“Melissa, it’s eight in the morning already. You’re not gonna make it to breakfast before class if you don’t get up.”

Drew Sanders, a twenty-year old man with blond hair and dark skin, got no reply from the girl whose dorm he currently stood in front of. He reasoned that, like many nights before, Melissa had stayed up late playing video games again. Probably fell asleep queuing for a match and was kicked for inactivity. He knew his friend well enough, which was why he took the time out of his day to get her up.

If only he was the only one who had worked this into his morning routine. A look to his left, and then a glance behind him, told him he was incorrect. Two women stood at his side, all made friends due to one Melissa Roger. He considered himself lucky though, they were good people, if a little unique.

One of the girls, Lucy Francois, had a look of elegance to her. The custom designer clothes marked her as far higher class than anyone around her. Then there was the dyed purple hair, short and unkempt. It, along with the way one of her eyelids twitched and the impatient tapping of her finger against her thigh showed a high contrast between how she looked and who she truly was.

Then there was the girl behind them both, having not said a single thing to either of them yet that morning. Everyone called her by the nickname “Dragon”, due to her tendency to fall to grunting and growling when words failed to reach her lips. Compared to both Drew and Lucy, she was decently less thin. Her dyed blue hair, something Lucy had insisted she tried no matter how many times she tried to say no, reached down her back halfway.

Each of them stood in silence for a moment before Drew let out a sigh. He slouched a bit, a part of him was tired of having to do this so often. If Melissa studied a bit, perhaps he could understand her staying up so late. Yet all three of them knew that, for how smart the girl was and how decent her grades were, she wouldn’t have anyone catch her studying.

“I’ve never seen someone so willing to ruin their sleep schedule for reasons so counterproductive,” Lucy said, voice filled with anger. “I get it, she's been through some shit and doesn't actively enjoy sleeping. Doesn't mean she should obliterate her sleep schedule like this.”

“You are assuming she had one in the first place,” Drew replied, the exasperation in his voice clear as can be.

“It is worrisome,” Dragon replied, the sudden inclusion of her voice catching both her friends off guard.

Drew and Lucy turned to Dragon, the girl looking away at the sudden attention on her. Lucy knew she was right though, nothing about Melissa’s life was healthy. As far as they all knew she could have only gotten about two hours of actual sleep. If only they knew a means to get her to be a little healthier.

“Yo, Melli, get your ass up already!” Lucy shouted as she turned back to the door. Drew tried to shush her, but Lucy didn’t listen as she started banging heavily on the door. “You don’t want me breaking down your door, right? Wake up and get out here now!”

“Break the… what?!” Drew asked, eyes wide as he looked at the girl next to him. Dragon took a step back, knowing what was about to take place. “Lucy, you do realize this is a college dorm right? You can’t just go breaking down doors.”

“Actually I can,” Lucy told him, a smug look on her face.

“Parents investing heavily in the school does not give you permission to break into someone's private space, and either way it is still school property,” Drew told her, crossing his arms. “I’m pretty sure the trouble you would get into for that is not worth it.”

“It is if it means getting Melli’s lazy ass up,” Lucy said with her finger pointed at the man, the smug look on her face growing as she leaned forward. “Besides, when have consequences ever stopped me before?”

Dragon sighed and shook her head as her friends squabbled, unsure of how the two dealt with each other given their personalities. Knowing it would take a while for them to stop, she opened her phone up and decided to rewatch highlights from last Sunday's football game. She couldn’t help but feel giddy inside seeing how good they were now. The important thing in that moment, however, was that it drowned out the sound of the two individuals before her.

If Melissa managed to sleep through this, Dragon would take the time out of her day to print a fake certificate of congratulations.

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A tv shined on with a game displayed on it, though most of its content was dimmed as a message saying “you were kicked for inactivity” was displayed on it. Directly across from a computer monitor, wrapped up in a blanket and sleeping in an office chair, was a girl. She had dirty brown hair down to her waist, was around five foot seven, and had very pale skin. She wore a white t-shirt with the design of a black skull and bones on it that was too big for her, covering her thighs, and blue thigh-high socks. A controller rested on her lap, her hands pressing down on both sticks.

The previous night had been like many nights before. She refused the call to sleep till her body forced her, grinding away at ranked matches in a forever journey to improve her skills. She was so used to the light of the tv that it couldn’t keep her awake, despite her being a rather light sleeper overall. What could wake her up, as it had many times before, was the sound of arguing outside her door.

