Back in the day, there was this blind man in our village getting hitched.

  My family was still living there at the time.

  The guy was over forty and, rumor had it, he'd shelled out a fortune to buy himself a wife from Vietnam.

  Normally, when folks in the village tied the knot, we'd be right there in the thick of it, sharing in the joy and soaking up the good vibes.

  But on the blind man's big day, my parents shut the door tight early on and wouldn't let me set foot outside.

  When I asked why, all they said was I was too young to understand.

  Daytime was quiet as a mouse, but things got real spooky once night fell.

  First off, there was this torrential downpour, and the air reeked of something fishy.

  Half-asleep, I kept hearing a knock at the door.

  Weird thing was, I seemed to be the only one who could hear it.

  As that fishy smell grew stronger, I swallowed back the nausea and dozed off.

  In my dream, there was this woman in a scarlet veil, her lips painted a deep, blood-red.

  She beckoned to me, her hands as white as freshly fallen snow.

  She didn't utter a word, just smiled that eerie smile.

  When I balked at following her, she reached out, grabbed my hand, and yanked.

  Her hand was ice-cold, the kind of cold you only feel from the dead.

  I woke up in a cold sweat to find myself in an old, abandoned graveyard.

  The rain was still coming down in sheets, drenching me to the bone.

  I took off running for home as fast as my legs could carry me.

  But after just a few steps, there she was–the woman in the red wedding dress, smiling and waving at me up ahead.

  No matter which way I turned, she was always there, inching closer each time.

  I was scared stiff, but my voice seemed stuck in my throat.

  As I backed up, I suddenly stepped on something soft.

  I looked back and saw it was the blind man.

  Just as I was about to call out to him, a bolt of lightning split the sky, and I let out a scream.

  The blind man was slumped against a tombstone, clearly gone.

  His eyes were missing, leaving behind two gaping, bloody holes.

  My knees buckled.

  At that moment, I was sure I was a goner.

  And then, out of nowhere, he showed up.

  He was dressed in a way that seemed straight out of a period drama on TV.

  His long hair flowed down his shoulders, black as midnight.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The rain was pelting down, but not a single drop touched him.

  I stared, dumbfounded.

  There was something dangerously alluring about him, with those slightly upturned thin lips and those smiling, almond-shaped eyes.

  But a shiver of fear ran through me, the kind you get when you're face-to-face with something way more powerful than you.

  Stranger still, the second he appeared, the woman in the red dress vanished.

  He walked over to me, that smile still playing on his lips.

  "I've been waiting for you for ages, and here you are, still just a kid," he said, reaching out his hand.

  "Come on, let me take you home."

  He took my hand, and I felt a wave of dizziness wash over me.

  After what felt like forever, I caught a glimpse of a pair of beautiful hands slipping something onto my left ring finger.

  "When you grow up, use this to get something good," he murmured softly.

  Then, everything went black.

  When I came to, I was back home.

  My mother had been crying her eyes out, they were all red and puffy.

  They told me I'd been running a sky-high fever and had almost kicked the bucket.

  When I asked about the graveyard, everyone looked at me like I'd lost my mind and said I hadn't even left the house.

  But on my left hand, there it was–a grass ring.

  After I recovered, the blind man's family held a funeral.

  The village chief said they'd died from food poisoning and there was no saving them.

  But when I got close to the coffin, I caught a faint whiff of that same fishy, bloody smell.

  To this day, I still have no clue how the blind man and his wife met their end.

  Not long after that, my family moved to the city.

  If it wasn't for that grass ring that popped up in my memories now and then, I'd have sworn it was all just a crazy dream.

  My parents worked their tails off.

  They started out selling clothes from a street stall and now they've got a pretty decent-sized wholesale business going.

  But they never gave themselves credit; they were convinced it was all because of my good fortune.

  I'm Anna.

  Apparently, when I was little, my mom took me to a monastery.

  A monk there said I had some kind of extraordinary destiny and was blessed by the heavens, that I could turn any trouble into a stroke of luck.

  My parents weren't religious or anything, but they latched onto those words like they were gospel.

  And it did seem like I had a charmed life.

  Whatever I set my sights on, I usually got without breaking much of a sweat.

  Like when I applied to college, I barely studied for three years and still managed to squeak by and get into my top choice.

  Now, as I was on the cusp of turning eighteen, I had just about everything an eighteen-year-old could want.

  But that year, things took a turn.

  I started having these recurring dreams, all chaotic and messed up.

  There was this man who'd smile at me.

  He was in green robes, with long, narrow eyes and a devilishly handsome smile.

  But the kicker was, he had the lower body of a snake.

  Every time, he'd slither closer with that long, serpentine tail of his.

  His breath smelled sweet, but with a hint of blood.

  I always thought I was doomed, that there was no escape.

  But at the last possible second, another figure would materialize in my dream.

  All I could make out was his face was kind of blurry, except for those piercing, almond-shaped eyes that seemed to hold a world of secrets.

  He always managed to fend off the snake-tailed guy just in the nick of time.

  The snake-tailed man would glare at him with pure hatred.

  I had no idea who these two were, but I knew deep down they weren't your average, run-of-the-mill humans.

  These dreams went on for a month.

  Then, just like that, they stopped.

  But that's when the real trouble started.

  I began coughing up blood.

  The doctors at the hospital were stumped; they couldn't find a thing wrong with me.

  But I was coughing up more blood each day until I had no choice but to be hospitalized.

  I was living on daily blood transfusions just to stay alive.

  My parents, who'd been so upbeat at first, were now worried sick and looking glum all the time.

  Even when my grandfather passed away, I couldn't make it back to the village.

  My father went back to handle the funeral arrangements while my mother and older brother stayed by my side in the hospital.

  I was the only one in the ward.

  My mother gently wiped my face and asked in a hushed tone,

  "Anna, sweetie, can I go get you some water?"

  In a daze, I nodded.

  She hurried out.

  Maybe because of that special mother-daughter bond, I'd never told her about my nightmares.

  But ever since these dreams started, she'd been on edge, always sticking close whenever she could.

  Probably from all the blood loss, I was in a fog, neither fully asleep nor fully awake.

  I'd turn my head now and then to watch the birds flitting by outside the window.

  I was staring off into space when suddenly, something started inching up the window frame from below.

  I squinted, and my heart skipped a beat.

  It looked like... hair!

  I wanted to look away, but my eyes were glued.

  I could only watch, helpless, as a face slowly emerged.

  It was the man with the snake tail!

  Cold sweat broke out all over me in an instant.

  I pinched my palm hard.

  It hurt.

  This was no dream.

  The man with the snake tail was here, in the flesh!

  And we were on the eighth floor!

  How the heck had my nightmare come to life?!