Dreaming, Not Sleeping

Short story - approx 2,500 words

When night falls we can venture into danger within the safety of our dreams – where nothing can really touch us... or can it? One woman’s insidious fantasy threatens everything, but some nightmares are simply too good to resist.

Excerpt:
So, I'm here. There's no turning back.

A few steps farther off the path and I will be consumed by the dark. A few steps farther and I will be embraced by the forest, wrapped in the musty smell of decay, held in its damp caress. A few steps farther and I will be lost forever.

Fallen twigs snap beneath my feet. Leaves whisper conspiratorially as I brush past. Twisted branches snatch at my face, scratch my cheek, draw blood. I press my fingers first against the wound, then against my lips, tasting the ferrous stain on my skin. I can hear my own breathing, my own heartbeat, over the wind whipping through the canopy of trees above me.
Not long now and I'll see him. Not long now and I'll be held softly in his arms and loved in a way I have only briefly tasted but often imagined.

(Contains scenes of a sexual nature)