Inside a small bedroom, on a child-sized bed, lay an eight-year-old girl covered with two layers of blankets on top of her, protecting and warming her during the somewhat cold night while she slept.
The little girl with short brown hair and brown eyes lay on her left side as she slept peacefully while dreaming of munching on something sweet. That was evident since, from time to time, her tiny mouth would open slightly as if trying its best to bite on the delicious sweetness before repeating the gesture.
Overall, it was a nice little Dream that was not meant to last because a CREAK-ing sound suddenly echoed inside her bedroom. It came from the white cabinet on the right side of the room, right beside a window displaying a town filled with Silver Light that streamed into the bedroom, thus illuminating everything with a silver sheen beside the little girl and everything she touched, which in this case, but the bed, the pillow and the blankets on her.
When the cabinet door creaked open further, from its depths emerged a white dot. Then, it rolled around, with an eye-like rotating motion as if to observe something, before settling on the bed the little girl slept upon peacefully.
Sensing the Dream emanating from the little girl, the little white dot drew upon the hidden ire within it, and instantly, its mind declared that no peace shall there be for the little girl because now she would be its prey.
When it did, the cabinet door creaked further open, and from the insides, a Nightmarish thing emerged with tiny but dark scales and tentacles whose ends were dotted with small hooked spikes.
The scaled and spiked tentacles surrounding the white dot supported the main bulbous body. Using those scaled and spiked tentacles, the Nightmarish thing slithered slowly toward the bed. When it reached the bed, its white dot gazed upwards from the floor before it used one of its scaled and spiked tentacles to latch itself on the white and pinkish blanket spilling from the bed on the right side.
With the first tentacle latched, the second followed, and then the third and fourth, and so on, until the Nightmarish thing with the white dot as its eye climbed the white-pinkish blanket before eventually reaching the small and cute head sporting a relaxed and peaceful expression.
That was when the Nightmarish things' real size became apparent since it barely fit into an adult-sized human hand.
Sensing the Dream emanating from the girl, much clearer now that it was practically upon her, the Nightmarish thing began harassing the exposed right cheek since everything but the head was hidden beneath the blanket covering the little girl.
The moment the tentacles touched the tender right cheek, from their tiny spikes, a slimy substance extruded to remain behind after the tentacle moved on the tender skin of the little girl's right cheek. Additionally, the slimy extract seemed to irritate the girl's tender skin, and that was widely apparent when the girl's jaw began flexing the irritated skin via the right cheek muscles with the unconscious desire to rid the stimuli out of existence.
At the same time, seeing the response to its slimy irritant working its nefarious deeds, the Nightmarish thing only felt more emboldened with its purpose of hindering the little girl's peaceful slumber. As such, bolstered with further nefarious desire, the Nightmarish thing wanted to stick its scaled and spiky tentacles upon the more sensitive locations on the little girl’s head.
Like the mouth, the nose, the eyes, or the ears.
A bit unsure which location to start with, the Nightmarish thing simply chose all of them, for it had enough dexterous tentacles for all the openings. Hence, one tentacle went for the right eyelid, two for the inside of the nose, one for the mouth, and one for the right ear.
Once all of them were there, the Nightmarish thing of many tentacles, and one white dot acting as the eye, eagerly executed its Nightmarish purpose by extruding more slimy irritants from its spikes.
Truly, it took very little time for the results to manifest and when they did, the Nightmarish thing began chortling and chirping in delight at its success.
From where the sounds came, it cared not. Only that they did and that they came due to the success of its Nightmarish purpose.
As such, moments later, the little girl of eight years, wiggled her body under the blankets before her peaceful slumber broke apart. Yet, not entirely. Instead, a moment later, unconsciously her small right hand left the blanket to scratch that itch on her right cheek and everywhere else that bothered her slumber.
Nonetheless, the moment her right hand came upon the Nightmarish thing latched on the right side of her face, it paused because the fingers delivered the sensation of working at the problem yet no relief flooding the girl’s barely conscious mind.
The more seconds passed without any results achieved, the more the sensation of something being wrong rose and stockpiled within the little girl's barely conscious mind. When the tipping point was reached, instinct acted on its own.
