Knowing the truth of matters seemed far more shattering since hope had been dashed against the rocks. Sleep would not end this she assumed ... unless, it was rather far fetched though possible she guessed, she was here, could she return and be plagued by Lewis anew?

It proved to be a valid question and her mind turned it over a little before she succumbed to the exhaustion that was plaguing her. Years of the past and experience with her visions told her that she couldn't change them ... well there was Leslie, that had changed but she wasn't there and there was no telling if that particular vision would come to pass years down the line or not so she could not even be certain of that, only that she avoided acting immediately.

But nothing seemed to change them otherwise. She found that she was trapped in this nightmare without a place to run off too and sleep was as good of relief as she could hope to get in this time. But when neck her eye opened it was to the feel of not being able to breath properly. It took a moment for her to realize that this had been caused by the crushing weight atop her.

A face grinning, smiling down at her from above through a maze of jagged bloody teeth as Lewis was above her already pinning her down. His jacket was off, he was only in his under shirt revealing the fresh wound on his shoulder which had not even been bandaged.

"Wakey, wakey," he giggled, actually giggled as she felt the hard planes of his body above her, his rock hard erection pressing against the blankets as it poked her again as he throbbed against her in his pants.

Her mind refused to wrap around the oddities of the situation, couldn't find a foothold in the whys and hows. It made for unpleasant thinking, especially as her thoughts turned to Leslie...that at least she hoped she had been able to change. Thankfully, sleep claimed her before she could dwell overlong on that particular painful subject.

Her sleep was deep, and empty of dreams, soothing after a fashion, especially in her state. A part of her loved this emptiness, this lack of feeling or thought. Perhaps she even carried it with her when she awoke, somewhere deep inside. Perha-

The emptiness became a devouring void, sucking the air from her, suffocating her. Barely rested at all, she blinked her way into consciousness, only to be greeted by the horrific smiling face of her tormentor, his massive body pinning her, crushing her into the mattress. She briefly thought she was having a nightmare, until her panicked gaze found the bleeding would in his shoulder. It was him, in the flesh, come for his revenge earlier than any of them had expected...

She couldn't scream, couldn't speak, exhausted and short of breath. His mad giggling and the feeling of his throbbing erection pressed against her through the covers filled her with a dull dread. She didn't have anything left, no strength, no will to fight, nothing at all...her vision had stolen that before he even came. She knew it was futile, ultimately pointless to resist...but damned if she wasn't going to try.

Her face twisted into a mask of horror and misery she tried to lift her arms, to reach for his face, desperately trying to scratch him, gouge his eyes, anything to hurt him, drive him away. She knew she couldn't win, but she could try to make him pay...

The fact that she had thought as she had was an advantage to him since she had already admitted defeat. He could feel her struggling futilely beneath him in an effort to rake his eyes, gouge them or make him suffer in more ways that being shot and falling off a roof hadn't.

Logic would dictate that she was far more trouble then she was worth so Lewis either desired vengeance against her or was so single minded that he just didn't know when to quit. All that was irrelevant though at the time as he shifted over her, a knee slipping between her thighs in order to part her legs.

"Such a tough fight though it ends now," he sprayed her face and hair with a fine mist of blood that escaped his mouth, several of his teeth were loose and a couple where missing from the fall, she clearly did a number on his visage not that it had been comely before hand.

His rank breath was on her and while she struggled in his grasp his fingers bit deeper into her wrists as if assuring himself that he had a good hold of her. He rubbed against her as he began suckling her neck, his tongue pressing against it as he felt himself explode in his pants but that did not stop him or deter him in the least. He was still firm, getting off by this apparently as she squirmed beneath him his features came back up into view, grinning down at her.

She tried as hard as she could to twist her legs away, to kick or knee him wherever she could, but it didn't matter. He'd had all the time in the world to position himself while she slept, and made good use of it. Her knees clenched tightly around his knee, desperate to keep her legs as together as possible. It was a futile gesture ultimately, as she was tired and weaker than him by far.



Anne flinched and turned her face away, disgusted by the bloody spittle on her face, revolted by the rank stench of his breath. Why was this happening to her? Was this why she was here, just to be a victim to this degenerate bastard? What was the point in it all, unless it was all just a new way for her to suffer?

"W-wait! S-stop p-please! Hnhgh....s-s-stop....w-why are y-you...d-doing t-this to m-me?" she stammered breathlessly, trying to stall him, reason with him, anything to put off the inevitable. His fingers felt like vice grips on her wrists, assuring her there was no breaking free this time. His body ground against her trapped form, overwhelming her slender frame by far. The nuzzling and suckling at her neck sent cold, disquieting chills down her spine, and only served as foreshadowing for what he likely intended.

She stared up at him, panting for air under his weight, her gaze pleading as he grinned at her. Someone....anyone...please...help me... that small voice in her mind whimpered, the voice of the part of her that still had any hope left.

