This is an idea that's been running around in my head for a while, and with release of The Sounds of Nightmares, I thought I'd give it a go.
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In a cupboard under the stairs lies a boy. Dirty, grimy, and far too small, he shivered beneath his thin, holey blanket. It wasn't so bad during the summer months, where the heat stuck to you like a fly on filth. The thinness of the blanket was favorable during those times.
But those times had long passed. It was now deep into fall with winter close enough you could shake its hand. Perhaps he would soon freeze to death, the thought more pleasant than it had any right to be. At least then he might not suffer so much, even if he was carted forth into hell.
A shiver ran through his bony, corpse-like body. He could feel a drowsiness come over him, luring him into the land of dreams. Once upon a time, sleep would offer a refuge to his thoughts and the burdens of his life, one he would gladly seek out. However, recently, his dreams have changed. If one could even call them such.
About a month ago he had visited a castle. Nothing strange about that, at least not at first. Looking at it from the outside, it became apparent, rather quickly, that there was something not quite right about the architecture. It leaned in far too many directions for one, and bulged like a bloated, tumorous whale for another.
A moat protected it from intruders, nearly a hundred feet below, with water so black it may as well have been oil. If he looked hard enough, he could see wiggling underneath the surface. Like a million worms dancing to a tune he couldn't hear.
The air was dank and musty, like an old basement, and carried with it a chill. It was unlike the cold from his cupboard, as the feeling didn't come from the temperature. More like the temperature came from the feeling. It was something else, something that he couldn't explain, coming from a sense he didn't know existed until this very moment.
There was no way to enter the castle, save for an old, rickety rope bridge, covered in moss and vines, and all manner of muck. The boy decided to cross, almost feeling compelled to do so. Like being peer pressured by people who you know don't care about you, but still you obey them in the hope of acceptance.
Although, who he was hoping to be accepted by, he didn't know. He only knew he should cross, and that was that.
He took a step on the bridge, clinging to the stiff, coarse ropes with a desperate need, the muck on the wooden planks somehow both slippery and sticky. The bridge swayed in the gentle breeze as step by step he crossed, trying to ignore the wet squelching sounds he made with every footfall.
He wished now more than ever he was allowed shoes. The feeling of the black sludge, whatever it was, on his bare feet was most uncomfortable.
As he neared the center of the bridge, the wind took that moment to attack, almost like it was waiting in ambush. A fierce gale swept in from the north, and the gently swaying bridge became a tumultuous deathtrap. The boy clung to the rough, worn rope desperately, his hands burning from the effort.
After a few moments that seemed like hours, the wind died down, returning to its previous calm nature. The boy sighed in relief as he fell to his knees. That was too close.
However, nothing is ever so easy.
His ears twitched as a peculiar sound reached them. Like tearing, or perhaps ripping. Turning his head his eyes widened in horror. The ropes holding the bridge together began to unravel, becoming thinner and thinner with each passing second.
Was that why the wind stopped? Because it no longer needed to try and knock him into the murky depths below? Or was that what it was trying for the whole time? Destroy his only means of crossing safely?
There was no time to ponder these things, he had only precious few seconds before the bridge collapsed in its entirety. Ignoring the sludge beneath him, he sprinted across the bridge.
50 feet…
40 feet…
30 feet…
20 feet…
10 feet…
He was almost there. Just a few more feet and he would reach the other side. He wasn't sure if he was sprinting to safety or not, but it had to be better than whatever waited for him below.
Unfortunately, time was not on his side. The rope finally unraveled and the bridge collapsed. He clung to the warped, moldy planks as he fell, swinging toward the cliffedge with startling speed.
He grunted in pain as he careened into the rocky cliff. He breathed deeply, fearfully, with trembling gasps. Too close. That was far too close. Looking down, he could see some of the debris from the now destroyed bridge splash into the water below, agitating whatever lay beneath. The mass of writhing creatures, whatever they were, appeared to try and feast on the debris with a frenzied zeal.
The boy shivered, not from the slight chill lingering in the air, but from imagining it was him and not rotten wood that had fallen. He cursed, not for the first time, his vivid imagination.
He reached up to the next plank of wood, wincing at the groan it made. Carefully and slowly, he made his way to the top. It took longer than he would have liked, but he eventually reached the peak.
Just one more board…
That was when something grabbed him. Something large, larger even than his uncle. It pulled him up with the ease of an elephant lifting a sack of potatoes. The grip was powerful, and so tight he could feel something pop in his shoulder, causing him to cry out in pain.
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Staring at the creature in front of him, the boy recoiled in horror. Its face was human in the loosest meaning of the word. It was wide, impossibly so, with pulsing growths beneath gray skin, stretching it taut. Its nose dangled below its chin, nearly past its neck, with another pulsing growth that seemed to glow faintly.
Its eyes were sunken in past its skull, and so tiny they could barely be seen. Its ears, much like its nose, distended further than they had any right too, with another round, bubble-like growth attached.
The corners of its mouth sagged downwards, with black, oily drool cascading out of it like a rabid bulldog. Lips wriggled and writhed as if there was something underneath trying to escape.
Looking down, he could see the filthy attire the creature wore. A brown, scum covered long sleeved shirt, covered a rotund figure. It was a thick fabric, made to keep out the cold. If it weren't so disgusting, the boy may have envied it for it.
Its legs were tiny, barely taller than the boy himself, yet strong enough to hold its girth. He couldn't tell if it was wearing pants, a distended stomach oozing something foul from its belly button blocked his view.
Long fingers with thick, swollen tips held the boy firm, no matter how much he struggled. They were sticky in a way that reminded him of the gunk on the bridge, without the slippery part.