KYAAAAAA
In one instant, many things occurred, yet only two were of significant importance to the Nightmarish thing.
The scream, while annoying to its existence, was easily set aside. Nonetheless, the Fear emanating from the little girl was pure ecstasy to its existence, and as such, the moment the Nightmarish thing sensed the radiating Fear, it drank from it deeply.
Unfortunately, just as the Nightmarish thing drank its first fill, it was smacked away without any ability to resist the smack. Not that it noticed it the very first second after ecstasy filled its entire being. Still, even when it noticed the smack, the Nightmarish thing did not care that it flew through the air before impacting on the floor with a soft PLOOP.
The uncaring attitude mostly arose from an instinctive understanding that no harm came upon it.
Nevertheless, what mattered was returning to the origin of the ecstasy to drink its fill once again. However, the moment it flipped its body upside down and reoriented the white dot acting as its eye, its gaze connected with the brown eyes of the little girl.
That was when the second significant importance emerged.
The moment their gazes connected, the little girl realized she was, in fact, Dreaming. And when she did, the Veil of Ignorance vanished alongside her entire body a few moments later.
One moment she was there and the next she poofed out of existence.
Recognizing the dilemma before it, the Nightmarish thing reluctantly slithered its existence back to its nest inside the white cabinet from which it emerged in the first place. However, unlike when it first had come out of it, now after drinking the first fill of ecstasy known as Fear, the Nightmarish thing not only felt satiated, but the most important part was that it already sensed itself becoming bigger, stronger, faster and so much more, only those three were the most noticeable right this moment.
Its growth aside, once the Nightmarish thing was back inside the white cabinet, it latched its tentacles on the door. With a creaking sound, it closed the cabinet door before pulling its tentacles around its body to rest, digest, and wait for the little girl to appear once again.
And appear she would.
There was no doubt about it within its Nightmarish mind.
For it was the little girl that had created it, and only the little girl could unmake it. However, now that its tentacular existence had manifested, now that it had fed upon her Fear, and now that it had succeeded in exposing its slimy secretion upon her exposed Dream Body, lacking the protection called Veil of Ignorance, it would no longer be a temporary Nightmare, but a permanent resident inside this Dream Instance.
Thus, this tentacular Nightmare knew it would forevermore prowl this Dream Instance until it had squeezed the little girl of every ounce of Fear before eventually consuming her Soul and leaving in search of further prey to feed upon in an endless cycle of seeking, feeding, and evolving its Nightmarish existence.
Not that any Nightmare hated it.
No.
They all Loved it.
No…
They CRAVED it.
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A familiar sensation alerted the Nightmare.
Its prey had appeared once again, to come and feed it its daily dose of ecstasy.
Uncurling its scaled and spiked tentacles from around its main body, the Nightmare centered the white dot, functioning as its eye, on the cabinet door before it.
Latching its tentacles on it, it pushed the giant door away to reveal an opening into the prey's lodging as if the cabinet door was not a hundred times its size to be easily swung away. Not that it even thought about the said problem because it instinctively knew how to manipulate a prey’s Dream Instance to its advantage, especially after it had managed to root itself into the current Dream Instance.
That being the case, the Nightmare slipped through the open opening and slithered for the bed in which its prey slumbered and Dreamt.
Once again it latched itself on the bed blanket with its spiked tentacles before slowly reaching the little girl of eight years that was its prey. Unlike the previous time, this time the girl was positioned differently, but that did not matter.
Repeating the previous harassment, a similar scenario occurred.
The girl’s mind woke up partially, then screamed in terror before unconsciously smacking the Nightmare attached to her face away.
During the brief period of screaming, and right before being smacked away, the Nightmare fed on the Fear with glee. However, just like the previous day, the moment the Nightmare needed more and made eye contact with the little girl, her Veil of Ignorance ceased existing, thus alerting her of her situation, thus resulting in her vanishing from its Nightmarish perception.