As she looked upon him she saw evidence of his broken nose as it hooked to the left. His voice was a little nasally and while she tried to knee him that was ineffectual given that he quickly moved into a position where he had been less vulnerable to that sort of attack.

His strong hands placed her hands above her head as he went back to lavishing her neck with licks. His tongue firmly pressed against the side of her neck.

She did feel the weakening of his grasp as he gripped both her wrists with one hand, the other drawing down the blanket shapely as his hand wondered over her side roughly as it eventually raced down her upper leg. His hard shaft playing over her as he squirmed, dry humping her at the moment, he giggled again, then answered her, a grin still on the bloody features of his face.

"Why? Because you were there. Because I wanted too!" Mpre blood sprayed from his mouth as he spoke. His hand came up to her chest then as he did so.

His hand rolled over the curve of her breast, his mouth sealing over it to capture the nipple as he sucked against it, his tongue lathing over the nipple of her left breast.

She hadn't really expected to get lucky enough to land a knee to his groin, but it hadn't hurt to try. The only thing she could think of to try now was to hit him in an already injured place. His nose made a great target, but she was in no position to strike him. She whimpered quietly as his grip pulled her hands over her head, leaving her without any means to resist.

Frantically, she rolled her head to the side, trying to push him away and get that awful tongue off of her neck. She could do little but inconvenience him at best, but she still had to try. The sudden removal of the blanket froze her in shock, the sensation of being completely exposed driving home how far he intended to go. His wandering hand made her shake with revulsion and fear as it traveled down her side, touching her where none had done so before. His rigid member butting against her thighs was the worst by far, the maddened giggling accompanying his gyrations a close second.



Anne flinched as her face was spattered with bloody spittle once more, shivering at the undercurrent of madness in his voice. He was an animal, not a man, driven by nothing more than selfish desire...and she was unlucky enough to be the object of it.

"Nnnah! S-stop! D-d-don't!" she screamed as his hand slid to her chest, pushing the nightgown and her bra up and over her pert bosom, revealing the scars along her right side and curling around the supple flesh of her breast on that side, tapering off just before touching the pale rose crown of her nipple. Her back arched as his mouth violently claimed her unmarred breast, his tongue lashing over her tiny nub and quickly forcing it to harden. She screamed again, a wordless, pitiful cry of denial, of the situation, and the illicit feeling of pleasure from the attention.

"Scream all you want ... the police aren't here busy looking for me in lower districts so by the time they respond I'll be done with you my lovely." One hand slid down her side from her breast as he grunted again, expending himself in his pants yet again.

He was quick to finish it seemed but even being quick was too long to endure this. Then there had been Alice and what he had done to her. Did he do this too? His knees pressed to the mattress as his lower body lifted off hers slightly, his hand fumbling with the belt of his pants before drawing them down, his pole sticky from his own orgasms throbbed wildly and so close to her that she occasionally felt it twitch and touch her panties.

"Oh, yeah," he commented, a hand moving to her waist and panties as he tugged. At first he was trying to draw them down her legs and off her body but unwilling to move and without her cooperation that proved impossible so he tugged at them, pulled at their side until the garment snapped in his grasp, the garment pulled away and discarded to the floor where his jacket resided.

"Mmm ... yes ..." his hand brushing up against her sex, rubbing up and down against it as he purred, gazing down at her then looking to the path of his hand as it stroked against her.

A furious blush suffused her skin from the exertion of screaming and fighting against him, staining her pale skin a darker pink shade. She tried to knee him again when he lifted his lower body, aiming for his groin once more. The position wasn't good, and her knee merely skidded along his outer thigh, a frustrated moan breaking up her fevered panting. She had never been so afraid, not even during the fire...then she would have simply died, but this...she was going to die all the same, but first she'd be subjected to...to...

Anne went berserk when she felt his fingers dig under the band of her panties, screaming, kicking, jerking her hands against his grip, doing everything she could to break free, to stop him from removing her last shred of decency and protection. She whimpered in pain as the garment finally tore in his hand, revealing her bare, shaven sex. She fell into a horrified silence, staring down her nude body at the twitching and slimy length of his erection. This is happening, really happening...dream or not...

She flinched and squirmed beneath him, trying to pull her body away from him, to escape his hand on her virgin channel. It was no use, she was too weak, he was too strong. Tears welling up in her eye, she began sobbing quietly, the last of her will broken to useless shards.

Enjoying himself and the creation that he invoked he wanted her alright. It was rare, exceedingly rare that he ran across someone that was still "pure" mentally or physically. In fact it had only occurred thrice and twice he brokered deals with his victims though he broke one out of sheer lust, the other was tempting to brake but he had not agreed to leaving her alone mentally.

