Silver Pen Winner: THE DANGER IN DREAMING by Liz Z. McCormick

Congrats to our next Silver Pen winner! What an accomplishment! Liz Z. McCormick can be found on social media as lizthemcwiz!

Make sure to follow her on social media and maybe be NaNo buddies?

The Danger in Dreaming aka Dreaming Novel Draft III

On the boundary that separates life and death, there exists a realm where dreams are manipulated and nightmares seep into reality.

My feet take me where my mind can’t. I turn corner after corner, left, left, right, another left, two rights…the corridors are endless. I know this place has to be set up as a maze, a trap for those too weak of spirit to navigate. I’m too new to this place to know an Ariadne or locate her string. I’m too anxious to be much of a powerful Minotaur, but my legs don’t stop. My heart beats against my chest, but this time with a purpose. My bad leg doesn’t fail me, my joints don’t ache. I just keep sprinting, too scared to look back behind me and trip because I hear their footsteps in my shadow. “It’s not enough to simply run,” Coach had said once. “You must run with purpose, with heart, for it to feel like a journey at all.”

When the walls turn drastically from black to a deep red that reminds me of blood on concrete. The walls are no longer blank; I must’ve taken a wrong turn. I slow as my next turn reveals a hall of portraits, reminiscent of the ones I saw in the beginning of the building, but these ones float in motion like a Gif on a computer screen. Without the taunt of chasing footsteps behind me, I risk a stop, curiosity winning over as to why my feet knew exactly how to get here.

And that’s when I see my face on their wall.

Way to go, Liz! Sounds completely fascinating!