could venture among human beings without posing a threat. She could enjoy a dinner date with Jean-Pierre at their favorite Italian restaurant. She could resume her graduate night classes.

Sylvia would sleep well tonight, knowing that she'd made the world a safer place. Until the Hunger returned and she sought out her next target.

Could Alex see her hovering over his mental prison, victorious in her claim over his soul? No one could know for certain. Not Officer Cote, who would find Alex's physical husk frozen in terror. Not the scientists who would perform all manner of tests and exploratory surgery to discover the cause. 

Not even Sylvia herself.

Yet she dared to hope that Alex would realize the truth on some level. A fearsome woman had silenced him, weaving a complex web of dreams from which he could never escape.

No one would fear him again. 

Satisfied, Sylvia curled her lip and vanished into the night.

THE END

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Word count: 2,691

A/N: Thank you for reading! If you'd like to see this turned into a novel, please let me know as I'm toying with the idea. <3 If not, that's cool too. Hope you enjoyed the story.