But Aegir knew that Anne was a sweet catch and like wine growing finer with age the longer that he waited the sweeter his conquest of her would become. So with that in mind he had a decision to come to as his illusion played out matters.

In her head, the feel of Lewis seemed quit real, and while defeat was settling in she felt his thick tongue press against her hardened nipple again, the tip of his hard phallus pressing against her as it slid along the slit of her sex, up then down before he stopped at the entrance of her body. He had to reposition himself a few times to account for her squirming beneath him and may have had more success if he just tried to plow his hips down against hers burying himself in her vaginal folds.

But fortunately or perhaps unfortunately depending how you looked at it he desired to take her patiently, to enjoy his conquest of her more fully for the few seconds that he would last anyway, it seemed. But that was when she caught it out of the peripherel of her tear filled eye.

A blur ... the glint of metal drawing near her. Then as her focus honed in there was a man striding into the room with a razor blade in a gloved hand already unfurled. Barely with enough time to comprehend what had been happening a hand reached around Lewis' throat seizing him by the chin, tilting his head up then making a quick, deep slash from left to right that had a plethora of blood coursing down Lewis' throat. He slumped forward, his bulk lying limply atop her until shoved off, his bulk thudding against the floor.

The lifeless body lying there on top of her panties and his jacket. A bloody razor blade dripping his life essence on the floor while the man stared down at her disheaveled and mostly nude for for long seconds before speaking or even being recognized by Anne as things caught up withsk her. It was George Lusk.

"Annie ... your bleeding, are you alright?"

Clearly he saw the blood on her neck and breast from Lewis and the dabs of blood on her face from his spittle and reasoned that she was cut somewhere on her person, his eyes flickered to Lewis whose body was gurgling though as a reaction ... he was clearly dealt a vicious mortal blow and soon even quit trembling, the effects of nerves as his own blood pooled around him.

She had no way of knowing, didn't even imagine truth be told, that her ordeal was the product of an alien mind. And pure though she may be, she had known tragedy before, far too much for her own good. As the reality of her plight finally settled in, her mind retreated along roads long paved in her psyche. She'd emerged from the fire in a deep, dreamless coma and it was to this safe refuge from reality her mind sought to return.

It made for a disconcerting, jarring dissolution, the conflicting impressions. Her gaze turned blankly away from Lewis, rejecting the world he was in, even as her body arched against him, primal reactions firing her nerves as his tongue teased and tormented her arousal hardened nipple. The grunts and giggles of the madman assaulting her faded into distant whispers, even as her hips squirmed and bucked away from him, both trying to escape and encourage him to stop teasing her nether lips, and finish what he had started. Her body wasn't hers anymore...it would soon just be an empty shell whil-

Her dulling senses fixated on a gleaming light in the doorway, a flickering fire dancing closer to the bed. What is that? she wondered in detached bemusement. It slowly resolved, the blur clearing into a razorblade, unfolded and shining in the wan light of the gaslamps filtering through the shutters. Her head slowly turned to follow the compelling glimmer, Lewis and his clumsy grinding and stroking forgotten. In a hypnotic daze, she watched the dancing light bob and dip, saw Lewis' head jerk back suddenly, witnessed the light caress a path across his jugular and free a river of blood from its bonds.

Her mind coldly noted the weight shift and tumble off of her, observed the freedom of her wrists, took in the warmth of the ichor staining her torso. It made no sense. She had given up, it was over...but...it wasn't? Lewis was dead, truly dead this time. He couldn't possibly survive that kind of wound. She was...free? Slowly, her eye shifted from the twitching body beside her bed to the figure standing beside the bed, bloody razor hanging from one hand. Ripper... echoed a whisper in her head.

As the seconds wore on, and the voice of her savior filtered through her dulled senses, she finally began to return to the world, reality crashing back into focus around her. George was there, with a blade in his hand, had saved her from Lewis. She was naked, covered in blood, and paralyzed with fear in her own bed. Jerkily, as if they'd forgotten how to function correctly, her arms and legs curled inward, shielding her from view as she rolled to one side, contracting into a ball.

"..ah...hnn...ahh...aaAHHH! AAAHHH! AAAHHHH! Ahhhuhh.....ahhuhh..." her cries began as gasps, quickly becoming full throated screams as the tension and stress broke. They subsided as soon as they began, trailing into sobbing as she rocked slowly on the sheets.

"..d-d-d-don't l-look at m-me....ahhuhh.....d-don't...l-l-look at m-me...." she cried, shame and relief and horror conflicting and roiling in her. But most of all, the relief started to overtake the others....she was safe....it was over...

"Oh, Annie thank God you're not hurt. I knew I should have gone but stayed and fortunately it paid out. I saw this guy poking around ... at first I thought nothing of it, I keep loosing sight of him in the fog but heard the braking of glass. When I actually checked the place out I saw a broken window and where one of the shutters were forced.

