Nightmare of a Nightmare.
“Maybe we’ll see each other again some day!” You murmur the words to yourself, shockingly blue eyes staring down at the note in your hands in disbelief. Pushing up your glasses, you fall back onto the couch, a hand diving into your shirt to pull out your Nanna’s ring, strung on a necklace string. You feel numb. Like you’re in a dream. But your dreams never felt like dreams. They felt real, they felt terrifying, they used to smell like rotting blood and spoiled fruit and cold sweat from your fear.
When you met her, you didn’t trust her. Not a bit. She looked like some skeletal, blue-green, two-mouthed Cheshire cat horror, her huge, yellowed fangs bared in an eternal grin. Her nose was just nostrils, pushed up and pressed into her blue head, only a few inches from her stringy, gross black hair. Those cat ear horns looked at the same time dull, but sharp enough to make you hurt if she rammed you.
But her eyes.
They were huge, the whites a light, slightly glowing orange, surrounding the deep olive green of her irises and the void black of her pupils. But they were the most human thing about her- somewhere, in those terrifyingly beautiful eyes, you saw a girl, manipulated just like you as black tar tears spilled from those pretty eyes, clawed pawhands coming up to hide her hideous face as she turned away from you in embarrassment.
And you reached over to place a shaking hand on her shoulder, hoarse voice saying that you’d help her, that you’d trust her.
With a shuddering, unbelieving laugh, she turned back to you, your cringe at her appearance obvious. But that grin spread to her eyes, and she’s thanking you, you’re smiling nervously as she wipes away the oily liquid from her face and composes herself as she thinks of somewhere for you to hide.
Oh, if only you had seen the triumphant glimmer in those evil eyes.
You’d followed her and crept disgustedly into a filthy room that she said to stay in as she led her brothers away from here, so you could wait to wake up, finally feeling well rested, not sitting up and screaming as you had many times before, shaking into your father’s arms as he whispered to you that you were fine, it was only a nightmare, they would stop one day, he promised you that they’d stop.
She purred and licked your cheek before running out, saying carefully, quietly, that she was sure you’d be safe, just don’t make a sound and you’ll be fine.
You catch a light in her eyes that you didn’t before, but she was gone before you could identify it.
It felt like forever was creeping by you as you chose the least dirty corner to sit in, biting at your nails to pass the time, and you almost scream when you hear something being dragged faintly and it’s coming closer please no please let it walk past this room you know that sound and it’s the masks with no mouths moaning about his hunger and you’re shaking as it stops and breathes so raggedly as he turns and you can see his shadow he’s coming for you as he steps in the room and his neck is cracking twisting as that frightfully joyful mask turns to you and suddenly he’s over there how is he so fast picking you up as you scream for mercy to let you go you don’t know what you did but you’re sorry and you stop as you’re shoved into his drooling maw pain blossoming all over your body as his mangled teeth crunch your bones and he’s moaning about how delicious you are and you’re screaming as you wake up, tears rolling down your face as Dad runs in and wraps his warm arms around you and rocks you gently and gives you the same words he always tells you.
You vow to run from all of them. None of them are anything but monsters sent to torment you.
A week of more dreams in that filthy, blood-rotten castle and you see her again, sitting in a room with drawings all over the walls. You take advantage of her apparent obliviousness to your arrival to look at them, and you discover that they’re done by her- none of the other that you’ve seen have claws like hers, and while there is obvious ability, it is ruined by stiff keratin fingers, the only thing she has to draw with. You turn around and almost screech when you realize she’s been staring at you, but it dies in your throat when you chance a look at her eyes and you find sorrow, regret.
There’s even fear in those eyes.
Black goo wells in her still-beautiful eyes and her second mouth, the one that makes it look like there’s a young girl jammed inside a horrible costume, opens and shuts, and after a minute she just turns away from you, shaking slightly and ignoring you as you crawl out of the tiny entrance to her room, running as fast as you can away from her, tripping and falling and scraping your elbows with a pained grunt and you hear a shockingly human voice sobbing.
”I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
You wake up with a jolt as your alarm rings, and you know that you must have spent a lot of time in her room, the only safe place you know of in there because of that too-small doorway.
There’s a nagging in your head about her words.
You could have sworn that you heard a faint French accent woven into that little girl’s voice, laced with terror as she apologized to someone.
You wonder if she was always like that.
You remind yourself that she isn’t real.
Two days pass. You’re getting more sleep because you’ve snuck back into her room, grateful that she wasn’t in there either time. You’re walking home from school, the smallest smile gracing your lips for the first time in months, when you see the blue cat hat hiding behind the ancient Ghost pogo ride stuck in your lawn.
A young girl, fifteen at the most, is curled up behind the green toy, naked and shivering against the wind as she sniffles, looking up at the house and wincing visibly. You take another step forward, then stop, staring at the girl.
You know that voice.
You’ve heard her sobbing.
Begging for “him” to stop before lapsing into French.
