AURORA'S POV:
Arc and I came back to the hotel a few minutes ago. Jon will probably come later. I'm not in the mental space to listen to his mother or even ... see her.
   The key card clicks in the lock, and I push open the door to the room I share with Cali, Celeste, and a girl whose name I don't even bother remembering.
   I step inside. They're lounging everywhere, on the beds, by the vanity, laughing about something shallow and stupid.
    Celeste spots me instantly. Her gaze snags on mine, sharp and mean, the way it always is. Like she’s waiting for me to trip again so she can feast on the wreckage.
    "Well, well," she drawls, voice dripping with sugar and venom. "Back already? Was it too much for the little stray?"
I don't have the strength for this. I'm aching to just sleep at this point.
Celeste snickers.
   The other girl looks away, uncomfortable but I don't shrink back this time. I don't lower my head or bite my tongue.
    I walk in, shutting the door behind me with a soft click.
Trapping us together.
    Something old and untamed stirs in my blood. It's so easy now, like turning a page. I meet Celeste’s eyes, steady and unflinching, and I reach into that space between us, that unseen river of energy humming through the room.
   I don’t even have to try very hard.A ripple passes through her. A flinch. Her smug expression falters. Then it starts.
   Celeste’s hands twitch first, like something brushed against her. She stiffens, blinking rapidly, head jerking to the side as if she heard a voice no one else could.
   "No," she whispers, voice barely audible.
Then louder: "No, no, get away-"
The color drains from her face.
She stumbles back into the dresser, perfume bottles clattering to the floor. Her breaths come in gasps now, short and panicked, as she swats at the air like a trapped animal.
Cali shoots up from the bed, startled. "Celeste? What's wrong?"
But Celeste doesn’t hear her. She’s somewhere else now.
    Her knees hit the carpet with a thud. Tears stream down her cheeks as she shrieks at things only she can see.
"Please!" she wails, curling into herself. "I didn’t mean to! I didn’t mean to-!"
   The other girls back away, their faces masks of horror.
   I stand by the door, arms crossed, watching with a strange, cold calm.
It’s not cruelty. It's justice. Balance.
    For every time she made me feel small, for every whisper behind my back, for every cruel smile when she thought no one was looking, this is her reckoning.
   I tilt my head slightly, studying her crumpled form.
   "You should’ve been more careful," I say quietly. "Some monsters bite back."
   Then I turn and leave the room, shutting the door softly behind me.
And I don't look back.
(IN THE NIGHTMARE)
    At first, it feels like vertigo.
A sudden lurch of the ground beneath her feet. A dizzying spin of the room.
   Celeste blinks rapidly, clutching the dresser behind her for support.
The carpet ripples under her, like a living thing. The ceiling above twists and warps into a churning sky.
   "What-" she gasps, but the word disintegrates on her tongue.
The hotel room vanishes.
    In the span of a heartbeat, the world tilts and she’s falling.
Sucked downward into a black void that clutches and pulls at her limbs, cold and endless.
  She screams but no one hears.
When she hits the ground, it's not the soft carpet of the hotel.
It's cracked earth, dry and splintered, stretching for miles under a blood-red sky.
The smell hits her first - thick, metallic, the iron stench of spilled blood.
   "No," she whispers, spinning in place. "This isn't real. This isn't-"
The ground trembles.
In the distance, shapes emerge.
Massive wolves, their eyes burning like coals. Vampires, fanged and feral, their mouths smeared red.
   Fairies with jagged, shattered wings, weeping black tears as they clutch broken weapons.
  All of them closing in. All of them coming for her.
   A shriek rips from her throat as she stumbles back, tripping over debris, over corpses; gutted and torn, their faces frozen in agony.
  One of the bodies turns its head towards her.
It's her own face staring back.
   Celeste retches, falling to her knees. Her hands sink into the mud, and when she pulls them free, they’re slick with blood.
   She sobs, clawing at her arms as if she could scrape away the horror coating her skin.
"Please!" she cries into the wind, voice cracking. "Stay away from me please! Please!"
  But the world doesn't listen. From the sea of monsters, a single figure steps forward.
A girl with silver fire crackling in her hands.
A girl with eyes like storm clouds and a mouth set in a grim line.
Aurora.
   Except this Aurora is larger than life. Her hair floats around her like a halo. Her gaze pins Cali in place, heavier than chains.
   "You hurt me," the spectral Aurora says, her voice echoing through the dead world.
"You laughed while I bled."
   "No!" Cali wails, backing away. "It was just jokes, I didn't mean-!"
But Aurora lifts a hand.
And the monsters pounce.
   Celeste feels their claws raking her skin, teeth sinking into her flesh.
She feels every bite, every tear, every searing pain.
She screams herself hoarse, sobbing and thrashing, but she can't wake up, she can't escape, she can't-
   The last thing she hears before darkness finally takes her is Aurora’s whisper, soft and cold:
"You reap what you sow."
AURORA'S POV: 
    The room feels too quiet now.
Cali is crumpled on the floor, a shaking, broken mess. I can still hear her soft, pathetic whimpers, feel them scrape against the inside of my skull.
And all I can do is stare.
    My hands are trembling at my sides, still humming with the memory of the power I just unleashed. It clings to my skin like static. I can’t tell if it’s the thrill or the horror that’s making my blood race like this.
Part of me-
God, part of me feels good.
   She deserved it.
Every cruel word.
Every sneer.
Every shove when no one was looking.
Every time she made me feel like less.
   She deserved it.
   I press my palm flat against the wall, trying to steady my breathing, but my chest is a battlefield - satisfaction and guilt tearing at each other in a war I know I’m losing.
   A small, twisted part of me is glad she’s finally scared.
Glad she knows what it feels like to be helpless.
To beg for it to stop and have no one listen.
But the other part of me-
The bigger part-
The human part-
It’s horrified.
   Because I didn't just scare her. I broke her and I didn’t even hesitate.
    The realization punches through me so hard I stumble back a step.
I clamp a hand over my mouth to stop the sob clawing its way up my throat.
What have I become?
   I look at Celeste again, her body curled in on itself like a kicked dog, her nails dug into her arms, her mind still trapped in whatever nightmare I forced her into and my stomach lurches.
You wanted her to pay.
You made her pay.
But the victory feels hollow now.
Like biting into something sweet only to find it rotten at the core.
    I slide down the wall and bury my face in my hands, the aftershocks of what I’ve done crashing over me in violent waves.
I can still feel it, the cold, cruel power inside me.
The part that wanted to hurt her.
The part that could easily do it again.
And that terrifies me more than anything.