"I went inside the same way hearing your screams ..." he fell silent as he gazed at the body on the floor for a moment. He listened to her sobs then glanced back up at her, not heeding her words to look away for long.

"Imposter ... copy cat ... he wasn't even after prostitues. Spreading their legs for anyone with a buck. There a curse on our society Annie, then again the womb is a disgusting place. And he was crude, oh so very crude seeing how he wanted to go back there ... I'm glad he didn't hurt you Annie ... so thankfully, since that's my job ..."

He grinned at her as he stepped closer to the bed. "Good riddance to this copy cat." He paused kicking the dead husk at his feet. "Though sadly I can't pin anything on him now, oh well ..."

Her crying trailed off as he explained what had transpired outside, how he had come to her aid. It made a certain kind of sense, given how George had been treating her before. He had seemed the protective type even th-

The rest of his words slowly filtered through, incredulity replacing everything in her mind. The little voice in her head had been right after all....it seemed her "savior" was the Ripper. Again, it made a certain amount of sense in hindsight. His dismissal of the kidney and letter as a hoax, the surprise at Lewis being found as the Ripper, his skill with the blade. Saved from a rapist....by a serial killer.

She couldn't help but laugh, a mad, hysterical sound bubbling up from her. Shifting, she rolled bonelessly off of the bed, slowly picking herself up from the floor and looking at him through a wild veil of her sweat and blood matted hair, uncaring now that she was completely nude save for the blood of her former attacker (the imposter it seemed).

"...g-going to hurt me...George? Going to c-cut me up....like t-the others?" she murmured softly, taking a few slow, shuffling steps towards him, her head tilted back slightly on her neck, an unhealthy looking smile twisting her lips. "J-jealous George....t-that your imposter g-got....his hands on m-me first....almost f-finished me off?" she crooned, both her eyes, the working and the blind staring at him intently. She ambled right up to him if he didn't move, her bloody hands reaching up towards him. This isn't real....it doesn't matter...and even if it is...I've had enough... whispered thoughts in her head. She had found the Ripper, maybe that was the point, maybe it wasn't, but on some level she was proud to know the "truth" at least.

George did not shrink away from her as she neared. He was not squimish about blood or even her scars (which he particularly liked now that he could lay his eyes upon them). Contact was made between the two, a smile still on his visage as she spoke. Normally you're not my type Annie but I'll make an exception."

Her protests of this reality only caused him to grin, the razor lifting to press to her neck, the cold steel of it pressing against her throat. The Ripper's victims had their throats slashed from left to right as he did with Lewis, attacks from behind. Now the blade would go from right to left as it bit into flesh seeping her own blood down her throat.

"Not real?" Sharp pain coursed through her neck as instant wooziness set in on her. George smiled at her as she lost balance and slumped to her knees. "I'll be kind, Annie, I'll make this quick."

"Annie! Annie!" Slowly she regained focus standing their on the hiking trail. Beth near her as the other girl spoke to her. "Teach says to catch up, stop being so slow."

Slowly it all came rushing back, the pain in her throat had been gone and she was no longer in London but rather on a hiking trip at a college isolated by the mainland to her knowledge.

No, not yet, tonight ... Aegir thought, again he was in the trees casting his eyes upon her. He would take her alright, she was desirable enough, but when he did her mind and body would be intact, he would feel her in the physical world not in a mental existence where pleasure was only received by the input of the minds on him as the feed looped back on itself.

For the longest while there were few things to look forward to though this was clearly one of them.

She didn't blink at his reply, instead raising her hands to grip his lapels gently, memorizing the face of the Ripper. Not real not real not real repeated the mantra in her mind, dismissing this nightmare for what it was, regardless of the truth. She barely registered the cold steel of the razor against her throat and made no move to pull away. If dying was the way out of her torment and this mockery of a world, then so be it. At least this was merciful compared to the fate Lewis had in mind for her.

The pain of the blade biting into her skin was brief and sharp, them fading into a warm numbness as her lifeblood seeped out. She felt herself fall, felt the floor meet her on the way down. It was like slipping back into the dark well inside herself really, only so much deeper...



Anne's head snapped back sharply, her breath catching with a start as she came out of the illusion, her eye blinking rapidly before focusing on her classmate. She nodded mutely at the other girl and slowly raised a hand to her throat, breathing a sigh of relief at the unbroken skin beneath her fingers. As Beth walked away Anne followed, the "dream" slowly fading from her thoughts, as that was all it had been she now felt sure. The lack of restful sleep in the last few weeks, combined with her boredom, had put her into a waking dream that, given her recent circumstances, had understandably turned horrific.

Absently brushing her fingers through her hair to make sure it was in place, she shuffled off to rejoin her class, still a bit unsettled, but rapidly calming down in the soothing warmth of the sunlight filtering down through the trees. Only a dream....only a dream....



~Fin~