As such, the Nightmare, once again, made for its resting place, the white cabinet, residing on the right side of the eight-year-old girl’s bedroom, right beside the window delivering and covering everything with a silver sheen of Light.
Back within its resting place, the Nightmare rested and digested its harvest. Then, when the familiar sensation of its prey returned, it went and completed its Nightmarish purpose once again before being smacked and eventually returning to its resting place, only to repeat the same scenario again, and again.
Until one sudden instant, the Nightmare realized the girl it preyed upon all this time, remained within the Dream for longer and longer periods of time despite her Veil of Ignorance ceasing to exist every time.
Paying attention to it the next time it fed, the Nightmare confirmed the realization, only it did not care because that only meant the following fix of ecstasy would come that much sooner instead of only occurring once a Night.
However, as each repeat scenario occurred, the Nightmare soon noticed something else as well.
Something that was catastrophic to its plans and needs.
The amount of Fear, the little girl generated with each scenario also diminished with each scenario repeated. At the same time, the more it fed on the girl's Fear, the more its taste buds, in a manner of speaking since it had none, began going stale, as if the ecstatic flavor was no longer present.
Whatever the case was, that had to change.
That being the case, the Nightmare began making changes to its Nightmarish deviousness.
At first, it was subtle. Like only using different amounts of tentacles, to test the waters so to speak. To see what worked and what did not. Then came the experimentation of the targets and their stimuli. Still, as the Nightmare worked hard to feed itself, it soon learned to differentiate the degree of differences in Fear it feasted upon. Only despite the culinary success it achieved in creating different flavors, the daily production continued diminishing until one day it stopped altogether.
That was also the moment, when the little girl, for the first time since the Nightmare started stalking and harassing her Dream, achieved a semi-state of lucidity despite her Veil of Ignorance being long broken for this Dream Instance. As such, the little girl stared down on the floor, on the right side of her bed, at the Nightmare with the white dot as its eye and the many tentacles extending from its main body.
Naturally, having fed so much on the little girl, the Nightmare had grown quite a bit. Whereas before its first feeding, its size could easily fit into an adult human hand, now it was almost close to double that size.
After a brief moment of staring at each other and nothing happening, the Nightmare broke the moment by slithering toward the bed the girl usually lay but now sat upon.
When it did, the little girl realized that the white dot monster was coming after her. In the same instant said realization hit her, a new wave of Fear began radiating from her.
Sensing the increased power it contained, and flavor hinting at something new, the Nightmare urged its tentacular body with greater speed.
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Not a moment sooner, it was back on the bed and slithering toward the little girl.
The eight-year-old girl, on the other hand, screamed even more the moment the Nightmare climbed her bed. At the same time, she tried to crawl away from the Nightmare. To put as much distance between them as possible. Nonetheless, it took but a moment for her to realize that on her small bed, there was nowhere to crawl away.
When the realization came, she sprung off of the bed with her arms and legs flailing in different directions.
A THUD echoed before a cry of pain joined the echoing sounds from her body slamming to the floor. Being panic-stricken, the cry lasted but a single moment before the little girl stood up and rushed for the door leading outside her bedroom all while screaming for her mother.
Despite being fast, the Nightmare was not fast enough to latch itself on the girl due to her sudden actions, so it had no choice but to watch the little girl open the door before vanishing into its opening.
Somewhat stunned and indecisive, it took a moment for its chase to begin.
A moment later, when it reached the ends of the bed, it simply curled up and dropped to the floor because it instinctively knew it would not be hurt. After all, not long before, it had been smacked hard on top of having fallen from a much higher distance with no harm coming to it.
Not to mention that so far it had not come across anything which could hurt it within this Dream.
Somehow, it knew it would know when it came across that something.
As such, without anything to hinder it currently, the Nightmare happily slithered after its prey, As for knowing where the prey went? That was as easy as slithering its body. Even if it ignored the Fear suffusing the surroundings, thus telling it where to find its prey, the Nightmare just had to follow the colored residue left by the prey, for whatever she touched, left behind a mark in the form of colors.
Moreover, the longer the contact remained, the brighter the colored mark became.
Like that, a new dynamic emerged between the Nightmare and the little girl.