You take a deep breath, shove up your glasses, and adjust your backpack before striding up to her and demanding to know who she is. She screams and falls forward, crawling a little ways before turning around and you recognize her it’s her how did she get here and you snap back to reality when you realize she doesn’t have any clothes on. Your face starts to burn as you glance away, focusing on the pogoride and asking what she’s doing here. She sniffles and whimpers and doesn’t answer your question, closing her beautifully human eyes and pulling her arms over her head to try and seem weak, useless, unthreatening to you. You ask her again, sounding gruff with anger and she flinches, finally answering you with some babble about “Gray faces” and “Human for three days”.
You look back at her and she looks away from you, clear tears pouring down her face as she waits for you to… To what? You murmur for her to stand up, and she does so, staring down at the ground as she just /waits/ for you to be “him” and to hurt her again.
And something inside you just falls down and you’re so gentle as you place a hand on her shoulder to turn her around and lead her into your house, walking quickly as she pauses at the door and a shadow crosses her face, “he” did something to her in a doorway. You whisper for her to come on and she does, letting you close the door behind her as she awaits her sentence. Telling her to stay there, you drop your backpack where you stand and run across the room, up the steps and stumbling on a wire as you enter your room, going straight to your dresser. You grab your Slimer shirt and a pair of boxers and trot back downstairs, where she’s stayed in the exact same position.
You’re too gentle with her as you tap her shoulder and hold up the clothing, which she gives a confused look, and you help her get into them, averting your eyes as she steps into /your/ boxers. She’s finally stopped shivering and the faintest, catlike smile is on her face, and you smile to yourself with the shy thought that she’s really cute in your clothes.
You blush when you realize that you thought that, and telling her to follow you, you lead her into the kitchen and sit her down- gently, gently, she’s fragile- and grab a clean dishtowel, sitting across from her and holding her chin up to wipe those salty clear tears from her olive skinned cheeks. She asks you something, too low, and you tell her to repeat that because you didn’t understand it, and she asks you.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Treat others how you want to be treated.”
Your response looks like it makes her want to cry again, and you’re treating her like a priceless heirloom as you give her a sad smile and wipe her eyes like they’re fragile gems that you’re polishing.
A choked laugh slips from her.
Your smile grows happier.
Three days have passed. She- No. You and Napate have become friends, actual friends. She’s positively adorable when she sees you and /beams/, running over to you when you come home from school and clinging to you in a hug, babbling happily about how she’d missed you again and purring when you laugh and tell her you’ve missed her too. Last night, you showed her Night Rider, and she’d loved it, falling asleep as the credits rolled, leaning against you as you shared a blanket.
You’re glad that Dad is out on that business trip.
But Napate’s shyly tapping your shoulder as you spoon out ice cream, looking sad as you ask what’s up, and you realize that this was her last day here. In reality. You correct yourself- yourself-this is her last day in your plane of existence as a human. Big difference. Sighing, you set her bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough on the table, sitting next to her as she plops down, looking at you nervously and asking what’s wrong.
“Nothin’, Napate.”
You pass it off with a lighthearted laugh, but she isn’t buying it.
“I hate to say this, John,”
An odd shiver goes through when she says your name.
“But I know when you’re lying. I’ve done enough of it to recognize when others do it.”
You just shake your head, mouth full of ice cream.
“Are you scared that I’ll go back to…”
She trails off, but you know what she was saying. You swallow your ice cream and wince as it freezes your head.
“Yeah, alright, I am.”
You say it rather irritably and you’re sorry for that. But she sighs, prodding her own treat with her spoon. “I don’t think I can do it,” she says, and she sounds so defeated and you vow right then and there to make her last hours here the best she’s had and to never run from her. “Do what?” You inquire, looking over at her and you see with a start that she’s on the verge of tears. “I can’t go back, John,” she forces out. “Not after this. Not after being here and human. I want to live. I want to stay here with you and watch movies and eat food that’s delicious because I’ve never had any of it before and fall asleep and not have to listen to Father anymore.”
And she breaks down, palms coming up to cover her beautiful face as she turns away from you, glassdrop tears pouring from her eyes and you’re back in that room with her as tar drips from her eyes, those pretty fangs hidden behind her soft paws and-
You’re hugging her, rubbing circles into her back as she cries her heart out, blinking the memory and change of view away as you promise her that she doesn’t have to, you’ll help her.
“It’s just a nightmare, Napate, it’ll go away and you’ll wake up here with me.”
“Purromise?”
“Promise.”
You smile down at her and she grins back up at you with those odd clear tears still streaking down her face, and you chuckle, reminding her about her ice cream. She laughs, a sound that’s become music to your ears, and scrubs away her sadness, diving into her favorite sweet with gusto.
You watch another movie with her, looking at the clock as it came to a close to see that your estimated time of her return to the Nightmare was fast approaching. You suggest that you both go outside and she agrees with you, practically skipping out and seating herself on the ghost toy with that cute catty grin, dressed in your white Slimer shirt and a baggy pair of shorts. Only a few days ago, you think to yourself, was she curled behind this thing, as terrified as you in her world.
With a laugh, she darts up to you, lightly- like holding a prized bunny toy- prodding your chest and running away again, shrieking playfully when you give chase around the tree and tire swing, all the way into the backyard and around the swing set too. Panting, she plops down on a swing, grinning triumphantly as she crows delightedly that she evaded you, and you shake your head, breathing hard as you give the excuse that you were going easy on her.
