"Thank you," Lucian said in a whisper, staring at the sheets between his legs. He turned to look up at Zira, words ready on his tongue, but what he saw silenced him.
Behind Zira two giant, floating, luminescent eyes stared at him. They were fiery and lidless, their slit pupils trained at Lucian. Their flames licked at the cloth hanging from his banisters, setting them aflame. Underneath them a monstrous mouth, wide enough to swallow Zira whole split into a dripping grin, black oil spilling from in between its jagged teeth. Lucian could do nothing but stare past Zira, eyes wide and heart beating like a drum against his ribcage. A terrified snarl worked its way onto face, even while his grip on Zira's hand tightened.
He was about to say something, anything, but a whisper in his ear caught the words in his throat. Gurgling, wet laughter from behind him, close enough to feel the breath on his ear. His breathing hitched and panic shot through him like lightning. Around him, his world burned and he couldn't move to stop it. And those eyes, those wretched eyes. They stared, and stared, their monstrous mouth widening with each beat of his staccato heart. The oil dripping onto the floor caught alight. He could feel the pain, the heat of burning. All he could hear were the whispers and the crackle of flame. He took a fistful of the sheets with his other hand and tried to crawl away from the endless fiery stare, the inferno. Unwittingly he started to take Zira with him but he ran into the source of the wet, whispering voice. Jerking back from what is was he'd touched, he looked behind him only to see a towering gray figure, skin both wrinkled and taut, bloated like a corpse. The face of a long-dead mummified woman watched him unblinkingly, empty sockets where the eyes should have been. It extended a skeletal hand to him, crooning in the voice of his eldest sister. "Why are you afraid?"
Lucian still couldn't speak, but he managed a strangled whimper, before running back into Zira. He spun back on her, glancing frantically between the towering freak behind him and the friend in front of him. Behind her the eyes and their gigantic mouth drew closer, dripping oil onto his sheets and setting them aflame instantly. Zira began to burn before him, apparently perfectly content with the flesh bubbling off of her arms. The oil crawled up her arms to her face scarring her spotted skin every inch of the way. Lucian's breath caught in his throat, stuck with whatever screams he couldn't let out, and he scrambled back for the foot of his bed, kicking frantically at his sheets, trying to escape the burning oil and the eyes and the freak. And Zira, whose face had been half burnt off, yet still she didn't seem to notice. Lucian was beyond panic. He was terrified, petrified, and hyperventilating, choking on his own fear.