The dynamic of the Hunter and the Prey.
Wherever the girl ran, the Nightmare followed.
Wherever she hid, the Nightmare found her.
Most of the time, the girl managed to get away when found before hiding again. While that occurred, the eight-year-old girl continued crying softly for her mom to come and help her.
Unfortunately, said mother never appeared no matter how loudly or softly she called. Additionally, no matter how the little girl searched or where she looked in her home, there was no one else to help her.
On those times, when she did not get away, the Nightmare, with its many scaled and spiked tentacles would either try to latch itself to the girl's legs or arms. Then, it would grip as hard as it could and drink the intoxicating Fear radiating from the little girl. Nevertheless, even when it succeeded, the latching process never lasted for long before the girl managed to dislodge it from her appendages.
After that, she would run away before hiding once again.
Eventually, however, there came the time when the eight-year-old girl simply vanished from the haunting Dream Instance she found herself in every night.
Unfortunately for her, the world was not kind to her when she once more found herself inside her bedroom after re-attaining the semi-lucid state within the Dream Instance replicating her home.
When she did, the previous day’s scenario repeated itself.
And then again.
And again.
And again…
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It was touching.
It was probing.
It was scraping.
It was fulfilling its Nightmarish purpose to the best of its instinct-filled existence, yet no reaction emerged from the little girl that was its prey or had been thus so far because whatever occurred to the little girl, it was not of the Nightmare’s origin. The Nightmare was sure of it, after all, deep down it knew that a similar reaction would only occur after it had squeezed every drop of Fear from the little girl.
However, that was not the case today, and it was getting desperate to figure out the problem because there was plenty of juice within the eight-year-old girl.
Of that the Nightmare was sure.
It just could not drink from it, and therein remained the problem.
It had been many, many Nights since it last feasted upon the delicacy known as Fear.
It had been many, many Nights since last it felt its stomach, or what counted for it, full of its daily fix. As such, what grew instead of its size, strength, speed, and other things, was its hunger and the clear, unbelievably loud and clear, need for its daily fix.
Truthfully, the Nightmare never even imagined, not that it imagined much of anything, to begin with, that it was even possible to feel such strong prongs of desperate Instincts guiding it to accomplish its Nightmarish purpose at all cost.
That being the case, the Nightmare easily enveloped the girl's torso with its scaled and spiked tentacles because it had grown large enough to do so right before the Fear drought began.
Then, it began using its increased strength to tear the little girl's body, piece by piece, Night after Night.
The clearer and louder the need for the fix grew, the crueler its actions became. Yet, no matter what it did, or how severe the injuries it inflicted on the Dream Body were, the eight-year-old girl simply made no response.
It was as if she were dead. Only, it was clear to the Nightmare that she was not. After all, if she were dead, she would not be appearing within this Dream Instance, as a Dream Instance only ever existed as long as the one Dreaming it existed.
A similar scenario applied to this tentacular Nightmare. However, unlike the Dreamer, this tentacular Nightmare was trapped within the Dream Instance, because the only way for it to leave the little girl’s Dream Instance was for it to reach adulthood, or what substituted for adulthood in Nightmares, and for this Nightmare to reach adulthood, it had to not only grow bigger, but also be stronger, faster, and finally at the end, consume the girl’s Soul.
Nevertheless, the only time this tentacular Nightmare would ever manage to perform the Soul Consumption was after it squeezed every ounce of Fear from the little girl’s Soul, thus rendering the Soul Barrier weakened and inert enough for this tentacular Nightmare to penetrate the little girl’s Soul Barrier before eventually consume the little girl’s from within and using her Soul as a material component to achieve its First Evolution.
After it evolved it would leave in search of another victim.
In one instant of clarity of mind, after its frustrations were vented, a few thoughts and possibilities flashed through the Nightmare’s mind.
The tentacular Nightmare finally realized its current actions provided no results.
With no other choice, it gave up, unlatched its tentacles from the tattered body of the little girl, curled up into a ball, and rolled to the side of the bad and back on the floor before actually slithering back to its resting place inside the white cabinet door beside the widow pulling in the Silver Light illuminating the little girl's bedroom.
