When Brandon used to have this dream, the cycle would simply repeat itself until he woke up. Rafael would come back and draw the knife. Brandon would cry. He’d panic. Rafael would threaten him, and then he’d take the backpack and run away, his eyes glinting. Again. And again.

Ever since they’d used the Ouija board, the end of the dream had changed. Now, when Rafael came back, it wasn’t the same all-powerful man with the gleaming knife and eyes. It was the real Rafael. The dead one.

That day, after Brandon had told his mother what happened and she’d called 911, a couple of cops had gone out to look at the spot where it had happened. They’d said there wasn’t much point checking it out, though. Sidewalk muggings didn’t usually leave much evidence behind.

They were wrong. The cops found Rafael a block from where Brandon last saw him. It was the blood that had led them there. He’d been dragged under a bush, but the sidewalk next to him was drenched in red. He’d died of it—of blood loss—after a dozen or so knife wounds.

“Probably gang-related,” the cop had told Mrs. Stuart while Brandon watched from the couch, still wrapped in the blanket his mother had folded over his shoulders when he’d first come home. “Whoever it was, they took the backpack. Must’ve thought it was drugs.”

In the three years that had passed, Brandon had never been able to decide whether he was glad he knew what had happened to Rafael. At least he didn’t have to worry about ever seeing him again. Still, he’d always know he’d contributed to the death of another human being.

Now that he’d had this dream every night since that damn Ouija board, though, he knew the answer. He wished he didn’t know Rafael was dead.

Anything would be better than being visited in his dreams by this creature. This boy, not much older than him, who was covered in blood that ran from gaping holes in his flesh. Rafael still gripped the tattered remains of Brandon’s backpack in his shriveled, bony fingers. He grinned at Brandon with those same long teeth, but the whites of his eyes were streaked with yellow.

“Leave me alone,” dream Brandon told the creature. This time it came out as a moan.

Usually, the dream went on this way for hours. Tonight, though, Rafael faded away. Brandon wasn’t on the street anymore. He was in his bed, in his dorm room, in the dark. He was awake.

And there was something in the corner.

Brandon tried to sit up. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t even lift his head.

The shadow was moving toward him.

Brandon tried to squint, but his eyes were as frozen as the rest of him. All he could see was darkness.