After finishing up at the diner, we headed home and vegged out on the couch in front of the TV. We had carried the strained dialogue over the meal back to the house where the atmosphere was equally uncomfortable. I kept trying to retreat to my room yet each time, Mom seemed to find a way to make me stay. Either by asking questions or complaining about the most mundane of things or basically pouting at the suggestion of me leaving. If it were anyone else, I would let them have their pity party while I did whatever the fuck I wanted to do, but with Mom...I couldn't. Not for any noble reason or caring attachment either. Once again, it was simply a matter of placating her to make my life a bit less miserable.

I hadn't learned anything other about Freddy Krueger except that he wasn't exactly a favorite topic of the older residents of the town nor the police... Apparently, there had been several murders, vandalism, and other acts of terrorism over the years that had been blamed on Krueger. Ghost stories, like my mom said. People blaming bad things that happened on superstition and criminals using the fear of the boogeyman against their victims. That was the most logical explanation for a lot of things that had transpired, but some of the things...it seemed that there was more to...

Freddy had told me that in the past he had had trouble keeping a connection with this world so that meant that this wasn't the first time he surfaced as a murderous dream demon. No, with everything that had happened, that I had learned now, there was no denying it. He was real...and he was invoking my help...

The evening dragged on. I wasn't the type to take enjoyment in just sitting and staring at a screen, so I had attempted to figure something else out to do downstairs so my mom didn't whine and I wasn't totally bored, but the idea of baking, drawing, reading...nothing seemed interesting to me and I could read a good book a thousand times and not get tired of it. I found myself becoming entirely obsessed with Freddy... No matter what I did to distract myself, my mind kept returning to him. What was he doing when he wasn't stalking someone's dreams? Could he come into the real world any time or were there rules he had to follow? I was desperately curious of his powers and even more desperate to be in his presence again...

When the clock struck seven, I couldn't hold out any longer. I told mom that I had gotten a book from the library and needed to finish it before I had to return it. It wasn't a lie, really, though I guess an exaggeration of the urgency as I had only checked the book out a couple of days ago. By that time, her neediness had lessened and she didn't protest my departure.

Once I was in my room with door closed, I went to my book bag and shuffled through its contents, until I held a thick paperback in my hands. I had recently found a fantasy author who wrote a lot about vampires, demons, and other dark creatures and the stories I'd read so far were awesome. I didn't really elaborate on the books I read with Mom. It was the one aspect that I had a good amount of free reign in since she didn't like to read and therefore I could blatantly disobey her orders on what was appropriate and enjoy something without much worry for once.

I took the novel and sat on my bed, flipping to the fourth chapter where I had left off, but I couldn't focus on reading. I kept looking up and around the room, waiting for Freddy to reappear. I shifted a few times to get in a position that I could more easily fall asleep in without making it look purposefully in case Mom happened by and wanted to bitch. I began with leaning against the headboard, tilting my head backward to rest on the wall. Then I ended up laying down on my stomach with my book in front of me and let my head drop onto the crisp pages below. After a period of too long, Freddy's cackle sounded.

"What ya reading, Frankie?"

The sudden break in silence startled me for a moment, then my heart skipped a beat. "Nothing," I answered softly as I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees to get back into a stance better suited for conversation.

However, it seemed that Freddy favored the one I was already in. Just as I rose from the bed, he was on top of my back, shoving me down again. My body bounced on the mattress, hitting hard against his front since he had lowered himself even further when I fell. I found myself, abdomen flat, caught in a tiny space between the bed and Freddy. His legs were bent with knees on either side of my hips while his feet forced my legs to stay closed and straight beneath him. His hands grabbed onto mine as they had before, except this time they yanked them, directing their path to my sides to stay flat next to my form. I didn't fight it and was soon in a planked posture.

His hands then found my shoulders and put an insane amount of pressure on them, his knives on my right pressed so hard that I thought they would cut into me even through my sweater. He lowered his head next to mine, chin poking the top of my shoulder and my neck as he spoke.