Once inside, and the cabinet door was closed, it simply curled up and stayed like that.
For a long while, it did nothing else.
Nonetheless, soon enough, if one could gaze deeper, through the scaled and spiked skin enveloping the tentacles of this tentacular Nightmare, one would notice that micro contractions were common and very frequent. As such, it was not that this Nightmare did nothing at first glance, it was that its body did nothing while its mind warred with the Instincts of its body.
Like that, body and mind warred with each other and time passed.
When, in one single instant, the Nightmare sensed the little girl vanishing from the Dream Instance, it was as if its bodily Instincts knew that no prey was nearby, so it was useless to attempt anything. However, it did not stay long that way because when the next Night came, and the little girl appeared again, its Nightmarish body grew needy while the mind grew resistant.
It resisted because the Nightmare had a plan.
A plan called Patience so its prey would lower its guard and stop whatever it was doing to protect itself.
How long that would take, it knew not. However, it was not like it had any other options available to it right now.
So it simply decided to be patient for now, and that was what it did.
As such, Night after Night, the Nightmare warred with itself because it knew if it did not conserve its strength, it would vanish into thin air.
A consequence of its actions was the slow but inevitable sharpening of its mind, but that was to be figured out later, as the Nightmare was not aware of its current gains.
Instead, when many Nights passed, the Nightmare finally allowed its body to indulge its Instincts. It left its resting place, but what it found was not to its liking. After releasing some of its pent-up anger on the little girl's body, it returned to its resting place and once again waited, resisted its Instincts, and conserved its strength.
This time, it waited for more Nights to pass before emerging once again. However, even then it was not successful. With its anger taken out, it returned, it waited even more than the second time, and then even more on the third, and even more on the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth adventure.
It was by the seventh excursion that it finally noticed the prongs of ravenous hunger receding from its awareness.
Maybe it was just getting used to its presence so it did not feel as needy anymore. Either way, as the Nights passed again, and passed even more, the hunger lost its grip altogether such that even when the little girl’s body was within the Dream Instance, its tentacles refused to make any involuntary contractions.
Unfortunately, as a consequence of such a prolonged time of no feeding, it had also left it weaker. As such, its next feeding had better work, or it would probably vanish before it managed to wait for the next attempt.
Then, being patient for a few more Nights, the tentacular Nightmare finally emerged from its resting place. It slithered to the bed, climbed on it, and then placed itself right on the bulge made by the blanket, thus indicating the presence of the little girl below it.
Before it attempted anything, the Nightmare noticed that its prey had grown bigger. Not by too much, but the growth was noticeable.
Ignoring that fact, the Nightmare unleashed its Nightmarish purpose on the little girl.
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It fed, and it fed greatly.
Not only that, but the Fear it feasted upon was overwhelmingly familiar and unfamiliar to the tentacular Nightmare.
Old yet new, new yet old.
Pausing for one tiny moment from further constricting the torso of its prey, the Nightmare enjoyed its control for a said moment before continuing its Nightmarish behavior.
Still, while its body did what it did, its mind felt free to think properly despite the feeding frenzy its body unleashed.
The familiar sensation came because that was what it feasted on, and always will feast upon, for it was a Nightmare and Nightmares always fed on the Fear of their prey.
The unfamiliar, on the other hand, came because what it feasted upon no longer clouded its judgment during the feasting, and therefore made it realize that the ecstasy was not what it used to be for the simple reason that before it was an overwhelming Instinct and sensation of pleasure, now it was but something to indulge its body for the moment and nothing more.
Feasting on the Fear emanating from the prey caught within its appendages, the Nightmare suddenly understood something essential had changed within it.
What?
It did not know, nor particularly care about.
In the end, what mattered was that it had succeeded in its endeavor to fill its stomach.
Chortling and chirping echoed inside the bedroom, only with a sinister tone behind them as the tentacular Nightmare took out its anger on the Dream Body of the little girl for once again using whatever she was using to protect itself from his Nightmarish purpose.