Whatever the creature was, it wasn't human. More like something pretending to be human, who had learned what a human looks like from a picasso painting.
It regarded him for a moment, head tilted in confusion. The boy wondered if it had ever seen what a real human looked like. He was just glad it wasn't squeezing tight enough to pop him anymore.
The boy then noticed something rather alarming. The growths all around the creature's face began to swell, and a strange gurgling sound emanated from the thing. Not long after, a popping sound rang out, and the areas surrounding the growths deflated, leaving sagging, wrinkled skin.
It then opened its mouth, revealing a long puke green tongue, with countless numbers on tendrils growing out of it. But that wasn't the worst part, not by a long shot.
Out of its rancid smelling maw erupted countles squirming black things, coated in a sickly, yellow mucus. It leaned over the edge of the cliff, and vomited them into the moat below.
So that's what those things were. They looked like some kind of leech crossbred with a lamprey. That's when the boy decided on a name for the creature holding him hostage, The Leecher.
Once it was done depositing what the boy assumed was its young, The Leecher stood straight and returned its attention to the boy. Something he did not want. It seemed to contemplate something once more, before dangling the boy above the brackish waters below.
No, it wouldn't, thought the boy in disbelief. Was he about to be fed to its newly born offspring? He began struggling even harder, but the boy simply had no more strength left to give. His family starving him for years left him weak and lethargic. There was nothing he could do.
The Leecher seemed to smile, the corners of its drooping mouth upturned ever so slightly, before it dropped him. The boy let out a silent scream as he fell. Closer and closer he approached the eager Leeches below, faster than he thought possible.
Was this the end?
Was he going to die here?
No…
No!
"NO!"
With an immense shout, the world around him exploded into a swirling vortex of colors. The rapid movement and spinning made him want to puke. A pop rang out clearly and the boy felt himself being squeezed through a tube. It was almost as unpleasant as being held by The Leecher.
Almost. The smell was better at any rate.
He felt himself falling again, but he couldn't see where. Was he still above the moat, or was he somewhere else? He was far too dizzy to tell. But somehow, there was one thing in perfect focus.
Amidst the swirling colors and fuzzy landscape was a figure even larger than The Leecher. It had saggy gray skin, wrinkled like a bulldog. Not unlike the aforementioned monster.
Its face stretched down to its waist, looking like some kind of melted pachyderm. He couldn't see its eyes, only long oval shaped holes where its eyes should be. He couldn't see a mouth either, probably covered by all that squirming flesh.
On top of its head was a fedora-like hat that somehow seemed too big and too small at the same time. Covering its body was a long trench coat that swayed lightly in the breeze.
It spoke, or at least the boy thought it did, but he couldn't make out the words. The sound of its voice made him shudder, the inhuman noise eliciting a deep unknown fear inside the child. It sounded like thousands of voices speaking at once, garbled in a way that made him think of drowning.
Through it all he could discern only a few words…
Sink…
Sink…
Into the Nowhere…
Sink…
Sink…
Time to sleep…
With those haunting words, the boy woke with a start. Gasping for air like he hasn't taken a breath in minutes. He felt cold and clammy, sick, with sweat clinging to his skin. What was that?
It was just a dream Harry, he told himself, just a dream. But he didn't believe it. He ached all over, his shoulder was out of place, and his hands…
Looking at his hands, even if he couldn't see them in the darkness of his cupboard, he could feel them, the burns he received from the rope as he clung to it for dear life. If it was all just a dream, how did he have these injuries?
Which world was real? Which one was fake? Was he dreaming right now? Or was he awake? Harry didn't know, and that scared him more than anything.
Since then he avoided sleep as best he could, sometimes for days on end. Eventually, he could no longer resist the siren's call, and would drift off to another nightmare.
Sometimes it was a forest, twisted and overgrown, ancient and young, filled with abominations, plant and animal alike, that sought to devour him.
Other times it was a cave, cold and empty, dark and damp, with only the occasional torch to light his path. Shadows danced in the flickering flame with delight, following him wherever he went, stalking him through the endless gloom.
But the worst was the cities, crawling (sometimes literally) with things that appeared human at first, but would quickly shed their guise of humanity at the earliest opportune moment, revealing the monstrosity that hungers beneath, one that devours anything smaller than themselves.
Something that Harry absolutely was.
There was something else about all these locations. One thing that appeared no matter where he went, or how far he traversed, it was always there. A figure, in a hat and trench coat, with a stretched gray face. The same one from that castle.
Was it stalking him? Did it want something from him? It never tried to do anything to him, it only ever tried to speak. Garbled and gravely, like a bloated, drowned corpse come back to life. His presence did not comfort him, not in the least. If anything, it made him even more frightened to sleep.
How much longer could he persist? Was it even worth the effort? The more exhausted he became, the more mistakes he made around the house. The more mistakes he made, the worse the punishment would be.
After his last foray into the dream, he informed his relatives, the Dursleys, about his injuries. He tried to explain where he had received them, only to be met with scorn and vitriol. Freakishness they called it.
They didn't believe him, and instead of helping him with his maladies, they inflamed them. More chores, and even less food. They seemed to take sick, perverse pleasure at his pain. It reminded him of some of the monsters from his nightmares.
What had he done to deserve this? Harry had heard of Karma before, but he couldn't think of anything he had done to warrant such treatment. Was it a past life thing? Was he being punished for something a previous version of himself had done, something he could not recall?
Slowly but surely, his will to resist crumbled. His mind began to still. Sleep was imminent. Eyes closed, Harry Potter drifted off into another dream, one that would take years to wake from.