She cackles and says sure you were as you come around to lean over her, smirking. She turns her head to smile up at you and for a moment you feel soft skin against your cheek, and the odd thought strikes you that she’d given you a kiss.
A soft giggle brings you out of your thoughts again and you blink as olive eyes look into your own shockingly blue ones, the light making it look like there was blue in hers for a second. You step back and pull her swing chains with you, letting them go to gain a surprised, happy gasp from Napate as she’s using a swing for the first time. You do this for a while with her, smiling to yourself- when you do it again, you’re thinking about her and you got knocked over. How did she hop down so fast, you wonder, as she asks if you’re alright.
You laugh and say yeah, you think too much as she helps you up, a surprising amount of strength in her as she pulls you up with one arm and no help from you. She sits in your lap to look you over and you blush, still smiling as she scolds you for getting distracted and stands, pulling you with her.
Habitually, you look down at your watch, and realize with a feeling of your stomach twisting that there’s only a few minutes left that you have with her. She sees the look on your face and seems to guess the same thing, sighing and leaning against you with her face hidden in your shirt, and your arms come around her to hold on to her because- because-
You don’t want her to go.
She’s murmuring something and you lean back to look at her confusedly, and she blushes for the first time that you’ve seen and clears her throat.
“John, I- “I mean, I, uh- “I just-
She gives up with trying to tell you whatever it is and asks how much time she has left. You tell her about twenty seconds. Her eyes close, and she’s concentrating on something as seconds slide by on a steep icy slope, too fast, nine, eight, seven-
Her hands come up to cup your face and gently pull you down.
She kisses you, shyly, sweetly, too gently.
Three, two, one.
She fades away, and you’re left with the feeling of her lips on her own, tasting of vanilla cookie dough.
You want her back.
You open your eyes to the familiar room.
She’s busy drawing a new picture. This one’s different.
There’s a boy to the left, with black hair full of cowlicks, wearing a white Slimer t-shirt with shorts.
The other thing you can’t see; She’s busy with it at the moment.
Then she shifts downward, dipping her beautiful paint-splattered claws in red, and you see a girl.
Her black hair is messy under a blue cat hat, her outfit matching yours with a blue cat tail slithers down from behind her baggy shorts.
Napate stands up again and your view is blocked, but she only takes a few minutes with her addition. Stepping back to look at it, she sighs, sadly but happily, and turns away to move her paints, and you see a large red heart between the two pictures.
You wake up before you can say anything and before she sees you.
Weeks pass.
You have been planning ways to help Napate return to being human, and none of them are working.
You open your eyes to the completely familiar room yet again, and a shiver of terror runs through you when you don’t see Napate with you. You hesitate before calling her name in a hoarse-sounding whisper, but the only response you get is an echo.
An hour seems to pass and Napate’s slinking through her door, shaking, those eyes that are normally bright with joy dull with fear. You run over to her, no longer scared to touch her admittedly ugly but beautiful form, and she leans against you, trying to find words.
“Father knows.”
The words are said and you freeze, holding onto her too tightly, you don’t want to lose her forever, you wouldn’t be able to deal with that because you l-
“He said he needs the book to make me human.”
You tense further before relaxing your grip.
“I’m guessing you don’t trust him?”
She shakes her head and sighs.
“I don’t doubt that he can make me human. I doubt that his promise to make me such and not to touch you if I am obedient until we retrieve it is true, however.”
You blink. She’d said she’d be obedient to him if he didn’t touch you?
She purrs raggedly and leans against you.
A faint, worriedly smile comes onto your face.
“I know where the book is. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before I get it!” You say cheerfully.
She chuckles.
“I hope so, John.”
A pleasant shiver runs down your spine when she says your name.
A month slips by. Jake has revealed himself again and you’re pissed at him for refusing to give up the book. You’ve gotten to know some of the nightmares better, thanks to your new immunity granted by Napate’s Father. All they want is the book, but they also don’t want it- they fear that they’ll fall back asleep when they get it. You swear that they won’t.
But one day you wake up and Napate is curled against you, wearing the clothes she’d last been in and sleeping fretfully. Your heart soars and you shift to hold her against you, carefully pulling off her hat to stroke her hair in a calming manner, and she falls into a deeper, calmer sleep. You fall back to sleep.
You don’t dream.
This time, the magic making Napate human wasn’t quite explained, and neither of you know when it’ll end. She ends up living with you for two, three, four months, and things gently turn to a loving relationship. Your beautiful girlfriend Napate lives with you, tending to stay in the house. But you’re teaching her. She learned VERY quickly how to read, write, do math, and various other things, and she was soon helping you with your math work. You both despise it.
“I love you, Napate.” You murmur the words to yourself, shockingly blue eyes watery as they stare down at the note in your hands. You finger the ring your Dad gave you, to give to your wife when you grew up. You feel numb. Like you’re in a dream.
But she’s real. You’re holding the evidence of her existence in your hands.
You’re going to find your dream girl, no matter what it takes.