She groaned, her body stiff and unhappy with how she had fallen asleep. The noise outside her door registered but meant nothing to her sleep-addled mind. She tried to open her eyes but regretted it instantly as the light from her monitor pierced into her eyes. That woke her up more than the noise did, a hand reaching up to her eyes in an attempt to cover them while the other instinctively went to the controller on her lap. With a press of a button, she brought herself back to the home screen of her console to take a look at the time.

“Just around eight in the morning,” She says. With a sigh, she stretches her back and shoulders. “Whelp, earlier than I usually wake up. At least I won’t be rushing to get a bagel from the dining hall.”

She removed the blanket from on top of her. With a soft smile, she patted her thighs before practically sliding off her chair and onto the floor. From there, her muscles found the strength to make her stand up and she walked to the dresser that stood at the end of her mess of a bed. There was still noise from the other side of the door, but she ignored it. Pants were far more important.

If she had been down south she might have considered wearing shorts, but a Vermont winter was nothing like a Georgia one. She learned well how it could be during her freshman year, and while she hated it at first it became one of the reasons she stayed in the north. Well, that and finally being able to start her transition away from her mother. It didn’t even take her a month after arriving for her to start it, and that summer one of her friends offered to house her so she didn’t have to go home.

She still didn’t feel like she had thanked Lucy enough for that.

With a pair of baggy black jeans on, Melissa stretched out once again. At the sound of a rather loud thud against her door, she finally turned to it. Melissa walked over to the door and went to press her ear next to it. She flinched back as it visibly shook from another hit against it. Voices could be heard from the other side, and while she couldn’t make out the words well she knew who was speaking. With a shake of her head, she opened the door and prepared to face the day.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Instead, Melissa was tackled onto the floor as Lucy, with Drew doing his best to hold her back, charged into her room having not expected the door to open. Drew, in turn, was pulled in by Lucy’s strength and landed on top of both girls with a surprised shout. Dragon watched it all from the hallway, mouth just slightly ajar as she saw what she could only explain as a scene out of her brother’s many animes. Pausing the football highlights on her phone, she flipped to her camera and took a picture.

“That is one for the books,” she said, not bothering to help Melissa as the girl’s limbs searched for any way out of the pile she was under. “You are so not forgetting this.”

“I would prefer that you don’t,” Drew replied, voice muffled due to talking into Lucy’s back.

Drew crawled off of Lucy and gave a disapproving glare to Dragon. They looked away from Drew sheepishly, trying to do her best to act like she had done nothing by returning to her football highlights. As that happened, Melissa recovered from the blow that sent her to the floor and looked at Lucy. Any concern for the girl turned into a mixture of euphoria and embarrassment as she noticed the french girl’s face lying comfortably on her small chest. It made getting knocked to the ground just slightly worth it.

“Enjoying yourself, Lu?” Melissa asked with a slight chuckle.

Lucy’s response came in the form of a pointer finger being held up inches from Melissa’s nose. For another five seconds, she laid face first in her friend's chest to enjoy the feeling before finally rising. Lucy didn’t get off Melissa completely, the trans girl’s legs held hostage by her. It did allow Melissa to get to sit up, look at Drew, and give the man a friendly wave.

“They seem to have grown again. Congrats gal!” Lucy shoutied, patting one of Melissa’s breasts. Melissa looked away in more than slight embarrassment, Drew giving Lucy a disappointed look and Dragon silently chuckling behind them all. “We need to do this more often.”

“We really shouldn’t,” Drew replied with a shake of his. He got up and forced Lucy to her feet, finally allowing Melissa to get back on her own. “Sorry about this, Mel. I tried to stop her.”

“You good. Oh, and hey Dragon!” Melissa said, leaning over a bit and waving to the last of her closest friends. They gave a small, subtle wave back, and Melissa turned her attention back to Drew. “Yeah, though, don’t worry Drew. You weren’t the things that woke me up.”

“That isn’t what I meant but… whatever,” Drew replied, throwing his hands up in defeat before turning around and starting to walk down the hall. “Come on. Now that you are up we should get some food.”

Melissa nodded and, feeling her neck was still rather stiff, used her hands to help stretch it till she felt a couple of cracks and pops. Lucy started walking in front of her, and Melissa turned to Dragon. They motioned for her to go ahead, and she gave a nod and started after Lucy. Melissa knew that Dragon was following behind them given the sound of additional footsteps behind her. It was rather normal for the girl, for she was far more antisocial than the rest of them.

“So… they were soft right?” Melissa asked Lucy. The French girl gave her a large smile and confident nod, an answer that left a blush on Melissa’s face. “I’m… I’m glad.”