After taking out its anger and frustrations, the Nightmare retreated to its resting place and embraced another patience-fueled nothingness as it no doubt would need many Nights to pass before the next feeding appointment.
There was some trouble initially since the long-awaited hunger had fully emerged with the need and greed of its daily fix. It was most evident by the restlessness of the tentacles as they kept trying to escape the control under which they fell. However, compared to the first time, not only were those contractions under control sooner, but also much easier, hence it took but a few Nights to pass before the Nightmares mind was once again in full control.
More Nights passed.
Then, some more Nights passed, when the Nightmare tried to feed again.
When it returned, it was clear that its patience had to be greater than ever before. So it exercised said patience. However, after realizing its greater mental capabilities, a side effect soon became apparent because it simply could not stop itself from thinking.
Most of the time, it was about the little girl, the Fear she produced, the Fear it feasted upon, the flavors it tasted, and how they were generated. But, at some point, the Nightmare's thoughts began to go stale because they kept repeating themselves over and over, and the more it thought about those, the more it desired something else to replace them, only there was nothing else that did.
In the end, it was but a minor inconvenience of the mind, and it could not compare to the inconvenience that its body had been.
In the end, after a great many Nights, the Nightmare ventured out and once again succeeded in feeding itself. Nevertheless, once again it found itself without the fix the very next Night, hence the tentacular Nightmare understood that after every round of executed patience, only one feeding session would occur.
That was when the inconvenience of the mind veered its head as it began worrying about the future, its feeding possibilities, and its much-desired growth.
That was also when the tentacular Nightmare finally understood that a restless mind was much harder to quiet down than a restless body. In fact, the harder it tried, the harder it became to quiet the mind, as its thoughts kept spiraling out of control. Eventually, the paranoia reached its extreme, and the Nightmare began plotting a course of action hoping to finally resolve all of its problems.
The solution?
The tether that had shifted its temporary existence into a permanent Nightmare stalking this Dream Instance. Naturally, after many times of prowling, feasting, and secreting its slimy irritant on the little girl, that tether had to have become stronger as well.
At least, that was what the Nightmare assumed to be since it was having a hard time figuring out just what exactly to do since its Instinct was remarkably silent on that front. Either way, with the vague notion as the goal, the Nightmare engaged its strengthened mind to plot its salvation.
After many Nights of doing nothing but thinking, it slithered out of its resting place which was the insides of the white cabinet.
Once it was back on the blankets hiding the little girl, the Nightmare ceased doing anything for the moment. Well, anything but rotating and angling the white dot acting as its eye around. It was in that moment, that it truly took note of the colors the girl emanated on her head and everything her body touched.
Everything but it, the Nightmare stalking and harassing her with its Nightmarish existence.
Instinctively, the Nightmare knew it had to do with the Dream Body the girl possessed. However, there had to be more to it because this tentacular Nightmare sensed a direction for its solution.
Following the hunch, and the direction it provided, the Nightmare slowly and carefully used its tentacles to prod the little girl's right face, specifically the right cheek with its mind firmly centered on the thought of a tether. It had taken much gentle probing to finally sense the tether, the mark on the right cheek.
Now that it knew what to look for, it was as if its white dot, acting as its eye, finally learned to observe another layer of the Dream Instance. Additionally, it became even more obvious once that new layer displayed the obvious contrast its mark left behind on the right cheek compared to the rich brownish skin color the little girl’s Dream Body naturally possessed. Not much later, the Nightmare learned to sense the mark of the tether, and when it did, it sensed similar sensations from all over her body. Basically, everywhere it had once slithered and slobbered its smiley irritant onto.
Even the insides possessed a similar sensation thanks to its many needy fueled frustrations released on the little girl's Dream Body after the Fear Drought had graced the Nightmare’s presence.
Overall, after chorting and chirping a few delightful tones of success all that was left to do was find a way to make use of the tether marks, figure out the colors thing and it would no doubt usher in a new dawn of culinary experimentation.
Not wanting to delay said incoming future, the Nightmare put forth all of its newly blossoming minds into the endeavor, and after many, many Nights, the first results manifested.