"Then quit wasting your time with it," he growled into my ear, his warm breath tickled and chilled me.

Eyes that had been cut backward trying to look at him, shot forward to the papers in front of me as they came alight with flame. I jumped or at least I tried to because of how close to the fire was to my face. I could feel the flames lapping at my cheek. I struggled to get away from the danger, but Freddy had me firmly in place. I felt myself panicking as the intensity of the heat grew.

"Ahahhahahahahaha!!!" my boyfriend laughed maniacally and suddenly the fire was gone, leaving a charred book behind.

"SHIT, FREDDY, THAT'S NOT MY BOOK!" it sounded stupid to say and I don't mean to. It was just the first thing that popped out of my mouth.

Freddy was no longer on top of me, allowing me to break out of the submissive position I had been in and floundered backward, sitting on with my back once more against the bed's headboard, hugging my knees against my heaving chest. I just sat there, mouth agape, staring at the destroyed book. The brief experience had been terrifying in the moment, but thinking back upon it, thrilling... I was, however, concerned with how I was going to explain this to the librarian...

"Lighten, up, sweetheart," the man's voice called sarcastically.

I twisted to the side; We weren't in my room anymore. All around me were metal structures- levels, stairs...leaky pipes. There was a faint red light casting eerie shadows in the new place. I had fallen asleep... I slowly removed myself from bed and took a few steps. One small glance away was all it took for the last remnants of my room to vanish.

I spotted the burned man's silhouette at the other side of an ascending stairwell. He was watching me, "Time to pay up, princess."

I stopped when he spoke. Pay up?  "What do you need?" I asked.

"Your friend, Phillip, has been causing problems. He's started snooping around... Encouraging kids to fight me," Freddy explained.

"Phil?" I breathed.

"Mm... Quite a lucid dreamer, that one," the demon mused.

Phil hadn't said anything to me about having nightmares... When would Freddy have visited him? Today? I knew he'd urged others to try and control their dreams. He said that whether they were real or not, it would help everyone to combat negativity in their mind. It would keep them in better spirits at the very least.

"How am I supposed to get him to put his guard down?" I whined, "Phil's not the type to give up easily...or at all."

"Ha! I can kill him easily enough," Freddy scoffed. "I just need you to make sure he stays in his dream next time... And use his death to erase whatever hope he has brought."

"OK..." I breathed, "I'll do my best."

An evil beam spread across Freddy's face, "Good girl," he purred.

"Freddy," I began, "Were you alone when you were alive too?"

Freddy took a few steps closer to me, snarling, "I'm not one for pleasantries, little girl."

The fluctuation in my comfort level then had to have shown because the look in his eyes shifted. I shouldn't have been surprised that he was the small or personal talk kind of guy, but even so, the anger and stone walling was hard not to take offensively.  I didn't know the man well enough to judge him so I wasn't aware of he ended up answering my question out of kindness or something else...

"But yes, I was," his voice had changed from hostile to cold. "I had a friend once, I think, but the bastard stopped talking to me after he saw me kill the classroom's pet hamster."

That story took an odd turn... "Why did you kill the hamster?"

Freddy's head shot straight to the side and he snapped at me, "I had to. I needed to. It was an ache building inside me only relieved when I tortured and slaughtered..."

My brow furrowed, trying to understand him, "I've though about hurting people before... Even murdering them, but... I don't know if I could kill something just to kill it...just to feel good."

The man glared at me and growled, "Yet you expect someone to hurt you just so you can feel good."

"That's not-" I shied away, "It's not the same thing. It's mutual..."

"It's not about feeling good," he continued. "It's about survival. Physical and mental..." he paused for a moment, everything had somehow become somber. But the mood was reverted when he threw his arms into the air beside him, claw extending and a smirk reaching him as his laugh echoed in the steel room, "And we're about to see if you have what it takes to survive!"

AUTHOR'S NOTE:: Chapter originally written 10/21/2015
Chapter rewritten 10/29/2017