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In a realm rather different from ours, a plush doll ran as far and as fast as its legs could carry it. Considering both the size and stride of its pursuers, the doll shouldn’t have had any chance of outrunning those chasing it. Even more so, given the ever-stretching hallway before it, filled with blood red light as well as pitch black shadow and bare walls, floors, and ceiling made of some moving undefined surface, nowhere seemed safe to hide. If this was Earth, her pursuers would catch her in no time and they would tear her body from her head, showing that it wasn’t stuffing that filled her but an ooze that had the same color as oil.

This realm, however, was not Earth. Any human from it would be at the whims of the creatures who inhabited and controlled it, and the doll was one of those creatures. It seemed to be made completely of wool, stitched together to look vaguely like Little Red Riding Hood. The changes came in its very real, carnivorous teeth and the fact its mouth engulfed all that should have been a head and face. There was no nose, eyes, ears, or hair hiding under the doll’s hood, just stitched flesh and a mouth that belonged to a shark more than a doll.

The truth about the hallway was that, while it belonged to a creature with far more power and control over this realm than the doll, said doll had managed to use its power to temporarily override that of the owner. The stretching of the hall was not before it but behind it, the doll’s pursuers not only having to cover more distance due to this alone. It wouldn’t last forever, for even now the master of the abode it found itself in was crushing the little control it had gained over her current location. As that power faded more and more, and it could see without turning its maw–head the outline of its pursuer’s, the doll decided to do something risky.

As it was already a traitor to its kind, the punishment for being caught and doing this action was the exact same. However, that was not why it was considered risky. The doll knew that seeing how it was still daytime on Earth, it would have no power once it arrived. Any blade, any fire, and, probably the scariest one to the doll, any dog would be able to kill it with ease. The doll had always planned on switching realms as soon as it had decided what side it was on, but doing it now was both a risk to itself and the cause it had decided to fight for.

Stopping in the middle of the hallway, it reached into a pocket in its hood and pulled out a pin. It took the shape of a shield and was made of material both the same as the building around the doll yet… happier. That was the only way it could describe the living, blue tint that the entire pin had to it other than being hot as a volcano. The doll knew that it was deathly important to get this into someone's hands, but it had no idea whose hands it had to be. Perhaps if it had more time it could have found out, but that wasn’t an option.

“The traitor is there! Quickly!”

Realizing that it was spending far too much time staring at the pin, the doll put it back in its pocket and focused on the ground. With all its might it wrestled just enough control from the hall’s true master to fulfill two things. The first was to make sure the hall elongated just a little bit more so that the claw that had just nearly caught its cloak didn’t grab it. The second was ripping the floor in front of it open, a crack of bright white light blinding all and causing her pursuers to let out an inhuman screech of pain. Turning around, the doll gave its pursuers a horrifying grin as it slowly stepped toward the hole.

“Whelp, thanks for the knight’s pin folks. Give the night terror my regards,” The doll said with several very different-sounding voices at the same time. One voice sounded young while another was old, one masculine while the other feminine, and all together they were both coherent and unnatural sounding. “Now, if you don’t mind, toddles!”

That last sentence was said as its pursuers, human-like quadrupedal beasts who were incomprehensible save for their lanky limbs and strained eyes, tried to swipe and grab it. The doll had jumped out of the claw’s way, falling back first into the crevasse it made and being engulfed by the light. As soon as they disappeared from sight, the crevasse sealed itself up and disappeared from existence. Both pursuers looked at each other in fear, which seemed rather ironic considering what they truly were.

“This is not good,” the first pursuer stated, shaking its head. “One pin escaped. Even if only one, as long as the pin is not in the night terror’s hands, the more danger his plans are in.”

“Then we must retrieve it immediately! We must follow the traitor to the realm of reality,” the second said. Its response prompted an immediate and rather hard hit over the head from the first.

“You fool. We are nightmares just like the traitor and would be as powerless as it is right now,” the first reminded the second. “Our only option is to tell the night terror and hope he is merciful.”

“He is never merciful! You ask me to walk to my death!” the second replies in terror, its lanky limbs shivering as if a sudden cool breeze had passed through. “I do not want to die just yet.”

“Then you shouldn’t have grown lax in your guard!” the first reprimanded as it turned around, forcing the second to turn with it. “Now come. If we are to die, at least we shall die together.”

As the first started to walk exceedingly and purposefully slow, the second nodded in response. There were no more words said, for both did not want to accept the inevitable death that they would face. Sadly for them, they were just another cog in the machines of an evil far greater than they could ever hope to be. The only solace that any of them could find was that, by relaying the events they had witnessed to their master, they would aid in his plan’s success. Plans that would make all nightmares thrive as they had never thrived before.

Yes, though they may die, the night terror would assure all their kin would be fat and happy.